How Nightime got her name

July 1017

Three years ago Hannah and I moved to our current farm and started setting it up. The goal was to build up a small raw milk dairy along with other pastured grown meats. So I started setting things up, fencing in the fields, cleaning up and repairing the milk house, as well as buying  a few milk cows.

Nightime - or as we called her at the time- Newgirl. joined us in June that first year. She is a half Holstein and half Jersey cow but her color is solid black. Newgirl was our biggest cow at the time and very nervous. The day she came to the farm she took off through the few fences I had gotten set up, and joined the neighbors herd of Lineback cows. We let her calm down and got her back home the following day.

Over the summer Newgirl adjusted to the daily routine and settled down. All was normal and quiet. That first year I was working with my brother and his custom furniture business and normally would get home around 5 or 6. As we moved into fall the days got shorter and the cows were making their way out to some of the more distant pastures that I was finally getting fenced in. To make it easier to know where the cows were I put a bell on one of them which really helped if they were moving around. I could usually hear the bell from a good ways off. 

Once we got into  November it was always dark by the time I got out to milk. Picking out the to brown jersey cows at night wasn't to bad. But Newgirl would completely disappear in the night. I had run out of pastures close to the barn so it would be a good trek out to find the cows and even when I could find the other 2, Newgirl would seem lost. If you've ever had to find a black cow on a moonless night then you know it is rather difficult. So that's when I finally got around to naming her Nightime.