Webmaster’s note: The format of this column includes all of the Quill’s Endians participating at various times and in various ways! Phil writes this month’s column.
A Living Diet
In the first couple of weeks on pasture, the cows’ milk flow increases. The composition of the milk changes along with the volume, and the cream takes on a golden yellow from the pasture.
The flavor also changes. A living diet replaces the stored forage of winter, and every grass and legume is cropped by the cows for immediate use. The whole process changes the microbes in the rumen, the first chamber of four that make up the incredible digestive system of ruminants. The cellulose content of rooted, growing pasture encourages bacteria that can handle higher protein and energy foods. This more digestible food increases the volume of milk, as the cow’s energy needs are more than met.
The cream’s change of color to yellow is breed specific. Jerseys and Guernseys tend to put the most color into their milk from excess beta carotene in their diets and an inability to fully process it.
We have the now unusual opportunity to watch the change in real time. When rotating stock in the farm store, there is always amusement as this week’s cheeses and yogurts are set behind last weeks. One could almost date them by color.
The butter made in late May and into June is a hoot. The color intensifies with every step and yields a deep yellow color and smooth texture that always return us to this time of year when consumed in the winter.
With plenty of milk comes plenty of cream, so butter making, not on the schedule for months, now enters our minds for rainy days. If you’ve made butter, you know the satisfaction of watching the impossible change from liquid to solid. If you’ve not made butter, well, you should. It is a magic show in the kitchen.
Heather and Phil Retberg and their three children run Quill’s End Farm, a 105-acre property in Penobscot that they bought in 2004. They use rotational grazing on their fifteen open acres and are renovating thirty more acres from woods to pasture to increase grazing for their pigs, grass-fed cattle, lambs, laying hens, and goats. Quill’s Endians are members of Halcyon Grange and publish a newsletter for their farm’s buying club of farmers in the area, and generously permit us to share some of their columns with Grangers. Visit the Quill’s End Farm Facebook Page for more information.