Of Cottages and Cows

After my recent intense weeks of spring deadlines, and just before another gardening challenge--my daughter's neighborhood garden tour--I decided I needed another look at the calm of Lake Michigan (while sipping a few adult beverages) at my aunt's lake house.

The photo above is an enhanced view of the lake after a brief rain, right after we arrived Sunday evening. The lake is always lovely in some way, but the blues were rather grey before Picassa.

I took along two friends and we were soon bored of "looking at the lake." I encouraged them to take a tour of Country Dairy in New Era, Michigan with me.

A tractor/wagon ride and a look into the cow barns took me back more than a few decades.

 These young cows (heifers) were busy eating but wanted to reach out and touch us. We were warned not to engage--their tongues are rough! so this is about as close as I came. I think they wanted to lick the salt from our skin!

The tour included an introductory video, little calves, cows in the birth process, and cows being milked.

We had to slosh through disinfectant before entering and leaving the processing plant and wear orange hairnets. I will spare you the photo of the three of us taken by the tour guide.

Between milkings, the cows chewed their cud on beds of sand. Sand apparently doesn't harbor bacteria easily.

The cows' teats were dipped in an iodine solution and dried with one-time use cloths, before being sucked up into the milking machine cups--I'm not sure of the correct terms.

No hormones are fed to the cows. They have special diets, including alfalfa and grain raised on the owner's farms. Can it be that they said the cows eat 100 lbs. a day?

I WOULD DRINK THIS MILK IF I WAS A MILK DRINKER!

A bottomless cup of milk was a dollar, but we sampled a bowl of some delicious ice cream flavors offered in the restaurant.

One cow that was being milked while we watched had an enormous udder and gave 8-9 gallons of milk--that must be per day--since they milk them three times a day. Her next door friend gave only 2-3 gallons and it was obvious she was not as well endowed. I'm sure she was a nice cow, but it made me wonder why she had not yet been made into hamburger!

There was a pizza section in the restaurant as well. The sizes were appropriately named:

After the dairy tour we scouted out the Oreo cows that live in the area. O, our driver, just drove right up the driveway of the farm and started taking photos. Later the owner's daughter came out, all friendly, and said they are accustomed to tourists.

Belted Galloway cows in Montague

The Galloway group looked hot, scruffy, and covered in flies, with hair hanging down in their eyes. But they were still kind of cute.

After that we headed into town for a few groceries, gasoline, and coffee in the garden:

And then we headed back to the lake house for happy hour and a late dinner, following a stroll on the beach. We enjoyed good food the whole weekend.

A few food photos:

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Dinner was filet of beef on the grill, fresh asparagus, fried Yukon Gold potatoes, the strawberry salad pictured above and a cheesecake topped with fresh berries for dessert.

After a violent middle of the night thunderstorm the second night--so windy it *blew some shingles off the roof--we were more than ready to return home for a good night's sleep in our own beds.

*I was told later the shingles probably came off with the winter snows--but it was a violent storm which knocked trees over in nearby Whitehall.