Ever since Paul took his food course at Miami, we've both been trying very hard to eat as local as possible. It all started with lamb. :) The Colegate farm, located about 10 miles south of Oxford, Ohio gave us a taste of hormone-free, antibiotic-free, vaccine-free lamb in April. We have never looked back. Since then, we've joined a CSA where we get organic produce, buy our eggs from free range chickens that live on a hill, and now we're adding milk to the mix.
Enter Double J Streit farm.
The Double J farm is a quaint 60 acre farm located in Hamilton, OH, just about 13 miles east of the Miami University campus. Joe is a retired architect that started offering raw milk to the Cincinnati community about 8 years ago. Since then, his program has grown to over 300 shares. His shareholders live as close as a couple feet and as far away as a couple hundred miles. Boy, am I fortunate to have this farm closeby! His 22 cows are milked twice a day, and produce a little over 70 gallons of milk a day.
About a month ago, I found Joe's e-mail off of a website and asked about his herdshare program. He got back to me right away but I was a little skeptical about doing this. Raw milk is a controversial topic in the US. There is a big question of whether raw milk is safe for consumption and whether the health benefit of consuming raw milk is worth the risk. Honestly, I have no idea. The reason I am joining this herdshare program is not so I can consume raw milk, although I will inevitably drink some to see how it tastes. I love the idea of a herd share because I can have a say in what goes into my body. When I visited the Streits' farm, Joe did not hesitate to show me the cattle, the facilities, and feed.
It's amazing what people want to show you when they have a product they are proud of :)
Heck, I got so engrossed with his family sitting on his front porch that my intended 30-minute visit turned into a 2 hour discussion. They have a very lovely home.
This is Joe's in-laws, Janet's parents, and Janets aunt?
I have thought about the possibilities of buying organic milk at the store, but after finding out that even Horizon (the biggest seller of the organic milk market) cows are kept cooped up in a pen their entire life, I decided that supermarket organic milk was honestly not worth the hike in price.
At Double J farm, cows live like they are meant to. They roam the pasture, they have calves, and they produce milk. They aren't given hormones, antibiotics, or vaccines. The one unnatural part of the cows' lives is the artificial insemination that is practiced at the farm. I have no problems with this. After all the horror stories from my mom about the bulls on her farm, I definitely wouldn't want a bull running around on my farm of 22 sows in heat? The delivery of the calves, to my knowledge, is natural and calves are born all year round to rotate the pregnancies. (don't be a meanie and steal milk from a calf!) I got to see one that was 8 days old and one that was 2 weeks old.
And yes, all baby animals are playful and adorable :) :) :)
Really, the only drawback is the cost. Paul and I don't really have a lot of extra income to just splurge on gourmet food, but this venture is possibly the most expensive component to our local eating project. The upfront cost to buy a share in his farm was $50, which Joe would actually buy back from you whenever you decided to opt out of the program - this isn't really a cost. (But it is SUPER exciting to know that I can go around telling people "I own a farm"... although... it's like I own a teeny weensy piece of a farm..... hehe) The real cost is the monthly upkeep fee. As a herd shareholder, I will be paying a $26 monthly fee for the upkeep of the herd. In exchange, I will be entitled to one gallon of raw milk weekly. Assuming 30 days in the month, that comes out to about 5.75/gallon of milk. Twice the cost of a non-organic gallon of industrial milk, but roughly the same cost of an organic gallon of industrial milk. However, it might not be so bad... Raw milk, especially from purebred Jersey cows, have about a 30-40% fat content in their milk. In a gallon of milk, I will end up getting roughly a quart of cream that I can skim off the top. And since the milk isn't homogenized, the cream naturally separates from the milk. At the supermarket, a quart of cream costs about $5. There, I'm done. This is how I justify my herdshare. With all the baking I do, I usually spend about $2.50-3.00/lb on butter (I stock up when it's on sale and keep it in the freezer), and once in awhile, I'll splurge and buy a pint of cream for $2.50 or so. On top of that there's yogurt, and cheese... and OH do I spend money on cheese. I'm not saying that the herd share will replace all of my dairy needs, but I will definitely make yogurt, butter, ricotta, ice cream, and best of all, Paul will get his whole milk.
At the end, I'm pretty sure that the costs is a little higher than what I spend at the grocery, but it won't be significantly more than what I already spend. Plus, the less I go to the grocery, the less I'm tempted by chocolate... and Pop Tarts.... ... Hooray! I can't wait to make my cookies from my free range eggs and free range organic butter :)
Oh and did I mention, Double J farm is home to a lot of other animals too like pigs...
I think the guy on the right was named Laverne or something ridiculous like that (Joe knows all of his animals by name). Laverne was not happy about having to get up from his nap so say hello to a strange person!
These piggies had funny sacs around their mouths. I forget what they're called already... but remember it had a double t in it... like bittles or dittles or something like that... ay...
Piglets were there too, getting fatten up for the smoke house :( It's definitely better to be a sow on this farm.
I think I saw chickens running around somewhere... I asked and they have over 200 chickens!!! Oh my!
In any case, I'm definitely getting my milk from happy cows!! :)
The "aunt" in the picture is actually a wonderful friend of the Streits. She stays at their home and for many years helped me when I came for my weekly visit/pick-up of milk. I have enjoyed the Streit farm for almost six years, and now live in South Carolina. This is a great place to visit and support; along with the Turner Farm in Cincinnati and Spooky Hollow Farm in Cincinnati.
ReplyDeleteSarah W.