Milk song

I had been wondering, ever since I moved to the countryside in Michigan, why I couldn't find anyplace around here that sold milk, although fresh eggs are readily available. You often see signs by the roadside out here on the country roads, and if you stop you will more than likely find that the egg sales work on the honor system, with just a little mini-fridge with boxes of eggs and a sign that says "Eggs $1.50 per dozen - leave money in the bottom-left drawer. Thank you". But milk is nowhere to be found, it seems.

I had suspected the regulations were just more stringent for milk, especially when I found out that part of the reason the Leopold Brothers were moving to Colorado from Michigan was for a more amenable system for distributing their house-made spirits. Well, today I confirmed my suspicion, when I followed some farming links from an enticing article on cheesemaking in Mother Earth News. I found, first of all, a handy directory of farms in Michigan that have pastured products. There's one farm here in Livingston County called Garden Patch Farm. So I finally found my way to Our Farm and Dairy in St. Johns, Michigan, which makes milk consumption possible for individuals through an innovative Cow Share Program!! (In the process of all this clicky-clickying, I discovered Lake Village Homestead, a farm cooperative in Kalamazoo that I definitely want to visit someday, since their unique educational programs sound rather similar to the ideas I have for if I ever voluntarily exile myself from academia.

In the process, I had a sad little chuckle as I happened upon Joel Salatin's book, entitled "Everything I want to do is illegal: War stories from the local food front". It does make me rather sad as an anthropologist, as I learn and teach about so many different adaptive strategies the world over, when I hear how constantly bogged down in government regulations local food producers seem to be. I want to live dangerously and eat raw-milk cheeses! (Like the Decemberists sing, "We are like vagabonds, we travel without seatbelts on, we live this close to death". . .) Given the nonchalance of the US government to allow citizens to be exposed to any number of frightening toxic chemicals in our air and water, I find it amazing how much they seek to control what we choose to put into our mouths . . .

So, when I can afford to do, I may purchase some cheese cultures and try my hand at the next variety of dairy products, having already happily created ricotta and yogurt that are incomparable. Oh, and I'll also replant my herb garden, since the cad my landlords hired to mow the lawn destroyed my giant tarragon and sage plants, along with the lavender and winter savory. Sigh.

And now, just for strange entertainment value, a video of Korean children advertising the benefits of drinking milk.

Update: Ask and ye shall receive! The lovely folks at Garden Patch Farms pointed me to a local goat herder at Heavenly Dairy in Pinckney, and an organic bovine dairy in Cohoctah Township called Dairy Delight, both also in Livingston County. :) In the words of Kris Unger of Dairy Delight: "We disasterized the food system," she said. "How dare the government tells us we can't drink raw milk."