YUMMY! FRESH! LOCAL! PURE! Shatto Milk Company’s milk and other dairy products are all of that and more.
I took my oldest two kids on a “Mom field trip” up to Osborn, Missouri earlier this week for a tour of the Shatto Milk Company. You’ve seen their glass bottles in the grocery store. Hopefully, you’ve even tasted their great milk. We may have met the cow that milk came from on Tuesday morning. It was a blast!
We started out from south Overland Park and made the trek in about an hour and a half. Osborn is way NORTH – as far north as St. Joseph but further east. I would guess it was about 40 minutes north and west of Liberty. But we were armed with water bottles, snacks and Radio Disney – so it was all good.
Once we got to the Shatto farm, the tour was broken up into four basic parts. First, we stopped into their little store and were treated to SAMPLES! We tasted banana milk, strawberry milk, orange milk (think “Creamsicle”), root beer milk and chocolate milk. Strawberry and chocolate were the favorites of my kids.
Then we moved into the bottling facility. The Shatto farm is a small, family-owned business. This is no impersonal plant. Leroy Shatto himself showed us around – explaining all of the pasteurizing, cheese-making, butter-churning, bottle-washing and bottling machinery. The kids thought it was great. They really paid attention and even asked questions (they’re five and six).
The next spot we checked out was a barn. They have three pens set up to allow the tour to get up close and personal. The first pen had two and three month old calves. The second pen had two and three DAY old calves. They were darling. And the last pen had “Patches” who graciously allowed a slew of little kids try to milk her – with the help of one of the Shatto employees, of course.
“MOM! I milked a cow!” exclaimed my city-slicker daughter, wiping her hands on her shirt.
Finally, we filed into the milking facility. There are “parking spots” for 12 cows to be hooked up to the automated milking machines. The employee who gave the talk in this room was really great with the kids. She explained every step of the process in a very simple way. I think they all understood. Then she showed them how it worked, milking the six cows she had lined up. She finished by letting the kids put their fingers into the milking machine so they could see that it doesn’t hurt the cows at all.
Kids being kids, of course, the highlight of that demonstration may have been seeing one of the cows pee and another one poop on her way out of the room. Gales of laughter and lots of pinched noses!
It was a great day. The kids really enjoyed it. They were full of stories to tell Dad when we got home. And I liked it too. You know, we don’t get up and out of our comfort zone too much. It’s nice to do it once in a while. To experience a different slice of life – good for us and good for the kids.
We finished our day of dairy at Steak & Shake in Liberty where the kids downed grilled cheeses and milkshakes before heading back home. Tired and happy.
Shatto Milk Company offers tours Tuesday through Saturday. The tour costs $4 per person and reservations are required. (I made my reservation at the very end of the school year and late July was the first open slot!)
