I spend more time that your average person plotting about milk. This is a result of both our remote location so far from stores, and the fact that we just go through so much milk.
We will use five gallons a week of milk, if we have it. Keeping that much milk on hand at all times is very difficult when the nearest store is 60 miles away. And that store doesn't have reliably good milk, either.
Here's the breakdown for our milk supply*.
There is a very tiny kind of convenience store that's about 10 miles away that sometimes has milk. It's good quality, but sometimes it's all been purchased. And often, the store isn't open when it's supposed to be. So that's not a reliable source.
The next-closest store is 60 miles away. They have a good quantity of milk on hand at all times, but it often goes bad quickly, or is actually kind of off when we open it. I'm guessing that's because they're at the end of the supply lines and so the milk has had to travel a long time and be exposed to a lot of loading and unloading temperature changes on a truck. So I avoid buying milk there if I can.
There are a few regular grocery stores within 90 miles that always have milk, but one of them has the same problem of quality as the closer store because it's on the same trucking route. In fact, almost all the stores we go to have some problem with quality and longevity. More often than not, milk starts to separate or just plain taste bad before we get to the end of the four or five gallons we buy at a time.
The absolute best place to buy milk is Walmart. It is always fresh, it rarely goes bad within the week, and it's the cheapest, too. But of course, there is only one Walmart we can get to, and it's 90 miles away.
Where we buy milk has everything to do with where we need to be for something else, usually a basketball game or a hay run in the winter.
So figuring out when and where to buy milk this week looks like this:
We currently have 3/4 of a gallon of milk left. The last gallon of milk we opened from that same grocery run started separating immediately, which means this one will probably not last long. I can probably water it a little bit and make it last two days, but that's about it.
I had been planning to go to Walmart on Thursday and then stop at a basketball game on my way home, since I had to be going that way anyway. But now that basketball game isn't happening.
So.
Will the very small store in the next village over be open today? Will they have milk? If yes and I can get even one gallon of milk, we're good until Friday. The hay place in the big town with the Walmart is open on Fridays, so A. could go get milk then.
I could just go to Walmart this morning, bypassing the small store entirely, but that would be a trip solely to go to the grocery store, which feels like a waste because it's so far.
If I can't get milk at the small store and don't go to Walmart today, we will be out of milk for at least two days. This happens somewhat regularly and it's not the end of the world, but it's annoying.
I know someone is going to say, "Why don't you just get a milk cow?" Because I do not want a milk cow. I know exactly how much work that would be for me, and frankly, this sort of convoluted planning is easier for me than milking every day, sterilizing equipment, making cheese, etc.
Anyway, that's where I am today: Pondering whether I want to drive two hundred miles roundtrip for groceries. Stay tuned.
* I bet you never expected anything so fascintating when you showed up today, right? Right.
12 comments:
Do you freeze gallons of milk? Do you use dry milk for cooking?
According to Parmalot, they have qts of shelf-stable milk at the Walmart you shop at. It is expensive, but having a few four packs of the quarts might be sensible if it can reduce the # of 200 mile milk runs. I see why the kids enjoy the milk here when they are visiting!
My mom would mix milk with reconstituted dry milk to stretch it. That might not help long term if the milk doesn't stay fresh in the fridge for 4 or 5 days, but it can eek out another meal or two. I don't know if that would save money though. I've had mixed results freezing milk.
Could you get milk through your school district? You're there every few days at least. An extra case of little milks might not cost too much.
Maybe a small fridge to dedicate to storing milk only, so the extra gallons can sit undisturbed, instead of being in a crowded fridge with lots of activity.
Also, check to make sure your fridge doesn't have ice build up in the passage from freezer to fridge. When my milk starts turning quicker than expected, it's because the cold air flow has dropped. Then I need to take a day defrosting the fridge. ( a few hours, using a hair dryer to speed things along.) Better done in winter when you can store cold things outside while you defrost.
I'm with you on milk cows. Everytime I see a YouTuber online getting a cow I think "Do you know how much work a cow REALLY is?"
The whole milk we buy doesn't freeze well, so no. It tends to separate. I don't know if that's another consequence of it not being super-fresh when we get it. I don't cook a ton with milk--most of our consumption is for yogurt or just drinking--but I do use dry milk when we get low on liquid milk.
I did buy some of that shelf-stable milk once. The kids won't drink it, though, so there's nothing I would have it for that wouldn't be better served with the dry milk.
My kids can taste it when I add the dry milk, but I can get away with just watering it a little bit, maybe when it's a quarter emptied.
And I should have added: I used to buy milk through Sysco at our school every week. I can get a box of four whole gallons delivered with the school order. I stopped doing it because we were usually going somewhere for something else that allowed us to get milk, but given the difficulty of getting milk to last through the week without going off, I'm thinking I should start doing that again. It's very fresh and I've never had a problem with it spoiling.
I feel like we don't have quite the same problem living here in Alaska, BUT when we buy milk, it sours so quickly because we're at the end of the supply chain, too. It's crazy the things you have to think about! Wild!
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Oh yes, I would imagine that would be an issue in Fairbanks. I didn't drink as much milk growing up as my children do now, so I don't remember issues with milk when we lived there, but I'm sure that's a problem.
Have you tried evaporated milk diluted? It might stretch a gallon and it'd be shelf stable. mbmom11
I've tried freezing milk too, but without success. It always separates. I do cook with evaporated milk or dried milk, only in emergencies, but not only will the kids not drink it plain, I won't either. Yuk.
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