Time change had happened here in Northern Canada. I had been avoiding it all week. Luckily, spring break had conveniently landed in the same week, and neither my children nor my cow, had any idea, that the time was any different.
As I sat there waiting for Sarah to log into our zoom call, it suddenly struck me, maybe the time is different in Arizona. After much googling, and a thoroughly confused brain, I finally messaged Sarah to ask her what time it was there.
Suddenly, I found myself with a kid free hour. I drank a cup of coffee, worked on my homestead cheesemaker course, perused instagram with no guilt, and an hour later, settled into my chair for an inspiring conversation with another likeminded, milking, cheesemaking, homesteading, Mama.
Sarah Withers was not raised on a homestead. In fact her daughters find it odd when she tells them that she herself did not grow up with a cow in her backyard.
It was almost exactly 3 years ago that Sarah’s family purchased their homestead. Up until that point, they had lived in a town house, keeping chickens and rabbits in the backyard. Sarah had been trying to figure out if she could get a goat without the neighbours noticing. Something her husband, Zack, didn’t think they could do.
Sarah was inspired to homestead; she had been watching other homesteaders on YouTube, and she laughed as she describes actually purchasing her cows before they even moved onto their homestead.
Sarah says, “it was kind of foolish to jump in so quickly to large livestock, but we learned a lot, it has been an experience!”. The family purchased two jerseys right off the bat. They were a mother and daughter. The mother, Maudie, is the milk cow that they currently own and milk.
We laughed together as Sarah described their realization of what they had done,“They were dry, we just didn’t know what we were looking for. Our cows were not a good buy; they were fat, unbred, and not in milk. Which is a terrible combo!”. Sarah says, “The daughter was basically a heifer, she was a second year calver, but had never been milked”.
Luckily both cows AI’d perfectly the first time, and the family had some time to bond with the cows before they calved, which as luck would have it, happened in the same week. Sarah recalls the trials of being new to milking a cow, her plans of hand milking, two freshened cows, and two swollen oedematous udders. Sarah describes the whole situation as being “very stressful!”. One particular incident stands out to Sarah;
There was a real low point where we thought, “why did we even think we could have a cow? This is a terrible idea!”. It was probably like 10 pm, and I’m trying to milk out this very fresh cow; edema in her udder, she is in pain, she is kicking, like trying to bash my head in. She kicked my thumb, and completely dented the nail in. Everything about that moment; I just remember that feeling. The calf wasn’t nursing, we knew nothing about livestock.
As luck would have it, their neighbours heard of the difficult time they were having, and had actually previously owned Maudie as a 4H cow. Sarah describes it as being a story of “utter providence”. These neighbours were very helpful, and happened to own a 1950s surge belly milker. The owner, an engineer, had built a pump for it, and they sold it to the family for only $200. Sarah says, “after that, we figured it out and knew what we were doing”.
Aside from when she was pregnant with her youngest son, Sarah does the majority of the milking. They now only own Maudie, and she is in her second lactation with the family. Zack, is very supportive, and likes having a dairy animal, but Sarah says, “milking is not a passion for him”. Nevertheless, Sarah says, “We both share the vision of what we want our life to look like”, and “he loves it when I make cheese”.
During Sarahs pregnancy with their youngest son, Theodore, Zack did all of the milking. Sarah says “He would get up at 5 am and go and milk the cow before work. He was a Saint”.
Since Theodore was about 4 months old, Sarah has been back doing the barn chores mostly herself. Their children, ages 7, 5 and 1, accompany Sarah out to the barn every morning after breakfast. Sarah describes having young children and homesteading, “its such a season thing, what ages your kids are; you are just constantly adjusting your life”.
Currently, in this season of life, Sarah puts Theodore down for a nap after breakfast, and her two daughters accompany her out to do chores. Before he was mobile, Sarah would put Theodore in his swing in the barn, or he would sit in the cart while they did chores, but now she says “he just screams”. Maudie does not let her milk down when Theodore is there, and Sarah says, “he bothers her, apparently”. We laughed and marveled at how sensitive milk cows can be to change, and knowing what they like and what they don’t.
After morning chores, Sarah homeschools her oldest daughter, who is in first grade. She plans to make cheese on Mondays, and Fridays. On Mondays she often makes cheese while helping her daughter with her handwriting or math. On Fridays, when the two older girls go to a local co-op school group, Theodore and Sarah make cheese, and she says, “than I have more time to focus on just cheesemaking”.
The girls enjoy watching their mom make cheese, and occasionally they come and stir a little bit. Sarah says, “I recently asked my daughter if she thinks it is cool that mommy makes cheese or kind of weird? She answered, It’s kind of cool, kind of weird, but mostly cool!”.
Sarah’s milk cow owning plans never included cheesemaking. She describes her introduction into making cheese;
I never set out to make cheese, I never wanted to make cheese; I wanted cheese, but I didn’t want to make it.
I put out an advertisement in the neighbourhood, “Does anyone make cheese? I have a cow and I have a lot of milk. I will give you extra milk, so you can make cheese for yourself and you can make cheese for me.”. That was my idea. I didn’t have time to make cheese.
A neighbour wrote back that she had a friend that is really good at making cheese, and she connected us. It was this really sweet, wonderful woman in her seventies named Victoria, who lives just a few miles away from me. She has a small herd of Nubian goats, and she has been making cheese for many years!
She came over, she saw everything I was doing. She thought the milk was beautiful and she was like, “I would like to teach you how to make cheese”.
I didn’t think that I had time to make cheese, but she said, “you just have to learn, you have to understand the process”.
I understand now, why that would be uncomfortable, making something for someone else that had so many variables.
So we struck up a friendship, and she had me over to her house, and she taught me. I would bring all of my milk, and we would make cheese. I owe this journey to her.
Sarah started out making cheese herself with cheddar. She says, “I thought that cheddar would be the easiest cheese to make, which is not the truth, but I thought since it is such a basic cheese!”. She made approximately 5 cheeses, all a variation of cheddar, in her cows first lactation.
It wasn’t until this last lactation, that Sarah said to herself, “I want to stock up, we have a cow, I don’t want to be buying any dairy products. So I did, I learned to make Gouda, which has been a life changer”.
Sarah and I talked about choosing which cheese we plan to make, and Gouda, with its low stirring time, is often a good candidate for those busy times.
A long time follower of Sarah on instagram, I had always admired Sarahs knack for finding the beauty in the small things. Her photography always carried with it a sense of realism, as well as the day to day charm that we often miss as we go about everything we must do. A recent birthday video that she had posted of Theodore, a catalog of moments from his first year, had captured my attention and thoughts, over the last few weeks. Full of clips from his first year, simple things, laying on the grass, his tiny toes wiggling; Theodore in his element, an accurate, and beautiful portal of how Theodore, and his family, had spent his first year. We talked about this for awhile. She says,
It’s so easy in the midst of mothering and homesteading, and all of that to miss the beauty in the hard things. You look back, and even the last year, has been really hard for everyone, I’m sure. It’s has been hard for us, and I have such joy looking back on all of those videos, of Theodore, or all of the things I have taken videos and photos of. You do, you see the beauty in it; you see the beauty of it, even if you can’t see it when you are in the midst of it.
Sarah is actually a photographer by trade. She got her camera when her oldest daughter was only 6 months old. Her passion is birth photography, and though this last year with a young baby, has put that passion on hold, she hope to continue with birth photography in the future.
Sarah’s artistic nature has found its way into her cheeses. As of late, I had been admiring the unique spice and flavour combinations she uses in her cheeses. A recent photo Sarah had posted of a blueberry gouda, had me curious. She says;
For the holidays, we had a small family gathering. My mom brought some cheeses from the grocery store. One was an apricot gouda. I tried to find some resources online, but I couldn’t really find anything, so I just did it. I had some apple juice infused blueberries, and I thought that would be really good. I haven’t tried it yet.
One of Sarahs goats recently kidded, and she is excited to try making some goat cheese if yield permits. She has made some soft goat cheeses before, and has mixed cow and goat milk together, and she says that goats milk is actually much higher in butterfat, than even her Jersey.
Sarahs advice for anyone wanting to get into owning a milk cow or making cheese;
I think that it is easy to overthink it. Honestly, you just have to jump in! I didn’t want to make cheese at first. Just hop in, try some of the simpler cheeses at first, and you know, even if you mess up, you are still going to get cheese! Its so rewarding, it really is! I feel like most of us, even if we are busy, we can afford to spend an hour on and off at the stove once a week. It is not as difficult as we make it out to be in our minds!
You can follow along with Sarahs homesteading journey on instagram @nest.in.the.west.
Thank you to Sarah for submitting all of the photos in this interview, and for allowing me to share your story.
Happy Cheesemaking!
Robyn