Dear Farm Journal,

My plan for bringing a cow to Keewaydin has fully launched. As Rufus suggested, I began talking with Papa Rich. After a few conversations, he is ALL IN, and he is exactly the mentor I need to teach me about dairy cows. As a former dairy farmer of a registered herd of holsteins, he is extremely knowledgeable about what makes a good cow, and I am grateful for that. I am told he kept exceptional herds of cows and was always very invested in maintaining quality bloodlines.  Apart from spending time at my best friend’s dairy farm as a kid and helping out with barn chores, I have no experience. Papa Rich basically has a PHD in dairy cows. After a conversation with him yesterday, I had to ask Rufus to fill me in on some of the terminology like, “springer” and “freshen”. I have to admit that I am fascinated in learning about this animal that has been so important to our state. We have decided to look into Jersey cows and today Rich contacted the American Jersey Cattle Association and spoke with someone at length about where we can find the perfect Jersey cow. He is not going to let us get “some piece of shit cow” and he is willing to make up the difference in price so that we can have the best, a pedigreed, top 10%, A2 quality tested milk, masterpiece of a cow. He was given contact information for the farms that would have this upper echelon type Jersey, and we are going to go see some of these beautiful bovines. I am pumped! We started out talking about one cow. Today the number thrown around was four.  

~Joy