Summer Pasture Notes: The Clover Report

The clover is up this summer, thick as a green rug across the south field, and the cows are in a fine, drowsy temper. Clover in the grass puts a sweetness in the milk that no dairy trick can imitate. You can taste it, a little, like a memory of something warm.

This year’s clover census, taken by Wren the barn cat with some help from a bumblebee, counted roughly 40,000 blossoms in the lower pasture. She stopped counting somewhere around the third bumblebee.

We will bottle the first clover milk of the season next week. Only 60 saucers, and only for subscribers. Ottoline will deliver them herself, in the cart, ringing the bell.