For those of you who haven't been following our Instagram stories @holtzleatherco then you may not know that we bought Kelsey (our 3rd oldest daughter) a milk cow for Christmas.
I know right...who asks for a milk cow for Christmas?
Anyways–
Judah and I have been tasked with the responsibility of milking Clairabelle (the milk cow) every morning. If you're like me then you're probably asking why doesn't the daughter who asked for the milk cow actually milk the cow???
Good question...
Coleen (who always seems to come up with great ideas)... said, wouldn't it be sweet if Dad takes over the milking so that Kelsey could focus on better things like making the cheese, butter and byproducts that come from the milk.
It was a hero dad moment, I knew I could show support but I might regret it later...
By the way the milk has been AAAAAAMAZING!! Well, that was until...
Kelsey left us for a couple weeks and took a flight out to Hawaii to visit her sister.
And things kind of went downhill from there. We, in all of our new cow wisdom, thought it would be great to push the cow out of her paddock to greener pastures. We thought the fresh green grass on the other side of the fence looks prodigious.
{Prodigious | Yes, I used thesaurus to find a better word for amazing. By the way, it means wonderful or marvelous.}
The next morning as we brought Clairabelle into the stall, Judah and I immediately smelled a repulsive odor coming from our beautiful milk cow. Not sure what it was, we proceeded to do our daily chore... but curiosity was building in our minds.
Milking has developed us into a wagering family.
Each morning as we bring the milk in, everyone begins betting (these are friendly bets of course) on how much milk the cow gave us and we all watch in anticipation. However, on this particular day, everyone began making nasty little faces as the milk had a very DISTINCTIVE and bad bad odor. (Yes, I used bad bad I probably could've thrown a 3rd bad in there).
It was onions! We found out that Clairabelle loves onions but onions and milk don't go together (unless you're making chive butter... that might be worth testing?
We had to pull her back into the paddock to figure out how to deal with the onions but I think we've figured it out!
Lessons & Advice For Our 2021 Graduates
Thinking about the season we're in, 2021 graduation. I wanted to use this simple story about milking a cow to give 2021 graduates a piece of advice.
Don't stay in the paddock!PUSH yourself out into those greener pastures! But, be prepared that you're going to face many new challenges. Some will be good and others, well... just might STINK. One thing is for sure... it will never be exactly the way you expect but I guarantee that you will grow wiser and become stronger.
Oh, one more thing...
It's okay if every now and again you have to come back to the paddock to regroup but NEVER STOP pushing yourself out there!
Congratulations graduates!!! Below is a small collection of some of my favorite grad gifts.
Inventor, probably our all around best journal... I take mine everywhere and every member of our family uses it for journaling, doodles, and testing out ideas.
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