A Day in the Life

T . ISIDORE’S M E A S D Wisconsin

by INGA WITSCHER

There’s clover and plantain, crows foot trefoil and a few pesky thistles ready to bloom. Overall it looks good. We will be able to move the cows into this pasture after the weekend.

“Red Sky in the morning sailors takes warning”…. That’s ok! We need the rain. This time of year our pastures can benefit from all the moisture they can absorb.

With my overalls tucked into my barn boots, I head out into the field as the sun rises over Wisconsin. Dragging my feet through the morning dew, I take a mental note of what’s growing in the pasture.

On our farm, St. Isidore’s Mead, we practice Managed Intensive Grazing, which means we move the cows to a fresh strip of grass every 12 hours. The cows are turned into a new pasture after the morning and evening milkings. They spend that time eating a diverse diet of native grasses and wild herbs which give their milk a clean, grassy flavor. The cows in turn fertilize the ground behind them, improving the soils for the future.

St. Isidore’s Mead

“Ca-boss, Ca-boss, come on ladies, let’s go”

“Ca-boss, Ca-boss, come on ladies, let’s go,” I call out to our 15 Jersey cows as, one by one, they begin to rise. First is Hannah; she stands up and immediately whips her long brown tail across her back before going into a downward dog-like stretch and then heads off to the water tank. Next Jenny and Mae stand up, arch their backs and file into the line of cows heading towards the barn.

Back at the barn, my husband Joe sanitizes all the milking equipment. Producing high quality milk is extremely important to us. We will never produce a large amount of milk, but we work to produce the best quality. To ensure that high quality, we milk the old-fashioned way, using a bucket milking system. The bucket milkers are gentler on the cows’ udders, and also on the milk. In a conventional/factory farm system, milk is pumped dozens of times. That pumping shatters the fat globules of the milk. When handled gently, the milk stays in its truest form, creating a fuller flavored milk, perfect for making St. Isidore’s cheese.

At the age of 61, my father, a third generation dairy farmer, became a licensed Wisconsin State cheese maker. Now, when the cows are eating grass as the seasons allow, we transform our grass-fed, organic, high quality milk into a farmstead raw milk cheese. Today is one of those days when we can deliver the milk to him, still warm from the morning’s milking.

After 8 hours of stirring, then adding the rennet and cultures, the curd comes together. The cheese is then pressed and wrapped in butter-soaked cheesecloth, then pressed again to form 20-pound round truckles. A label is sewn into the cheesecloth with the date, the name of the pasture the cows were grazing in, a description of the weather and the names of the cows who produced the milk. The cheese is then moved into a cave with the correct temperature and humidity. The truckles are turned and brushed continuously throughout a one-year hibernation in the cave. This guarantees even moisture throughout the truckle. Mold will grow on the cheese which will provide flavor.

After the evening milking, Joe follows the cows to the field and I make a pit stop to make martinis and grab some curds out of the fridge from this morning’s cheese make. Sitting with Joe in the clover, cocktails in hand, we listen to the cows graze—this is a tradition my father started when we first moved to St. Isidore’s Mead. With the last sip of gin, the rain starts to sprinkle, and we head for home.