Mary Quick's Dairy Diary

December 2005

A friend told me people prefer the season of your birthday, and find the opposite season the most difficult - I’ve been asking people and so far it works.

I love the spring - I’m May-born. I enjoy the least the darkest days of the year, when vigour and vitality is dropping into the earth. My son, a January boy, loves cold, wild weather, dark journeys and warm fires, and I can see it through his eyes.

The last tattered leaves come off the trees. The hedges have the last of the fruit spindles, holly, hips and haws on them and the winter birds turn up. Our seed crops and stubbles, left for them, come into their own, with flocks of finches swooping around, disturbed by everything. I saw an otter crossing the road, the first one I’ve seen. The rivers are full after the wet late autumn - what do otters do when the rivers get to be a raging torrent? Maybe that’s why he was on the move, keeping out of harm’s way.

CROPS - The crops look well after an easy autumn - warm and enough rain. They are well grown, telling of next year’s harvest already, so we don’t get stuck with the glooms of winter. In the same way, the clean, bright straw we use for bedding tells of last harvest. I love the sensation of time rolling round and round, not a long line like a road, more a merry-go-round.

COWS - The cows are off the grass now, keeping the pasture safe from their feet, although there’s still a good bite of grass that will come in for them to graze early next year.

The cows are going dry now - their 8 weeks holiday from milking before they calve in February. This year, we are grazing them on stubble turnips sown just after harvest. We’ll see how this works in the colder winter everyone predicts. Our crossbred Friesian x Ayrshire should cope well.

The cows are in that content, late pregnant state that makes them a delight to be around.

YEARLINGS - The yearlings are all tucked up in the barn, growing on in their free winter, before they are served to get in calf to join the herd. They are a delight to watch as they come to you, curious, then wheeling around and chasing each other to the other end when they discover you are of little interest.

IN-CALF HEIFERS - The in-calf heifers are now slowed down by their growing calves, becoming more stately and less teenage. Their udders are developing - as one local auctioneer puts it ‘a tidy little vessel in the making’. They grow less now as the calf demands more, and we look after them to make sure they are not too fat, not too thin for calving in February.

PIGS - I love the quiet of the farrowing houses - the great sows, lying quietly as labour takes them, or tossing to get themselves more comfortable. The little piglets are born in a slurp of piglet and tissues. There’s the drama as they take their first breath - how do we all do it? then stirs its legs, in such a short time freeing themselves, wobbling onto four legs, blindly driven to nuzzle, crazy legs lurching to find what they want, how do their mouths know to find the teat, suckle the strength-giving colostrum. It’s a daily wonder that can’t fail to move you.

CHEESE - Our own milk is down to very little as the cows come to the end of lactation, and then they all go on their holidays before next lactation. So we bring in milk from our neighbours - the same river system, similar soil type, not too much maize, nice clean milk. It’s very complementary to our own milk, particularly as our own is getting very rich at the end of lactation. Our cheese store is looking more empty as we sold cheese out to customers for Christmas. This is also the time we sell a lot of small truckles - the 1.8kg (4lbs) or 550g (1¼ lbs) so we never know if we’ve got the numbers right, but suddenly cheese racks are clearing fast.

RECIPE - We’ve been playing with the Double Gloucester recipe, and now it’s got enough salt in it. Too little salt and it goes bitter - we all need to watch our salt intake but in cheese, salt is functional. The problem as that Double Gloucester is a moister cheese in the cooler and all the salt we put on was being washed away by the whey. We’ve done the trick with adding more and stirring it in well.

The Silver Medal it won in the British Cheese Awards does it justice. I’ve just been enjoying it as a real nibble and can’t stop cheese, delicate, and creamy in flavour. Try it again - enjoy with some wine with a few friends or family to chat and enjoy each other’s company before a meal.

After Christmas I get ‘et out’, and look for easy ways to eat. I’ve always got the ham stock from my Christmas ham, and it’s not too salty if I’ve blanched the ham, discarded the water when boiling and start again. I cook up roughly chopped winter vegetables in ham stock until tender. I whiz it all up, and serve with grated Quickes Traditional Double Gloucester on the top and some bread and butter. It’s plain fare after Christmas, but warming and easy.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

MARY QUICKE

www.wfu.org.uk