Bates Farm

I'm drinking raw milk right now, that came out of a jersey cow, either Anabelle or her daughter Sophie, less than two days ago. It's whole milk, un pasteurized, unhomogenized. it feels velvety smooth and tastes like, well, milk, but a little more buttery since it has the cream left in (which makes it a creamy color also.) the aftertaste is, like cheese? but not bad.



But let me tell you about the farm! Today i tagged along with my coworkers Beth and Teresa to visit Bates farm outside of Arlington, WA. We met the owner, Don Bates, who also has a chiropractic office there. first we went to the room where the milk it brought to be bottled and stored. it's really just a little kitchen in a cabin with a big sink for washing tools and a fridge for the milk.


then we saw the milking station, which is vacuum pumped, he doesn't do it by hand. he said from the whole process takes about 40 minutes, from fetching the cows to bottling. he milks the two cows twice a day and right now he is getting 4.5 gallons ( i can't remember if that is from the cows combined or not, from each milking) but he sometimes gets twice as much. right now the cows are "drying off" before they "freshen" again , that is, have another calf and start making milk again.

(From right to left: Ferdinand, Anabelle, Pearl and Sophie)

then we met the cows. there is the mother cow, Anabelle. don started with her three years ago just as the family cow that he kept in the neighbors yard. the elderly meighbor has fond bovine memories and gave him use of the land to pasture the cow(s). Annabelle's first calf is named Sophie. then this year Sophie had a steer named Ferdinand, and Anabelle has another heifer, named Pearl.
Here they are!




They graze on about 10 acres of land and eat grass and alfalfa pellets. they have a forest area with trails they can wander and they hide under trees when the weather gets bad. we got to pet them all (except Pearl, who is very shy) and i even got headbutted in the leg by Sophie. the cows were friendly and followed us around.






Don gave us each a half gallon of milk, 6 eggs, a giant zucchini, a glove of "chinese pink " garlic, and some salmon.! he said he used to have about 40 chickens but now he only has 7. he has production Rhode Island reds, and a banny cross? which i guess is a bantam of some kind. we didn't look at the chickens because this was really a cow event :)

I will try to let the cream rise to the top of my milk and use it to make raw butter! i know whole milk has a lot of fat in it, but i heard something about when it is raw, your body uses the fat differently. i can't quite remember what that was about.

we didn't talk very much about raw vs. conventional milk, but Don said something interesting.. he is pulling out of another seller, partial because they are trying to force him to put expiration dates on the milk he sells. "people that are familiar with raw milk look for the production date, they check that, and they smell it. if it smells off, they bake it in a cake or make it into yogurt. milk doesn't expire, it just changes."


more cow pictures available here: http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v713/feffy88/Bates%20Farm/