Rent your own cow!

Awesome!!!! This is the best news!!!! I've been looking to rent a cow for years, but I gave up a few years ago because I was tired of the farmers throwing me off their farms. Some of them even laughed at me and I can't figure out why. Jeeez!!!!

Thanks nimh, you just made my day ;-)

You're right Montana. I have also been seeking a cow to rent for the summer. Does it come with hay or do we have to buy our own?

Add shipping charges and the idea loses it's luster. Quit daydreaming and find a good honest Canadian cow.

cows don't need hay. they need grass.

and after the grass it's off to the 7-11 for some doritos.

Yeh, right - and get shipped a hundred kilo of Canadian cheese ... you sure thats whatcha want? <grins>

As for shipping charges ... uuhh ... hadnt I told you that part yet?

"Sie holen diesen bei der Kästeilet im September auf der Alp ab. (Möglichkeit zur Lagerung in unserem Käsekeller ist gegeben)"

Tha' means - you can come fetch your 150lb of cheese on the Alp your cow's been grazing on, in September.

Oh, you have to go there to choose which cow you want, too.

And you must do a day's work with the cowherd, on Tschingelfeld mountain.

But, you get to "have contact with the other farmers and mountainfarmers". And you're free to "sell the cheese on, give it away as a present" - "or eat it yourself".

Ooooh, contact with farmers. How quaint! That is living the Land Rover lifestyle!

Some quasi-relatives in Heidelberg work a similar sort of cooperative scheme, with even better results than cheese. They grow lots of plums, send them off to a guy, and they come back transformed into the sort of no-nonsense schnapps that could take the whitewall off a tire. mmmmmm, good.

course, i do like my cheese, too, though i'd rather get involved in making the cheese itself than pushing the cow around. (what sort of cheese are they making, anywho?) i cannae read that stuff...

Sounds like an old joke from the UJA. "A tree has been planted in Israel in your name. Wednesday is your day to water it."

Jeeez!!! I didn't think about shipping. Since I have 5 acres of nice grassy land, maybe I'll just break down and buy me a couple. I need 2 so that the other one doesn't get lonely. I'm very caring that way when it comes to animals. While I'm at it I may just get myself some chickens since they'll give me eggs to go with my cheese. I love horses as well, so I'll have to think on this for awhile.

There's a farmer up the road a ways, so maybe he'll sell me a few of his cows ;-)

A few months ago Cav started this thread about Michael Schmidt, raw-milk renegade.
Therein was mentioned a fascinating article at http://www.realmilk.com/summer2001.html

It seems that so much of the industry is dominated and controlled by the Milk Marketing Board, that the only way to market non-pastuerized raw milk is to never actually sell the milk itself.

Instead they had to sell the cows, and simply give the cow-owners whatever dairy was produced by their property, bypassing the whole boondoggle of "milk-sales" regulations.

Twas an interesting and inspiring story.