Milk shortage

This blog was my sister's idea. She said we should do it as a public service to all the people who would feel better about their own going-poorly days if they knew the sort of thing we deal with here.



Today, though, was rather unusually uncomplicated. Earl milked this morning and was back at the house in time to wake up the boys for school. Harley's normal Thursday morning gig was canceled for Valentine's Day and he rode shotgun in the delivery truck to go pick up milk at Thistle Hill Farm. (The Thistle Hill folks, John and Janine Putnam, are dear friends who make cheese that doesn't work on winter milk, so we buy their milk from mid-November to April. They're organic, of course, and are milking about sixteen cows right now.) Oliver and I (Oliver is ten months old) dropped off Cliffy and Jackson at school in town and rushed back for a meeting with a guy who wanted us to get onboard some USDA grant he's working on. Grant guy didn't show up and Oliver and I returned a call to one of our retail outlets who is having a really hard time with our current milk shortage.



Milk shortages are really hard. This time last year, we were swimming in milk, with about 1,000 to 1,500 extra pounds of milk each week, which we skimmed, saving the cream for ice cream, and fed to the pigs. So when we did our breeding planning for the year, we looked at the milk that we were able to sell, looked at how much that demand had increased each year (about 1,300 lbs. each week) and tried to have enough cows milking now to match that projected demand. Well, the cows are making about 1,400 lbs. more each week over last year's sales and we would be feeling pretty smart, except that we were 4,000 lbs. of milk short this week. (A gallon of milk weighs 8.6 lbs. and for some reason the dairy world measures milk in pounds, even though it doesn't actually get weighed.) Ah, the best laid plans.



Our friends down at Killdeer Farm in Norwich are fond of saying that the two most important words in farming are, "Oh well."



We don't seem be able to do much about the shortages. We've tried working with Organic Valley or Horizon to balance our milk (which means we would be able to pick up milk from one the organic dairy farms in our area that are under contract to sell to them when we need milk or have their tanker truck pick up some of our milk when we're in surplus) but they aren't interested in working with us, because we're competitors and too small to be much help to them in return. We'd love to work with Butterworks, but the transportation issues are insurmountable.



We sometimes buy cows from other organic dairy farms, who might be selling for some immediate cash or because they have more cows than will fit in their tie stalls. This is a hard time of year to bring a cow into the herd, though. Cows have a social order and do a version of bovine hazing that can make new cows feel unwelcome at the feeder. It doesn't take much for a hungry cow to get cold and sick. We'd much rather build our herd with our own heifer calves and by keeping the older cows healthy and strong to have long, happy, productive lives. And we're doing that, but it's not a plan that's very responsive to the marketplace. Oh well.



So I guess if this blog finds any of our customers out there, let me say I'm really sorry if you're not finding the milk you're after. We so appreciate and need your support. There you are, needing milk for breakfast, looking for our milk, willing to pay for and deal with the bottle deposit, and the shelf is empty and you're staring down a jug of Hood. Stick with us, if you can; we're doing our best. Maybe next year will be the year we get it right.