Moooove along

 I remember a joke:  What did one cow say to the other cow in the line?  MOOOve along!  Well, that certainly is the sentiment among the bovine ladies in the field.  

The tour was "Follow the milk from the farm to cheese".  We were picked up at our guesthouse (amazing place with a view over the water to Pico) and then it was up the mountains to the central plateau where Manuel has his dairy farm.  He has 36 cows, mostly Holsteins bred with semen from Semex in Canada, which he is in the process of drying off for the winter.  The cows are rotated through high pastures every two days so they don't destroy the field which is always wet as it rains at some point almost every day. 

 The portable milking station gets pulled by tractor to whichever field is currently in use.  It is accompanied by a little pickup with the tank on the back.  The girls are eager to come as they are fed a tasty, pelleted supplement while being milked.  There is a definite hierarchy for order, but each one gets her turn.  The pastures are so clean that no udder washing is necessary, and there is just a conditioning dip afterwards -- bright green to identify those done. Ian remarked that it was the closest he had ever been to cows and was successful in his attempt at milking.  However, the "city" in him came through when he tried the fresh milk -- not for him.

There are 20,000 cows on St. Jorge (compared with 8,000 humans) and all the milk goes to making St. Jorge cheese, the most famous of all the Azorean cheeses.  Twice a day the milk is driven to the collection station within a half hour of milking.  From there it goes to one of the three cheese factories on the island. No pictures were allowed inside, but we followed the milk to the making of the cheese, the waxing and aging, then the scraping off of the wax before the cutting and packaging.  We were decked out in full sanitary gear for our tour.

Of course, there was a cheese tasting, 3 month, 7 month and 24 months.  Since the first settlers were Flemish, there is a definite resemblance to some of the Dutch cheeses, especially in the younger ones.

Our guesthouse here on the south side of this island (the brown island because of the cliffs) overlooks the strait to Pico.  We have a compact room with access to a full kitchen.  The place is kept immaculate and is very peaceful, especially since there is only one other person here currently.  

The garden is lovely, particularly the succulent garden which, I was told, came from little bits all over the world.  No wonder I had never seen some of those varieties before.  But the natural landscape is impressive also.  The invasive morning glory climbs over everything giving a blanket effect.  Even rocks seem to sprout greenery. 

And today we fly back to San Miguel -- the green island.