We have been on our 10 acres at Bombay for a bit over 3 years and had some young beefies until August last year when they had reached 2 years and 450KG and were starting to chop up the ground too much. After a bit of messing about we finally acquired Tansy (7 year old Dexter) and her daughter Iris with her latest calf in tow. The cal went back to the breeder about 2 weeks ago and suddenly we had LOTS of milk which WAS the plan. But as usual, we had not quite grasped the scale of what we needed to do.

The milk may or may not last a lot longer, we have zero experience in effectively milking and managing the flows, although Tansy and I are working well together and she is producing about 4-5 litres a day at the moment and we are making some cheddars, haloumi, paneer, yoghurt and so much ricotta that we are practically not using any butter on the sandwiches. If I can make it last through the winter I will be more than happy.

We picked up some 5 litre containers from Arthur Holmes (BIG plug for those guys for preserves jars, lids etc) and a double door chiller off Trade Me which only needed a small top-up of gas to get going. It runs as high as 10C so I’m planning to use it both to store the milk in sealed jars and to age the cheese.

We have hit our first snag with some moulds (pink, white, blueish – JAFA climate being what it is) and are busy brining the cheddars twice a day to keep them under control.

Suggestions, critiques and ideas/warnings welcome.