welcome Shari - Edgewood, NM

[Guest guest]

Welcome to this forum Shari

Sounds like it's going to be fun ... maybe run the homestead as a

reality tv show and bring in a few bucks?!

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In RawDairy , Shari Linsley wrote:

>

> My name is Shari and I live on 10 acres just east of Albuquerque.

The reason I joined this list is that over the course of the last

several years, we have sort of inadvertantly turned into a " wanna be "

homestead. We have a huge garden with rainwater harvesting for

organic vegetables, we have chickens for eggs. The next step would

seem to be adding a dairy cow or two.

>

> We've done lots of reading on the differing breeds, pros and cons

and are narrowing in on a choice. We are waiting for the spring to

fence off 5 acres, it's just too hard to pound T-Posts when the

ground is frozen. Once housing is built, fences are good etc. we will

officially be ready. Probably late spring or summer.

>

> As a kid, we had raw milk delivered to our door by the Chase

Brothers Dairy guy (just dated myself!) I grew up around beef cattle

and have some experience milking(very limited). We used to milk the

beef cows that refused to nurse and bottle raise the calves. Since

the cows were not trained to be milked, they had to be run into a

squeeze. It wasn't fun!!

>

> For our family it's not so much a choice of raw or not, but

rather a choice to be self sustaining. We are foster parents and at

any given time we can have up to 8 kids.....Thats a lot of milk!! I

like the idea of making my own cheese and yogurt, not being forced to

run to the market everyday for another 3 gallons.

>

> My intent in joining this group is to get more information prior

to my pending purchases, listen to other peoples takes on the

different breeds and ask the occasional question so that when the

cattle truck shows up at my gate, i'll be as ready as I can be. Once

we've made it to that point, I'll need answers to questions I haven't

even thought of yet!

>

> Shari

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