A New Addition to the Homestead!
Our Lady’s Ranch in Grass Valley, CA
Joseph Zeiter sheering the sheep in 2012
We’ve had a lot of different animals here at Our Lady’s Ranch, including cows, pigs, sheep, chickens, turkeys, goats, donkeys, llamas, horses, and milking cows! The sheep gave us the worst experiences we’ve ever had with animals. I can’t remember how many countless hours we spent running around in the rain trying to herd them in so they didn’t wander off and drown or find some other ridiculous way to disappear (we finally began to understand Jesus’ comparisons between us and sheep after we had worked with them for so long 😅).
The dairy cows were always the best experience. Not only did we get fresh milk but we also made butter from the cream, oatmeal blueberry pancakes with the leftover buttermilk, crockpot yogurt, and even mozzarella cheese. It was so much fun to experiment with dairy products, and the end results were always so good. Tia and Ali (numbers 3 and 4 in the Zeiter line-up) were always the ones in charge of the milking, feeding, and doctoring of the three different milking cows over the years: Lady, Crystal, and Daisy.
It’s been a while since we had Daisy (unfortunately we don’t have any photos of her! 😭) and recently our new farmers on the homestead have been wanting to have a dairy cow here again. After some discussion and research it happened! So let me introduce the new addition to Our Lady’s Ranch… two-year-old Daisy the Jersey milking cow.
The White family, along with Isaiah and Stevenson, picked the name Daisy without everyone knowing that we had a milking cow with the same name before! It was quite the fun conversation and I just simply laughed when they introduced her to me. “She just looked like a Daisy,” Isaiah said, “so we went with it.” It’s pretty providential, honestly — like minds think alike!
We got our new little Daisy from Oregon House, a residential community here in the area. Everyone had so much fun talking with Farmer Chris, watching a milking demonstration, playing with a newborn calf, and enjoying the beautiful scenery. While Daisy is still young, we can’t wait for her to calf so that we can have fresh milk here again! Fresh butter… fresh buttermilk blueberry pancakes… 😋
Welcoming Daisy, our new Jersey milking cow.
Have you ever made your own bread and spread fresh butter over it while it was still hot from the oven? There is nothing like it 🙂
We hope you can enjoy this tried and true recipe for those awesome pancakes I keep mentioning (written out below this post 😁). They are still amazing even if you have to buy buttermilk from the store!
If you ever come to visit us in person at the farm, then you’ll get to meet Daisy yourself and maybe even try some of the milk too! In the meantime we’ll keep you posted on her progress and hopefully we’ll have pictures of a baby calf to share soon 😉 .
Tyler Straight
Oldest Zeiter Sibling
Graphic Design for OLR
Blueberry Oatmeal Buttermilk Pancakes
INGREDIENTS
• 1.5 cups old-fashioned oatmeal (not instant)
• 2 cups buttermilk (hopefully straight from the farm!)
• 3 eggs (you can tell farm fresh eggs by how yellow the yolk is)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or 0.5 teaspoon almond extract
• 1 cup white flour (1.5 cups almond flour for gluten-free)
• 1 teaspoon each of baking power, baking soda, salt, & cinnamon
• 2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
• Milk or water to add until desired consistency (it can get thick)
• Butter or coconut oil for grilling
**sometimes we like to add chia seeds or protein powder for an extra punch — feel free to play with the recipe!
DIRECTIONS
1. Soak the oatmeal in the buttermilk overnight.
2. In the morning, combine all the wet ingredients and then one at a time add the dry ingredients, stirring fully between each item.
3. Carefully fold in the blueberries
4. Coat your griddle or pan with butter or coconut oil and pour your batter in at the sizes you want! The more oil the crispier the edges will be 😋
5. Serve with maple syrup, local honey, fresh jam, or more fruit!
**for meal prep place a square of parchment paper in between each pancake and stick in the freezer; when you’re ready just pop them in the toaster!
