Seasons of Milk

To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven. Ecc. 3:1

One profound thing farming has taught us is the seasonality of life. Weather patterns are constantly on our radar. New life in the spring. Fewer eggs in the winter. God designed these times of productivity and rest for us, the animals, and the earth.

One thing you will notice is even your milk goes through seasons. Right after a cow calves, her milk is mostly colostrum which contains essential nutrients and antibodies for the calf, without which it will most likely die. Over the next few days, the colostrum disappears and we begin drinking the sweet milk. In the beginning the milk seems thinner, less creamy. This is because the calf needs to grow in its ability to digest the rich cream. As the weeks go on, milk and cream production increase until the cow plateaus and can give six or more gallons a day! Several months into lactation, cream can sometimes seem to be half the volume! Milk production will start to lessen until the cow is dried off about two months before calving again.

I hope you will embrace the seasonality of milk as God’s perfect design. Even as texture and volume change, know it is a perfect food for you and your family.

Why Raw Milk

Raw dairy is a living food! When we raise our animals according to God’s design, give them a healthy diet, maintain a clean milking environment, and minimize processing, raw dairy is a powerful superfood. Raw dairy foods contain beneficial bacteria, enzymes, and fat-soluable vitamins that benefit digestion, help our bodies utilize protein and calcium, and stimulate the immune system.

The dangers of pasteurization and homogenization- Pasteurization began in the 1920’s to overcome illnesses that resulted when people drank the raw milk of animals in poor health and raised in dirty conditions. Pasteurization destroys enzymes and beneficial bacteria, diminishes vitamin content, completely destroys Vitamin C, B12 and B6, denatures fragile milk proteins, promotes pathogens, and causes milk to putrify instead of sour naturally. Ultra-pasteurized milk is violently heated from cold to boiling within two seconds, rendering the milk completely unable to be cultured. Pasteurized milk is linked to allergies, asthma, tooth decay, colic in infants, obesity, osteoporosis, arthritis, heart disease, cancer and more. When we began drinking our raw milk, we were able to go off of our asthma medications and our son’s eczema disappeared.

Homogenization breaks down larger butterfat molecules to prevent them from rising to the top and is linked to heart disease.

Additives - Commercial dairy foods may contain additives such as powdered skim milk which can oxidize cholesterol that is harmful to arteries and contains neurotoxic amino acids such as MSG. Other additives may include yellow coloring in butter, engineered enzymes in cheeses or vegetable oils in imitation cheese.

Sourcing raw dairy - Choose unprocessed, raw dairy from goats or old-fashioned breed cows that eat rapidly growing green grass and stored dry hay. Animals should not be fed soy, cottonseed meal, or other commercial grains. Nor should they ever be fed bakery waste or chicken manure (or Skittles!!) as is often the case in commercial dairies! If the animals are not healthy, the milk that comes from them is not healthy. You are what you eat...and what you eat eats.

What's In a Name?

Recently when we decided to farm on a more public level, we wanted to choose a name for our farm that spoke to our vision. Our work here, first and foremost, is in stewardship to God, knowing we are commanded to work the land and yet are dependent upon God’s grace to bring forth fruit.

This poem by Wendell Berry perfectly sums up our calling on this farm.

Whatever is foreseen in joy must be lived out from day to day.

Vision held open in the dark by our ten thousand days of work.

Harvest must fill the barn; for that the hand must ache, the face must sweat.

And yet, no leaf or grain is fill by work of ours;

The field is tilled and left to grace.

That we may reap, great work is done while we’re asleep.

When we work well, a Sabbath mood rests on our day, and finds it good.

Welcome to Sabbath Mood Farm. We hope you’ll find healing here.