Homeland Creamery

Last Friday morning, Jill invited us to go to Homeland Creamery with them that afternoon. Homeland Creamery is a dairy farm about an hour from here in the little community of Julian, NC. They only deliver milk (and I think some ice cream) to central and northwestern NC. I had never been to a creamery before and I figured the kids might enjoy it, so I packed a quick lunch for all of us, picked Payton up from school, and drove out there for a 1:30 pm tour of the place.

We had a little time to explore before the tour. We visited the turkeys, the calf, and the chickens. We milked the fake cow and took pictures next to the sign. What next, you might ask, do you do at a creamery. Well, they had a 20 minute hayride that took us on a tour.

We first went up the road a little ways to meet the pregnant cows and their lama (the lama wasn't pregnant). Then we went off-roading into an area to visit the 2 year old cows. Then we went down another little road to the juvenile cows (under age 2) - they came up to the fence to check us out. They were the most curious. Then we enjoyed the hayride down a longer dirt road to take a peak at, yup you guessed it, more cows. The last cows were the older cows that had already had a calf. There were 2 bulls with this bunch - they seemed happy

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Then we headed back to the creamery and saw where they milk the cows. We saw the turkeys, calf, chickens, fake milking cow, and sign one more time before we got to have our ice cream sample - yum! The kids enjoyed the hayride, but got a little tired of the cows. When Ian tried to milk the cow, he was very intense. It was almost like he knew what he needed to do and he was going to get to it.

The chocolate ice cream was one of the best that I've ever tasted. Scott thinks the milk is really good too. He says he can tell a difference between Homeland's milk and the everyday milk I buy. Homeland follows organic practices, but isn't certified organic. I couldn't tell a difference, but I'm no connoisseur.