The First Batches of Milk at Rowdy Cow Creamery

Rowdy Cow Creamery, our new on-farm milk bottling plant, is officially operating! We’ve been constructing, installing equipment, purchasing supplies and planning for a year and last week we bottled the first batches of milk.

The creamery ready for action

Fresh milk is pumped into our vat minutes after it leaves the cow’s udder. The milk is low temperature vat pasteurized in small batches.

Fresh milk is piped into the creamery

A small batch of white milk in the vat pasteurizer

Chocolate milk mixing in the vat

We bottle milk in half gallon and pint size containers. All the labels are put on the bottles by hand.

Half gallon bottles are ready to be filled with whole, white milk

My son, Garrett, helps label and organize the bottles before going into the filler

Milk is pumped from the vat to the bottler to fill the bottles.

Pint bottles filling with chocolate milk

Pints filling with white milk

Chocolate half gallons being filled

Orange Cream half gallons filling

Our product line includes a variety of flavors; white, vanilla, chocolate, mocha, strawberry, orange cream, root beer, and cookies & cream.

Orange cream pints filled, capped and ready for the cooler

Lad loading bottles into crates that will go into the cooler

Taylor taking the filled crates to the cooler

Our first two batches of milk in crates in our walk-in refrigerator.

Bottled milk chills in the refrigerator

Our milk will be on local store shelves soon. I’ll post updates on the Hastings Dairy & Rowdy Cow Creamery website and Facebook page to let people know where this delicious milk can be purchased. 

The finished product; creamy, tasty fresh milk!

Check out the Rowdy Cow Creamery website for more information about our milk.

Living in Pancake Town

We live in the community of Burton, also known as Pancake Town USA. The town square is home to the Burton Log Cabin and several maple trees. Every March, these trees are tapped to collect sap which is delivered to the log cabin sugar house where it is boiled into pure maple syrup. Our community is known for its delicious maple syrup!

The Burton Log Cabin

Me by one of the maple trees and sap buckets in the Burton Town Square

Downtown Burton

This is celebrated every March when the sap is running. Burton is host to several pancake breakfast every Sunday in March.

The Burton Middlefield Rotary hosts a pancake breakfast at Berkshire High School

This is the spread at the Burton Middlefield Rotary pancake breakfast

The polar vortex doesn't want to leave us this winter. The extremely cold weather we continue to experience isn't good for maple syrup production. 

Driving down a snowy road in Burton

Maple syrup season marks the beginning of spring. But mother nature isn't cooperating! I hope to see warmer days in the near future.

Winter on the Farm

We're expecting high temperatures to reach 3 degrees today with lows below zero. With windchill, temperatures will be below zero all day. It's been a very cold and snowy winter so far. Regardless of the temperature outside, it’s business as usual here at the farm. I took these images last weekend, when temperatures were in the 20's. We've experienced below zero temps the last two days.

Our farm from the road

A tractor at work on this chilly day

Beautiful sun shinning on the snow covered milking parlor 

The open vent in the roof lets a little snow into the barn

The content cows continue their normal activity - they love to eat!

This cow is getting ready to lay down on her soft, dry bed

The cows stroll at their own pace from the milking parlor to their barn

The calves peak out of their cozy house to enjoy the sun

These calves are protected from the weather in their barn

My Dad, a native Californian, is getting used to Midwestern winters

Ricardo heading out to take care of the calves

Lad busy at the farm

The same activities take place daily regardless of the weather

A straw delivery; we use straw in calf and cow pens to keep animals comfortable

Me taking a selfie

Snow covered trucks at the farm

Here in the snowbelt, just east of Cleveland, we experience high volumes of lake effect snow during winter months. Caring for the animals is a top priority everyday. Some of the extra steps we take in the winter include; keeping barn doors and curtains closed to keep cold wind and snow out and making sure the animals have enough bedding to stay warm and dry. It's important to keep calves and cows protected and comfortable on cold winter days. 

Other blogs and photos of winter on our farm:
Cold and Snowy Winter Days
Let it Snow - Preparing for Winter on our Farm 

Fall Harvest is Complete!

Last week I posted photos of the first days of corn harvest on our farm. After about one week of very long days for the chopping crew, our corn harvest finished on Saturday. We've experienced some warm days here in Northeast Ohio. Last week there were a few days it reached 80 degrees. It was like summer! We got lucky with the weather this year. Here are more images of the harvest. . . .

Chopping corn in the field

When the trailer is full, the tractor will deliver the silage to the pile

Another view of the chopping

Traveling by the freestall barn to deliver the silage to pile

Unloading the silage

The tractors push the silage onto the pile and pack it down

The chopper waiting for the next tractor & trailer

Here comes the trailer, it gets into position

Jack pets a favorite calf with the growing silage pile in the background

The calves are not bothered by all the activity around the silage pile

Lad takes a break to have a chat with Jack

The silage pile is covered with tarp and tires to preserve the quality of this feed

After watching the corn develop from the time it was planted in May through the summer growing season to harvest time in the fall, it's a great feeling to see the corn silage in a pile at the farm. . .

The corn emerging out of the soil back on June 4th

The crop progressing well on June 28th

Measuring the corn against Garrett on July 14th

While taking some photos of the harvest, I couldn't resist getting some pictures of our heifers in the pasture in front of our farm. . .

The heifers look so pretty on this warm fall day

Animal nutrition is key and we strive to provide our herd with a quality diet. The heifers and cows on our farm will benefit from this good quality corn silage. It's an important ingredient in their diet.