Monday, April 19, 2010

A Morning Milking

Still no rain here. Very nice temperature this morning at 4AM, 51°.

I thought I would show everyone what my morning milking is like.

I milk at 8 AM. Head out to the milk parlor (old dairy, remember). Set up the strainer over the container. Prepare a soapy cloth for washing her udder; place in baggie, take drying towel, drop both into stainless steel, seamless 3 gallon milk bucket (never been filled!) and walk out back to the barn I milk in.



From Milking

My milking assistant (DH) by now has the cow, Willow inside the barn, snapped to her tie, with feed in the trough.

I use an old rubber maid step stool for milking, works just right and I tried not to have to buy anything new to begin milking when we bought the cow. Everything I am using was on hand. I do have to buy replacement filters for the strainer and feed.

Here she is in the barn,; her tie rope is just snapped to her halter, the tie left in place all the time on the post of the feed trough.

Her udder before and after milking. I could and should clip her udder but never have. and


If you are milking at the right speed, there should be lots of foam on top
and now back into the milk parlor for straining and bottling

I store her milk and extra eggs in a small refrigerator we began housekeeping (I love the 'mother' term!) with back in 1961. No water in the door, no self-defrost, just a cold box that, by the way, has never had a service call in its life!

and the final step, cleanup. I use the stainless steel sinks left from dairying and use the pipeline cleaner that has lots of bleach in it to clean all containers. Done until I need or want milk again. Total process is done in under an hour.

The rest of the time Ginger gets her fill.notice her milk wet nose.

All in the life of the farm.

7 comments:

  1. Glenda - Thank you thank you thank you for posting your milk morning! Those pictures are so charming and informative. You make me want to have a cow... no, not really. But it sure makes me appreciate your milk mornings even more now. :-D

    P.S. I had to chuckle at the sentence: "I store her milk and extra eggs...." That would make Willow some kinda cow for sure! LOL Hugs...

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  2. Brings back a lot of memories from the 1950's.

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  3. Glenda ~ Thank you for sharing this bit of your farm life. I really enjoyed it. To think you have all that milk and eggs from your own critters.

    Would love to see a picture of the FarmLady someday.

    Hope your week is a good one.

    Hugs ~ FlowerLady

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  4. Kris, I guess I will have to dedicate one post the the hens!

    FlowerLady, I rarely have my picture taken......if I can help it.

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  5. A no frills fridge with home grown milk and eggs, what a more meaningful image than any shiny new one containing food in packages from the supermarket.

    Does Ginger do the tongue up the nose trick? I think of that as more of a young calf practice.
    Rose

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  6. Rose, she sure does! She is getting fat as a butterball; I told my husband to quit feeding her any grain at all. Willow isn't too crazy about the grain and always leaves some in the manger. Then I turn G out and she finishes up. Too much milk, I guess.

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  7. Glenda, we used to dairy and the wash vats and pipeline bring back memories-some good and some bad. Hated milking during the winter. :>)

    Like the new look of your blog.

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