When to order "spring" butter?

[tamagotchi]

We periodically have the opportunity to order raw butter through our local buying group. In the past the butter was ordered from farms in Pennsylvania and last year I believe it was from Wisconsin.

If I want to stock my freezer with butter that was made when the cows are eating fresh green pasture in the spring, when would be the best time to order it? I live in California so I don't know much about the seasons back east.

Should we call the farms and ask? What exactly would we ask?

And are there any particular farms that you would recommend? We are looking for great quality butter, but also for a good value (we used to have a regular supplier but started looking for a new source when butter went up to $12 per lb, ouch!)

Thanks!

[westcoastmom]

We used to live a couple of hours from Detroit and would get spring butter roughly April to June (ie for about 2 months) Pennsylvania is usually a week or two ahead. I don't know when you would need to place an order to get spring butter though.

We currently live near Culver City but so far have had no luck finding any local buying groups (the one thing we miss from WA state is all the WAP buying groups)

Do you get better prices buying Pennsylvania butter than say Organic Pastures at $10/lb?

[tamagotchi]

Well, in the past we have paid about $9-10/lb (including shipping) so it's not very different in price from OP butter, but I like the taste and quality much better. When we've had OP butter, it seemed to be sort of waxy and off tasting, and we didn't really want to eat it. The Pennsylvania butter was so tasty that it always disappeared right away