Meet our herd

      Our journey into keeping dairy animals begins about seven years ago. Let me set the scene for you. It was March of 2017. Jerry and I were going to be getting married in about a week and a half. We were already on the road to homesteading (not that we did it well). We were living in a rental on one acre and I had stumbled across a blog called Weed 'Em and Reap. If you don't know DaNelle and her lovely family, I highly recommend checking them out. Finding her blog, or it finding me, is what sparked my love of dairy goats. So a week and a half before our wedding, Jerry and I bought a LaMancha x Nigerian Dwarf goat in milk. First goat we'd ever owned. Zero milking experience. Didn't even have a milk stand built yet. But there she was in all her glory, our April. What started out as rocky at best developed into a lovely experience. We learned goats, I learned to milk, Jerry learned to build infrastructure.

Between moving and having our first child, we ended up taking about a two year break from homesteading. My heart ached for it, I urned for a property of our own to start back up again. It was in this waiting room period when I found another content creator destined to change my life. Roots and Refuge farm. From the couch of my townhouse apartment in South Georgia I began to learn lessons big and small from this five acre farm in Arkansas. I became a student again. I heeded the advice and turned my waiting room into a classroom.

When we purchased our home in the summer of 2019, the second animal I brought home (the first being chickens) was a pair of LaMancha dairy goats named Selah and Sabella. During our time with goats I stretched and grew my animal husbandry muscle. I developed the practical skills that I'd only ever read about and gained wisdom that could only come with hands-on experience.

After a few years, and our second child, I started developing this itch. It was a change that I never anticipated for myself. I wanted a dairy cow. I didn't have much experience around large animals, none with dairy cows. Their production seemed completely overwhelming and intimidating. But I'd been bitten by the dairy cow bug and it was too late.

In October of 2021 Jerry, our two boys, and I drove an hour and a half to check out a bred registered mid sized miniature Jersey cow. I didn't immediately pull the trigger on her and the sellers decided to hold on to her until she calved. So we went our separate ways.

I posted our herd of dairy goats on Craigslist and had someone reach out with a trade. They had a Guernsey cow they were going to have AI'ed soon, and wanted to get a handful of goats. So we got all set up to trade. A few months later, a week before that cow was to be delivered to the farm, I got a text from a random number. "Did you ever find a cow? This girl just delivered and we're ready to sell her now." Next thing that came through was a picture of that Jersey we'd gone to see.

I felt a nudge. I knew it in my knower that we had to make a way to buy this cow. My in-laws graciously pitched in and within a few days our beautiful Magnolia, and her bull calf Bud, were delivered to us. Funny enough we had a similar first experience with keeping a family cow as we did getting our first goat. We didn't have a milk stand build, we'd never owned cows before, but I knew how to milk. I had built up the physical strength and mental confidence to step into this season knowing it might not be perfect right now. I might be kind of scared of this cow. But I've walked this path before. I know what comes next. The darkness of being submerged and the pressure from falling rain, I knew would end in our growth and abundance. And that's exactly what happened.

Maggie and I quickly became close friends. I spent almost every morning and evening with her for the 18 months we kept her in that first lactation with us. She became the heart of our homestead. She feeds almost every other creature on this farm in some capacity, which in turn lowers our overall costs. Maggie's rich, raw milk nourishes my family and grows us a calf (or two) every year to fill the freezer. Her manure fertilizes the pastures and gardens. She is the single best farm investment we've ever made. And I'm so glad to get to share her production, and her story.