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.