October 2013 Newsletter

Fall has arrived, and it seems like Mother Nature wanted to announce it with finesse by sending us a bona fide typhoon this weekend!  We got almost 4 inches of rain in three days here at the farm.  Luckily, the water table was able to handle that amount of rain, and we held up pretty well.  Not a whole lot of mud, no flooding in the barn, and the river even seemed to behave itself and stayed in its banks.  Meanwhile the cows took advantage of their plush quarters in the barn.  They watched the storm go by in deeply bedded stalls, munching on alfalfa while making milk for you!  We are looking forward to some sun later this week so that the cows can head back out to the pasture and take advantage of that nice green, fast growing grass out there.

I spent September running through my winter checklist, and I managed to get all the major projects wrapped up the first day of fall.  Everything is prepped and ready for the livestock to hunker down for the long, wet winter.  It feels good to transition from the crazy “harvest” mode into the more relaxing and slower paced “winter” mode.  We’ve had our first fire in the wood stove and I’ve been bedding down animals in straw–definitely feeling like fall, one of my favorite seasons times of year to be sure.

I am heading into the home stretch of what has been a very challenging pregnancy for me.  I’ve been asked to slow down start to take it more easy.  As a result of this, I have started training my replacement milkers, and starting the second weekend of October, I will only be milking one day per week.  Don’t worry, I looked long and hard for my relief milkers, and they are both really great people who have worked with cows before and know about milk and food safety.  We have the ability to do bacteria and coliform counts on the farm for the milk, and I will be pulling frequent samples to make sure that the quality of the milk does not waver while I focus on our family.  Don’t be surprised if you don’t see me a whole lot over the next few months.  I am always available by phone or by email.  If you are not friends with Cast Iron Farm on Facebook, now would be a good time, as that is how I will be updating everyone as to the goings on this winter (including the arrival of the baby).

As a gentle reminder, we still seem to be coming up short on the jar front, so if you could look around and gather up anything you have when you come to get your milk, it would be much appreciated.  I put almost 100 more jars into circulation in September–totaling almost 500 new jars since June!

I hope that the sun comes out and you are able to enjoy the changing of the seasons that October has  to offer.

Enjoy your milk!

Farmer Christine