Billy Rays Farm– milk and the MidTown Farmers Market
Larry Brown published a book of non-fiction called Billy Ray’s Farm; the title is his son’s farm in Yocona, south east of Oxford.
His son has been working at setting up a dairy at Oxford. He has Jersey cows, and their feed is natural grass (Bermuda and dallis grass pasture) on the farm. He’s been working at setting up a line for processing the milk, pasteurizing it, and getting the required state approvals. He writes:
Our goal is to produce quality milk for our customers and give them the peace of mind knowing that their milk is produced here locally in the county.
And he’s got it done. Today he was at the Mid-Town Farmers market in Oxford, and he had whole milk in half-gallon glass jugs. It’s done the old-fashioned way– he’s pasteurizing his milk, but not homogenizing it.
Remember how you’d hear from your grandparents, or parents (or perhaps remember yourself) about how “real” milk would have a layer of cream on the top? And how great that was? That’s because the milk had not been homogenized. That is, it had not been “shaken” so that the fat emulsified into the milk.
Billy Ray told me today that he is going to have lower fat milk in the future, but right now, he’s got half-gallons of whole milk that will have the cream on top, in glass half-gallon containers. You’ll have to pay a deposit on the container, but the milk is $4 a half-gallon. No hormones, no antibiotics, and the knowledge that these cows really did pasture-feed in bucolic Yocona, Mississippi.
They’re inviting visits on the farm. Call them at 662-607-5090 if you want to visit the farm. They are on the schedule for the MidTown Farmer’s Market in Oxford on Wednesday’s and Saturdays.
I don’t care how “bucolic” you try to make it sound. 24/7/365 on a dairy farm sucks. No pun intended. But milking while it was still dark in the early morning ain’t “the life” for anyone except those that didn’t have to do it TWICE a day as a kid. Ain’t nuttin’ like cleaning udders before breakfast to make school, learnin’ the three R’s and gettin’ the hellawayfromhere the thing to do.
He’s giving the milk away from my perspective.
BTW, now that I’m on “blue john” milk it don’t make me feel any better about the whole cream on the top thing. Dayum it was good though.
“Drink milk and feel bucolic” doesn’t have ’nuff rhyme to me to make me miss it.
P.S. He should team up with Big Bad Breakfast since he’s in the parking lot. That would be the ticket. Worth a trip by itself. Just promise not to tell Mrs. Razor.
Thanks for that report, NMC.
RaRed: I’ll never tell.
RaRed, what’s “blue john” milk?
We have been drinking it all week and our only thought is that they are going to need more cows!
DLM: bluegum is the milk that’s left after all the cream is skimmed off the top … call it skim milk.
So if you buy it, and take the cream off the top, does the milk become less fattening? I’m on a diet :/
Yes, Lydia. I intend to use my fat separator to have low-fat milk.
Isn’t that top layer whey? In keeping to this topic there’s white milk moo, and chocolate milk, say moo.
No, the top layer in non homogenized milk is cream.
Take the top layer of cream, pulse it in your blender or food processor and make real cream butter. Nothing better on a hot biscuit.
On my grandparents’ farm outside of Houston, MS, back in the mid 60s to early 70s, my grandmother used to process her own milk from milking their dairy cows. She would first pour it from the milking bucket through some type of cloth to strain it, then she used a machine to pasteurize it. There may have been other steps, but that is all that I can recall as I was just a very young lad when this was going on. Since I got to see the milk come out of the cow and into the milking bucket, and then strained (with the cloth catching hair and other particles from the milking process), lets just say that it was a little too much reality for a child and I was not eager to drink this milk —or so I thought. According to my grandmother, I used to tell her that I did not want any of that “cow’s milk”, but instead wanted the grocery store milk. And as she revealed to me later in life, she used to trick me by pouring her pasteurized milk into store bought milk containers. And I drank it and liked it just fine. Very sneaky grandma.
The home made butter that she used to churn was simply outstanding —on a home made bisquit there was nothing better. Anyone who has never had home-made churned butter is missing out on a real delicacy. There is nothing even close to it on your standard grocery store shelves.
It sometimes amazes me how wrapped up we get with our so-called, much better, modern life, which in many ways, from a quality standpoint, is actually a step backwards. My wife’s grandfather “Atticus”, a very wise man, used to always say that you need to learn to embrace the “little joys” in life, for they are what makes life so wonderful. Some examples he used to give of his “little joys” included: the feeling of accomplishment you get after you have successfully completed some project like mowing the grass, home improvement, a work assignment, etc; that feeling you have when a fish is on your line; the feeling you get from helping someone in need; the taste of good food, especially food that you have grown and/or prepared yourself; etc. And farm fresh milk, home-made butter, and other dairy products would for certain be one of those “little joys”. The simplest things in life are often the very best.
Homeboy, Robert St. John, made it to the “top ten bbq recipes” featured in the photo crawl just below the masthead at Huffington Post. His bacon mayo was number five.
AFOTL…on this we can agree
The book Billy Ray’s Farm is in Bruce Springsteen’s library, though I don’t know if he’s read it (he said he planned to).
Wonder what Billy Ray is going to do when the democrats start taxing his cows due to their methane production? Probably going to have to charge even more for that milk and other dairy products. Those damned evil cows.