Saucer Dairy

Blog

  • The Night The Delivery Cart Went To The Wrong Farm

    Gather round, because this is a good story. Two weeks ago our cart pony, Dumpling, took a turn at the crossroads where she should have gone left. She went right. She is a pony of strong feeling and few maps.

    By the time we noticed, she had trotted three miles to the Hargrove place and was standing in the yard, calmly eating a rosebush, with forty pints of cream on her back. The Hargroves have no cats, only a bulldog named Gerald, who was very excited and not at all helpful.

    We got everything home by moonlight. Not a drop was lost. Gerald now gets a free sample each month, and he has written us a thank you note with a paw print.

  • How We Churn Butter, Slowly, With Feeling

    Our butter is made in a wooden churn older than the barn. The paddle is turned by hand, and it takes about 55 minutes of steady turning before the cream breaks and the little golden grains gather. It is a thing you cannot rush.

    The butter is washed in cold spring water, patted with wooden paddles, and shaped into a small curl with a spoon that belonged to Ottoline’s grandmother. Each curl is a little different. Each one is, I believe, a tiny sculpture of the afternoon.

    We add a pinch of sea salt, just enough to wake the flavor. Then we wrap them in waxed paper and tie them with string, like presents. They are presents.

  • Summer Pasture Notes: The Clover Report

    The clover is up this summer, thick as a green rug across the south field, and the cows are in a fine, drowsy temper. Clover in the grass puts a sweetness in the milk that no dairy trick can imitate. You can taste it, a little, like a memory of something warm.

    This year’s clover census, taken by Wren the barn cat with some help from a bumblebee, counted roughly 40,000 blossoms in the lower pasture. She stopped counting somewhere around the third bumblebee.

    We will bottle the first clover milk of the season next week. Only 60 saucers, and only for subscribers. Ottoline will deliver them herself, in the cart, ringing the bell.

  • Pudding The Milk Inspector Has Concerns

    Every batch that leaves our dairy has been inspected by Pudding, a large gray tabby with one torn ear and an expression of deep suspicion. He sniffs. He licks one drop. He stares into the middle distance as though recalling a lost love. Then he either nods or he knocks the saucer over.

    Last Wednesday he knocked over four. We were deeply concerned, so we tested everything, and it turned out that the cream was perfect. Pudding simply wished to spill. It is a feeling every cat understands.

    He has been given a raise of two extra sardines a week. He has declined to say whether this is enough. We will keep you posted.

  • A Short History Of Cream

    Cream, as far as anybody can tell, was discovered by accident, probably by a cat who sat very patiently by a pail. The milk stood still, and the richest part drifted to the top like a little cloud, and the cat said, in her own way, ‘Ah.’

    For centuries farm folk skimmed it with shallow wooden spoons. They let the pans rest overnight in cellars cool as a church. In our dairy we still do it this way, in the stone cold room with the blue slate shelves, and we skim by hand at first light.

    It takes eleven hours to rest, and it takes about eleven seconds to finish the saucer. This seems fair.

  • A Morning Milking Diary, With Mist

    4:45. The alarm is a rooster, and the rooster is wrong. I put on the old boots and walk out across wet grass, and the whole valley is the color of pearl.

    5:10. Bernadette is already waiting, chewing and thinking. I wash my hands in water that smells of well stones. The pail is silver, the stool has three legs and one opinion. The first stream hits the tin with that bright little ringing sound.

    5:55. Eleven cows milked, six goats nudged. Pudding the inspector arrives and sniffs the pail, nods once, and sits down. It is a good morning. They are all good mornings, if you let the mist do some of the work.

  • The Saucer Standard: Why Ours Is Wider

    Many people ask why we pour into saucers instead of bowls. It is a fair question, and the answer lives in your whiskers. A bowl is deep and narrow, and a cat must press her face down into the dark. A saucer is wide and low, so the whiskers rest free and the milk meets the tongue like a small calm lake.

    Our saucers are made by a potter named Hollis who lives down the lane. Each is seven inches across, glazed in cream with a blue rim, and fired in a kiln that Hollis calls Old Faithful, although it has twice caught fire.

    Every pint we pour comes in a saucer. We call this the Standard.

  • Meet Bernadette, Our Most Opinionated Cow

    Some mornings, when the mist is still sitting in the low field, I like to tell you about the animals who make all this possible. Today it is Bernadette, a brown and white Jersey of nine summers and very firm convictions.

    Bernadette believes the gate should open inward. Bernadette believes dandelions are a personal gift. Bernadette will not be milked while anyone whistles, and the day a farmhand whistled ‘Greensleeves’ she gave exactly zero pints out of spite. We have made our peace.

    She gives about 3 gallons a day of the richest cream you will ever lap. Say hello when you visit. Just do not whistle.