How it all started

Ok so blogging is new to me but here we go.

The milk cows started about 4 years ago when I started working for the Casper Alcova Irrigation District. Or at least the idea of them did. I worked with a gal who had a few and we became friends. She was going out of town on a planed trip and needed someone who could milk her cows for her.

I learned how.

I fell in love.

I bought a heifer calf from her.

My First milk cow!

But it would still be 2 years before I could start milking. As the heifer had to grow up and have a calf of her own. This was bothering me because I wanted to milk NOW! So the hunt began for a cow in milk for a reasonable price..

And as I hunted I found all sorts of interesting stuff about the Raw Milk and how it was better for my family, and looked at pictures of people and their milk cows. Even joined an on line group of milk cow owners from across the world.

Still no luck with a milk cow. Then I found out I was PG with our daughter and the hunt became a must! I had to have the milk not just for me but for her also. ( not that I wasn't getting any from my friend, she was giving me what she could spare ) I had a growing family, 3 boys and one more on the way.

I was talking with my sister on the phone one day and she told me a friend of hers in Colorado did some book work for a small dairy. From what she understood they had a cow that wasn't producing enough for them. She would be sold or put in the freezer. I was able to contact the friend and through her the owner of the Dairy. I found out the cow was a 5 year old Holstein Jersey cross who was in fact bred back to a Brown Swiss bull. The cow was dry but due to calve about the same time I was due to have our daughter.

The dairy owner got all the blood work and testing done on the cow for us to be able to take her across state lines. My husband his youngest son and myself loaded up in the truck and headed for Colorado. It was about a 4 and a half hour drive from us to them. But what a trip! I was so excited about my first REAL milk cow!

When we arrived at the dairy all the cows were in line for milking. ( ok not all but a good number of them ) I was looking in all of the pens trying to figure out what one of those big black and white cows was going to go home with us that day.. We found the owner and his dogs. ( I don't think they leave his side very often other than to rest under the horse trailer while my husband was trying to back it to the loading pen ) Got backed to the loading area and waited while one of the workers walked to a back pen and started moving this giant black cow up to our trailer. So where was this Holstein cross? I was expecting lots of color like all the other cows around us!

She came lumbering up to the trailer and jumped in. Big belly and all. I looked her over and she looked me over and we came to a silent agreement that with or without white spots she was going home with me. I paid the money for her, we talked for a bit about her and what she was bred to, and then we were on our way.

When we got home I managed to put a halter on this cow that towers over me and she pulled me out of the trailer and into her new pasture. She lived behind our house with the calf that I purchased from my friend. Not to be touched by anyone even me. We couldn't get close to her. I had no idea what I was going to do with a cow that I couldn't touch or catch or even look at without her running away. And being Pregnant myself not much I could do.

I went down to the local feed store and purchased some horse treats and some grain. Found a feed tub from the horses and walked out to the pasture.. Poured the grain into the tub and walked away a few feet.. The cow who at this point got the name "Big Elley" knew what grain was and came running for it. She ate it all and then went back to her grass. So I found her weakness. Amazing that something her size would have a weakness.

Day by day she ate her grain and day by day she allowed me to come closer while she was eating. She would even allow the kids to come and watch and eventually she would stretch her neck as far as she could to pluck a treat out of our hands with her tongue. A small understand of you don't touch me and I wont hurt you was about all I could get out of her but it was a start.

So that is how it started with the cows and I well post more later about the rest of them but one at a time is much better and lets you get to know them as individuals, as they all are and they all have such character that to add them all at one time doesn't allow them to be "who" they are.