Moo

Last week our family was able to fulfill a longtime dream of ours of purchasing livestock. Granted, Cara didn't come to us in the traditional way, but she is ours nonetheless. Well, at least 1/14th of her.

Meet Cara

Cara, blog readers. Blog readers, Cara.

She's a little camera shy. But isn't she beautiful?

We purchased what is known in the state of Indiana as a "cow share". You can also purchase a herd share, but at this particular farm there are only five such "Dairy Queens" so for now, a cow share it is. In purchasing a cow share we became legal owners of Cara, and we pay for her upkeep and boarding.

All five ladies, doing what the ladies were made to do. Cara is in the middle.

Cara comes to us from This Old Farm, located in the rolling countryside of Darlington, IN. Cara lives on a beautiful, expansive farm of 22 acres and is quite spoiled by farm owners, Erick and Jessica Smith. She thrives on acre after acre of beautiful, nutritious, fresh green grass. As you can see in the above pictures, she quite enjoys her feast. She is living the pampered life, as a cow's life goes. She has lots of freedom and plenty of room to move and live and breathe...and gestate. That's right, Cara is also going to be a mama come fall.

Entrance to "This Old Farm". I love how the robin so nicely posed for us.

Cara is a dairy cow and as her owners we are blessed to share in the bounty of her silky smooth, fresh, raw milk. We also enjoy skimming the cream off the top and making homemade butter and buttermilk. The taste is incredible, the health benefits are plentiful and it sure doesn't hurt that we know where our food comes
from and that we are supporting an incredible, local, sustainable farm and more importantly, farm family.

Yummy goodness.

A proud, raw milk family

Each Sunday, we travel to the farm, which is about 35 minutes one-way, to visit Cara and pick up our milk. Cara is milked Sunday morning for us and we like to go directly after church. This means there are approximately 2 hours, give or take a few minutes, between the time of her milking and the time we pick-up our milk. It doesn't get much fresher than that! In fact, this past week, we got there so close to her milking time that the milk was not even completely cold by the time we got it. We take it home immediately, put it in the coldest part of our refrigerator and it is ready for us to enjoy in just a few hours.

Enjoying a fresh cold one.

We are so thankful for the way God has provided this resource for our family. We are taking baby steps toward a more natural and healthful lifestyle and teaching life's valuable lessons along the way. This isn't necessarily how we saw the dream of livestock ownership taking shape, and as much as we would love to have Cara for our very own, we recognize and accept God's provision and blessing no matter the form it takes.

So long, Cara. See you next Sunday!

In future weeks I plan on sharing how we came into cow ownership and why we feel it is important to drink raw milk. In the meantime, share in the comments how God is blessing YOUR family these days? And I'm curious, have YOU ever had raw milk?

I'm linking up over at Raising Arrows' Simple Homemaking Link Up.