After my tiresome hike this weekend, I came back to my truck and opened the cooler got out a paper cup and poured myself a nice glass of milk. It was refreshing although maybe a little bit sticky on the lips. But I was super thirsty and that’s what I had.

I’ve always been a big milk drinker, typically buying two gallons of milk per week from Stewart’s. They have the best price and it’s right down the street from my apartment. I’ve always had an interest in the mostly docile large animals that make milk production a reality, how dairy farmers work their land to raise food for their cows and manage their production. They’re really is a lot that goes into a dairy.

YouTube has given me and the public at least a unique ability to see and learn much about the farm life from tractors to preparing the soil, planting and harvesting crops. It’s also shown the goings on in the tie stall barn from feeding to milking to raising and pulling calves. To artificial insemination and real bulls on ranches to preg testing cattle. Yeap, they have special plastic gloves for reaching up the anus and birth canal to check on the development of calves in the womb. I’ve learned more about the business decisions made every day and craft and science behind the milk business. Or even inside a milk processing plant that takes raw milk, processes it and pasteurizes it into many good products.

Really kind of fascinating stuff. Its interesting to know what’s going on in the field and in the barnyard as I travel the backcountry roads on my trips and travels. To make sense of smells of small town America to know what the various buildings on the farm represent. While I doubt I’ll ever get into the dairy business – my parents had dairy goats for a while, it’s interesting to learn more. While when I own my off grid cabin in the future I will likely do some homesteading, maybe so heritage hogs and chickens for meat, dairy is a tough thing to do with all the constant need to breed and bring the animals around for milking.