As a farm, it in a very lovely setting. Lots of nice rolling hills for pasture and lots of big, old trees. I am sure the cows here have grass to eat all but a few months of the year. We did see a baler and a wheel rake though too.
As a business operation, the place was even more impressive. They must serve thousands of households, and they do so without looking at all corporate. They definitely have a lot of hired help, especially for handling the cows. But a lot of the people working there were clearly family and it definitely had a family-business feel.
The milking parlor was especially industrious. I didn't count but it looked like there were about 30 stands and they were occupied the whole time we were there. The cows definitely seemed to have the drill down and registered no complaint as they were hooked up to the machines. There was even an open pen behind the parlor where the next squad of milkers was waiting patiently for their turn. And all of that was done without any kind of bribe grain being offered.
The creamery also has a nice little farmstand, where they sell their delivery products as well as fresh ice cream. We had a scoop of blackberry and it was very good. It tasted richer and had more mouthfeel than your average scoop.
We also went across the street the calf stalls. There were about 15 calves in stalls, including one that looked born in the last day or two. Once a day they allow kids to come give the calves bottles. This was fun for everybody and it's free labor! The guy that actually worked there just drove up in a Gator and dropped the milk off in front of each stall. The kids did the rest.
When we got back, I told Nikki about the place and we both agreed that it would be really fun to have a similar business somewhere like Missoula. In fact, we thought Missoula would be the perfect place. I bet you could put up a stand at the farmer's market and sign 50 people up the first day.
The only problem, and this is something I don't know too much about, is it seems like to do this you have to breed pretty much year round. That might be weather-prohibitive in Montana. On the other hand, maybe you can just calve for, say, 8 months, and have the timing work out. It might work better somewhere like Portland, where you could theoretically calve all year round. But again, I don't know how long you can milk a cow after you take her calf off, so my math might be way off.
The thing that really appeals to me about this kind of dairy operation, is that I've never met a milk-based value-added product that I didn't like and didn't like to make. I've made cheese, butter, yogurt, and ice cream and I'd love to try my hand at cream cheese, sour cream, and cottage cheese. I'd even like to try the Central Asian delicacy kymyz (fermented mare's milk), though milking a horse isn't at the top of my list. Anyway, they don't have kymyz at South Mountain, it just got me thinking. Here are some pictures:
Here's the milking parlor.
And here are the calf stalls.
Here are some of the girls returning to their pasture.
Here's Georgie getting nibbled and licked by a hungry calf.
And here's my bottle-feeding a calf. This is the first time I've ever done this. The calves really can tug hard on the bottle.
