Self reliance

I sometimes get asked “how do you live without a fridge”, or “how do you get by without having to go grocery shopping all the time” and my answer every time is the same thing: We raise dairy animals and make the most of the milk they produce. When we have dairy, we have the key to self reliance.

When you have milk coming into the kitchen fresh every day, there is no need for refrigeration. Milk is often the most common item people will regularly rush out to the grocery store for, and home-produced dairy, especially when combined with cooking from scratch, gardening, chickens, and bulk good storage gives us much more resilience in the face of any crazy stuff that might happen.

Frugality

Keeping to a budget and noting down everything we spend, I can clearly see that the months with fewer shopping trips are the months when it’s been easiest to stay within budget. Going out frequently for milk, yoghurt, cheese, and other dairy products not only means we’re exposed to a bunch of tempting foods on the shelves at the same time, but also means more fuel costs for the car, more of a sense of our food coming from the grocery store rather than our own land, and more time away from our home, when we could have been working in the garden or doing something else productive.

If you have a taste for high quality cheeses, these can drain the food budget very quickly. When you make your own cheese, even if its not from your own dairy animals, you can create fantastic cheeses that will make you ignore the expensive gourmet cheeses on store shelves.

Homemade yoghurt and other cultured milks are even more affordable to make at home – yoghurt is often around four times more expensive than milk, but can be made very easily at home with nothing more than milk and some leftover yoghurt to use as culture.

Focus

Dairy animals need care every day, and once you’re outside caring for them, it’s easy to fit in other homestead chores, feel more like “real” homesteading, and have a more productive homestead overall. There is nothing like the feeling of bringing in fresh milk every day, and I like the rhythm and stability that dairy animals give to our lives: No matter what is happening around us, I know that every morning begins with milking.

Food and health

Dairy foods are simply delicious. The cheeses I make are tastier and healthier than any cheeses that I can buy, and we can eat as much of them as we like. There is not much that gives a feeling of abundance than having shelves full of many varieties of delicious homemade cheeses at varying stages of aging – some are food for now, others are food for later, all are absolutely delicious and truly make a meal. Cheese is a staple food in my house and can easily become a staple food in your home too.

Next on the blog I’ll be sharing some helpful information about making great yoghurt every time: this is something that I had trouble with for many years and I’m excited to be sharing my tips with you all soon.