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Butter

yellow spring butter
butter making water hand

We’re absolutely convinced that looking at the photos on the Well Fed Farm feed will convert anyone to homesteading. Aaren, the mama behind the account, lives with her two teenage sons on a farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia where she raises and grows a wide variety of animals and produce and makes it all look oh so delicious. The following is an excerpt of a previous Instagram takeover.

 

milk cream in jar
butter making apron

Anyone else obsessed and basically keeping a cow or three for just the butter? I make a lot of butter. In the spring when the cattle are eating lush, fast growing forage it’s the most rich- nutrient dense- gold there is. But winter butter is nothing to sneeze at either. In fact, it’s actually preferable for pastry.

I hand skim the thick cream and if I am culturing it, I will add my culture or catch it from the air or use leftover buttermilk. In the winter I culture the cream for up to a week. Sweet cream means zero culturing. Making butter takes time. And when you add everything up keeping a cow takes in addition to all your time I only half joke good 100% grass-fed happy cow raw butter is probably worth $400 a pound. I do not barter butter. I do keep a freezer full as well as a pantry shelf with nutty decadent ghee.

 

All the water washes get poured over chicken or hog feed. No waste. Once you start living a life full of good butter there is no going back.

(First image SPRING butter. Last image WINTER butter.)

butter making water
winter butter

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woman in hat selfie

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