I have decided that this season is my last summer milking cows. It has taken me a lot of thinking but I have made up my mind. A number of reasons really – among them and the most important: my family keeps growing, they do not live close to me and I cannot travel for eight or nine months of the year. I am tied to a cow. Sometimes my children need my help and I want to be available for them.
Another reason is getting the cows pregnant. My cow vet is far away now and coordinating with someone to breed them has become a real problem. Asking favours of people I do not know to breed cows I don’t want to milk. It all adds up.
It is a hard decision with a lot ahead but I know it is right.
So (as well as a few steers) I will be selling Aunty Del, Carlos (who has produced no calves) and Aunty Anna. Lady Astor is too old to be sold on, and she has been a good milking companion – once she accepted her training and stopped kicking me – but her udder needs special care so unless I can find her a special home, she can just make like a horse and wander about the back fields for a while.
It will be a wrench to sell the Aunties but it has to happen. Aunty Del is young – she has a real future as a milk cow. Alex, Txiki and Tia will go to visit a local low line Angus, but they will raise any calves they have as beef. Both of the young ones are half Angus. I am not milking them.
My fourth son who lives in New Zealand is out working in California for a few months and he has his family with him and I cannot visit them because I am milking a cow. This makes me sick. I so seldom see my family. How can they possibly understand. Choosing a cow over them. I need to be able to move about more now. That is all.
Anyway that is my decision. And I am happy with it. I will milk Lady until Christmas then hang it up. 
Today Alex leaves us and I am on my own for three weeks. John is home one day a week. But I am almost up to date in the gardens, Alex has left me in good shape, so as long as I put in the hours it will be alright. I really need the gardens to sell produce so I can go home to New Zealand for Christmas this year. I am happy to put in the hours. It all works out.
It is dry now – after all that rain. And hot. Now I am watering every morning and evening.
Rue the wee piglet came in and hung out in the house for the day, rearranged all my furniture and stuck his nose into everything, he played with a pile of ice on the verandah for ages but I got nothing done – he cried and carried on every time Boo and I went into the gardens. He is little and bony but healthy and bright so the pig lady is coming to collect him today. She loves it when I send her a runt. He will do well with her.
The corn is up. 
Oh and all the piglets are now together – the barn doors and both the backyard gates are wide open. No problems at all. The pigs adapted well.
I hope you have a lovely day.
Love celi
The weather forecast: If I had hay I would be cutting it. Hot and dry.
Saturday 06/10 0% / 0 in
A mainly sunny sky. High 89F. Winds SSW at 15 to 25 mph.
Saturday Night 06/10 0% / 0 in
Clear. Low 68F. Winds SSW at 10 to 20 mph.
The Kitchen's Garden 
49 responses to “A momentous decision”
When we first got goats I thought I would milk them and make cheese. But I was also reading your blog and knew that I couldn’t commit to all the work that milking entails — plus the time commitment — when I work long hours away from the ranch. With the animals we have it is hard to leave as it is; we have decided to not replace animals as they go so that someday we will have the freedom to travel. Jackson, one of the horses, has to be medicated twice a day — and will need that for the rest of his life. Five medications to manage — so I have to be here for that. It does tie you down. So, I completely understand your decision. It is hard to balance love of this life with the desire to travel and visit your children.
Priorities and abilities shift. As a woman who appreciates the help of my husband’s parents, I know your children are grateful.
While not being a farmer, I understand wanting to be around the offspring that you don’t get to see enough. Even more so for me now that there is one under 1 and I don’t want to be the stranger that makes him cry when I visit.
I remember when my parents gave up the dairy. It was a hard decision but It was too much work for them and my father’s of arthritis was kicking in big time .
A tough decision, but definitely the right one. Family – and your own wellbeing – come first. Making the decision to lose half of our birds/veg plot was small scale compared to cows, but difficult even so. I miss my muscovies something rotten!
Christine
What a wise decision. I understand. Family is so important.
Maybe you will go back to milking again someday – it doesn’t have to be a permanent choice does it? For now though you have to do what has to be done – things will be all right I hope.