I've read quite a few articles lately about the benefits of un-homogenized milk.  It seems the pasteurizing process breaks the milk down and removes the beneficial properties.  Add to that the fact that so many cows are fed hormones these days and milk is not really that great for you.  I happen to love milk, to the point that I drank 2 gallons of it a week while I was pregnant.  Thinking about how pasteurization ruins the milk's goodness brought back memories of when my family drank it almost fresh from the cow......

When I was a kid, we lived wayyyyyy out in the country (and I mean it when I say wayyyyy out, check the map below):

The tiny town of Selma (pop. 100) was a 10 mile drive on twisty, narrow roads, so we rarely went into "town".  I'm not sure what "Dryden" is (shown on the map) but there is nothing between the red x and Selma that resembles a town.  To reach our house, you would drive 8 miles on divided county road, then another mile on single-lane paved BLM roads.  Our dirt road counted for another mile, but you could barely do 5 mph on it because of all the ruts and potholes.  Do you get an idea of how far "out" we were?

One of our "neighbors" was a farmer who raised cattle on his ranch.  He had no electricity and no running water, which was not uncommon in our "community" (we had all the modern conveniences in OUR house thankyouverymuch).  He had to be 80 if not older, and was a tough old soul.  He hitched his work horses up to a MANUAL plow and tilled his fields every year on his own; he butchered his own cows; he grew his own fruit and vegetables.  He only had a pickup because he had to go into town for some things he couldn't grow or produce on his own.  Gravy that's a tough life!  I used to pretend he was Laura Ingalls Wilder's grandaddy . 

When we moved up there the fall that I turned 8, we were still white bread/margarine/velveeta/pasteurized milk people.  I didn't know that mac-n-cheese could be made without the blue box.  My idea of "home-cooking" was the pork roasts my mom would make on occasion and served with boxed mashed potatoes and frozen carrots.  We, like everyone else in the "community" (a smattering of 30-40 people living within a 5 mile radius.....I guess you could call them neighbors at a distance) started buying our milk and meat from the old rancher.  The milk would come to us in gallon-sized glass mayonnaise jars with the labels removed.  It would sit in the fridge overnight and mom would scrape the cream off the top to make butter or cottage cheese.  The rest went into a pitcher and I could hardly WAIT for that first glass.  Un-pasteurized whole milk tastes incredible.  I can hardly describe it.  If you didn't let it sit long enough, there would be flecks of yellow butterfat in the milk, which made it all the more delicious.  In fact, I remember sneaking downstairs one night when the milk was separating, shaking it up really well, and drinking a huge glass of it......it was heaven.  I imagine it had the fat content of drinking melted butter, but ohhh it was good. 

When mom wanted to make butter, she would put the skimmed cream into a smaller mayonnaise jar and give it to my step-sisters and I to roll back and forth across the floor.  After a few minutes of intense rolling, a large pat of soft butter would appear in the jar.  Mom would take that out, and we would start rolling again until the entire jar of skimmed cream was butter.  It was completely white almost, so mom would add a tiny bit of yellow food coloring to it so it didn't look so odd.  She also added salt, of course.  It would refrigerate solid and was the most delicious butter you can imagine. 

Our first spring in the new house gave us a garden.  It consumed 1/2 an acre of our property and had 8-foot deer barrier fences.  We grew lettuce, corn, tomatoes, peppers, onions, potatoes, beans, strawberries, pumpkins, watermelons, and of course, mom's prolific marijuana crop.  If anyone had a green thumb, it was my mom.  Then again, my step-sisters and I were bribed with earrings, records, and stationary kits to weed and harvest, so I'm not sure who did the majority of the work there .  I have to tell you, fresh beefsteak tomatoes sliced, sprinkled with salt and pepper and then refrigerated until icy cold are out of this WORLD.  There is something about eating a product that YOU used your hands to grow or harvest that is indescribable.  It just tastes better somehow.

When my dad was home during that summer (he was a long-haul truck driver for Allied back then), we would go wayyyy up in the mountains to an old, abandoned chrome mine, which was a super-secret fishing area.  We pulled dozens of huge, fat trout out of that stream with little more than a clean hook and a worm.  The fish that we didn't eat was filleted and put in the freezer for later.  We also built giant swimming holes in the cool waters of Deer Creek by damming up sections below small sets of rapids.  Us kids would walk up the creek as far as we could and lazily float down the creek until we reached the swimming hole.  Those hot summers were terrific fun.

Our first fall at the new house brought the new duties of canning.  My mom had a swedish juicer, through which we produced gallons of blackberry juice, strawberry juice, apple juice, and jams from all three as well.  We canned corn, corn relish, tomatoes, salsa, and all sorts of odd veggie combos.  We had something called a "fruit house", which is essentially a tiny windowless shack where you store your canned goods that don't fit in your pantry.  Our fruit house was stocked to the gills by November that year as my mom started dehydrating what she couldn't can.  We had a LOT of dried meat.  A LOT.  I guess with nothing else to do, she did what she could with her time.  My dad wouldn't let her work, and living so far out we didn't have but 2 tv channels.  This later brought on her alcoholism, but that's another story - I'm writing about positives today.

Come that first winter, we were stocked to the gills with everything we needed - fresh, frozen, and canned fruits; a side of beef in the freezer; several frozen chickens; dried meats (salami, jerky, etc.).  The only thing we would technically need to go into town for would be seasonings, flour, bread (mom still hadn't figured out baking), soda, etc.  Presumably, that would allow us to only go into town once a month or so.  I know we went more than that though, because of mom's cabin fever and my never-ending need of BOP magazine (come on, I was 8!) and Lik-M-Aid candy.  She developed a taste for cheap jugs of wine on those trips, but again I'm trying to keep my writing positive.

During that winter, we had the worst snowstorm in years.  I've written about it before but can't find the original post.  The snow hit us suddenly, piling up to the bottom of the sash windows.  My dad said that was 2 feet, but honestly it seemed deeper.  Since we lived so far off the beaten path, our roads weren't graded, so we were literally snowed in.  We lost power on the second day when heavier snow came down and weighed down the lines.  Thankfully, we had a fireplace with a cooking hook and a large supply of sterno.  Our large supply of home-preserved food came in handy.....mom even managed to cook a turkey in the cast-iron dutch oven that sat in the fireplace in little spider legs.  The fruits of our labor saved us from eating canned beans and soup.  We ended up snowed in for nearly two weeks due to the invisible roads. 

Looking back, it seemed like a drag as a kid.....but I hold the memory of that year dear to my heart.  My mom's mental health, while shaky at best, was under control.  My step-dad was physically absent 90% of the time due to his job, but we could feel his love.  My step-sisters were still in the "new and polite" stage, so I enjoyed them as well.  It seemed our lives were perfect at that time.

And milk tasted fantastic unpasteurized.

I've been working on a "memories" post for a few days now, but it will have to wait.

I was notified today that due to a budget deficit, my position at work has been cut to 29 hours a week.

44 hours a month missing from my paycheck effective August 1.

What the fuck am I am going to do?

I can't stop crying.  I wish I could catch a break.