Page 3 - Winter2008

Letters

RAW MILK RECOVERY non-fat milk which I refused to consume. what this was and called a friend in the
I grew up in the Netherlands. For At one point after the hospitalization I city to find out. She told us that these are
25 years there, I consumed raw milk. told my wife, “I’m losing ground.” I felt small cisterns of raw milk from nearby
My family would take a bucket full of like I was going down. Then I resumed farms (she had no details about them)
milk and put it in the cellar because we consuming raw milk at the rate of one that regularly appear in the courtyards
didn’t have refrigeration, and they would and one-half gallons per week. That’s of apartment houses. They look a lot like
skim it. Whenever the cream turned not quite a quart a day. Since then I’ve a kvass cistern—except for the decora-
sour, I always got the sour cream. . . been told that I look really healthy. I tions, of course! Residents come out
because I was the runt of the litter, and divorced my wheelchair and I’m now with pitchers and other containers and
it was good for me. When I came to trying to orphan my cane. receive milk from the spigot. Our friend
this country in 1950, I was employed in I’m nearly 84 years old, and I’m do- said the same milk is available bottled
the dairy industry, and I still drank raw ing my part in fighting the government in the shops, but the cistern milk is
milk—I never took to the pasteurized to keep them from interfering with my cheaper and tends to go sour faster. It is
and homogenized milk that you have raw milk. To paraphrase John McCain, not refrigerated; a truck brings it into the
here. “I’ll go to the gates of hell to defend raw courtyard, detaches the cistern and an
When my wife and I adopted our milk.” attendant with an apron services the pa-
daughter, we were told that she was Ed De Boer trons. They sell out quickly and a truck
lactose intolerant. Well, we solved that Bakersfield, California comes to retrieve the empty cistern. The
problem with raw milk. I got it from attendant dutifully recommends that
my own cows because by that time I FROM RUSSIA you boil the milk. This arrangement is
had my own dairy. My cows greatly WITH LIVING MILK very common, apparently. We asked our
outperformed those of my neighbors, Yesterday we
and I credit that success to pasturing received a book of
my herd once a day. After five years photos by an old
I moved to a dry-lot operation, which friend who is the
brought on leptospirosis [a bacterial head of urban plan-
disease of animals and humans] in my ning in St. Peters-
herd. At that point I stopped drinking burg. Volodya is also
my own product and I told my raw milk a talented amateur
customers I didn’t feel right about it… photographer who’s
so I stopped giving it to them. I went exhibited his work
to considerable expense to solve the around the world.
disease problem. After overcoming the This latest collection
illness in my cows, I was financially of photos from St.
exhausted and sold the herd. Petersburg included
It wasn’t until three or four years one of a small cistern
ago, after moving to Bakersfield, that on wheels, cheer-
I started drinking raw milk again. I’ve fully painted like a
been a steady customer of Organic cow with the words
Pastures ever since. I recently recovered “Living Milk” on its
from hospitalization during which I side.
didn’t get any raw milk. They offered me We wondered

WINTER 2008 Wise Traditions 3