Happy Cow Creamery

When LilE was 2, she stayed with some friends who home school while we were out of town. She tagged along on a field trip to a local dairy farm and loved it from what I was told.
Since then, I have always wanted to take her back and check this place out. Supposedly, their milk is awesome! And they have strawberries you can pick also. And since it is now strawberry season, I thought it would be a perfect time to do both. Until I called and realized all the tours were booked until July. BOO! Who knew it was so popular? But, because we had a teeny group, we were able to join in with another group! YEA!!

We loaded up the Tahoe with car seats, camp chairs, picnics, and ice chests and make the trek 40 miles down the road. The kids were so excited!

We arrived early to eat our picnic lunch. And we had a little photo op with the 'dry' cows, otherwise known as the maternity ward. I felt like I fit in right there in the parking lot.

Near the picnic area they had a milking area for the kids to practice.

Due to prices of strawberries, we chose to pick our strawberries a bit closer to home. And boy am I glad we did. It. Was. HOT.

We started the tour. Not too much to take pictures of. We took a trolley ride out into one of the fields. They rotate their cows and the types of grass to keep the cows eating green grass all year long. Eating grass in the fields is what makes their cows happy. The tour lady said that in the beginning the cows were cooped up in the barn and were making about 50 lbs of milk at each milking time. Then the cows decided they didn't want to be in the barn all the time and they escaped. After eating the grass in the fields they then began to produce twice as much milk a day...200 lbs!! Holy Moly that's a lot of milk. And that is why they keep green grass all year long. They also bottle their milk on site after a low temp pasteurization--which keeps all the natural vitamins in the milk (they don't have to be re-added like the milk in the store).

We were also able to go into the milking barn and see how that is set up, but it wasn't milking time, so we didn't get to watch the entire process. Fortunately, we saw that at the State Fair of Texas last fall.

And after the tour we were able to taste test some products: strawberry milk, chocolate milk, whole milk, and of course, ice cream! It was all so rich, thick, and SO good!! We brought some home for JD to try as well.

We had such a fun day. I think I was more interested in the entire process than LilE was, but that's okay. It was well worth the drive! And I would love to go back again one day when we are studying the farm!