There was a good chance that Cheddar the cow was Farmer Bob’s
favorite animal. Drumstick the chicken was Farmer Bob’s alarm clock,
which were useful, and Saddlebags the horse was fun to ride, but
Cheddar was the most useful. Bacon mostly ate leftovers from the
kitchen table and snorted a lot. Wool the sheep gave fur once or twice
a year, but that wasn’t that big of a deal. Wool clothes made Farmer
Bob all itchy and scratchy anyway.
Why was Cheddar so useful? Well, Baaaad Boy the goat could keep a field nearly as clear of
grass and thistles as Cheddar, but he couldn’t make milk. Girl goats can make milk for certain,
but the boy ones can’t. Cheddar, on account of being a girl, made milk. Milk meant dairy. Dairy
meant lots of delicious stuff.
Farmer Bob would milk Cheddar every morning. He’d sit on a stool and
collect her milk in a silver pail. Then he’d do a number of things to it. Raw
milk could be heated up to kill any bad germs and drank, if wanted. Or,
he could separate the cream out to get fresh cream. He could add
cultures to it to make sour cream. Cream could also be churned into
butter. That was a bit of a workout for the arms, though. The milk could
be drank or cultured into yogurt, too. Ice cream was also a possibility.
There were just so many delicious dairy products!
Farmer Bob loved his dairy foods. He was even known to make a bit of
cheese from time to time, which was his favorite dairy food. And what
was his favorite kind of cheese? Cheddar, of course. Cheddar the cow
helped him make cheddar cheese.