Milking a Cow

Our son-in-law emailed us a picture of our daughter milking a cow today. She had opportunity to try her hand at milking a cow with her granddad as a kid, so it is not entirely new to her, but that was a long time ago. Her husband has been gathering the equipment for milking: an electric cream separator, a pasteurizer, butter churn, and directions on how to make various cheeses. So this is shaping up to be more than a one-time experience for them.

When I went to school, we learned about where our milk came from.  The book showed a pristine dairy where cows were cleaned and milked by machines in sanitary conditions tended by men in white uniforms.  The milk was loaded into shiny silver milk trucks, pasteurized, put into containers and sold at the store.  None of this matched the picture of what went on in our barn. We had one milk cow.  You do not milk a cow when you need milk or if it fits into your schedule; you milk a cow twice a day regardless.  My dad eased his work load by putting two bull calves in with the cow in the mornings so he did not have to milk, plus these calves  really grew with the added nutrition.  At night, he would milk the hobbled cow who was switching her tail back and forth, surrounded by meowing cats, waiting for their share of the warm milk. Once he finished milking the cow, he would pour some steaming milk into a pan for the cats and hang the bucket of milk on a peg above the pen where the cats could not reach it.  Once we had finished feeding and brushing our calves, one of us took it to the house to mom.  I tested centrifugal force on my way to the house with the bucket, swinging it around horizontally and finally vertically over my head.  I never did loose any milk.

I can remember mom using a cream separator which swirled the milk separating the cream into one container and milk into another.  The machine worked very well, but cleaning it was time consuming, so before long the machine sat idle. (As an adult, I asked my dad if I could have the cream separator, and he thought I was crazy.  Now it sits by my back door holding flowers.)  Mom would strain the warm milk through cheesecloth into a gallon glass jar.  When the milk cooled, the cream rose to the top so she could skim the cream off and we drank the milk.  Mom used soured cream to make tender  sour cream cinnamon twist rolls and an awesome sour cream chocolate cake.  After dad quit milking and she did not have the cream, she didn't make the rolls or cake any longer because she did not realize that you could use commercial sour cream, which was nothing like our sour cream.

When we moved back my husband's family ranch on his grandparents place shortly after we graduated from college, my husband had a cow to milk.  He milked first thing in the morning and the milk cow could be quite contrary, which did not get the day off to a good start.  I used the same approach to taking care of the milk as my mother did straining it into a gallon jar.  I made butter using a blender--quick and easy pressing the buttermilk out of the butter and shaping it into cubes.  The butter was delicious on our homemade bread. I also made cottage cheese, which turned out better some times than others.  There were times when it turned so rubbery that I think it would have bounced! I remember reading our kids a book about people who had car trouble and got help from a nearby farmer.  The children in the story were amazed to see the cow and the milking process because they thought milk came from a carton.  My son looked up from the book and asked me, "Mom, what is a carton?"  He had no idea because that was not how our milk came to the house.

 We enjoyed having the milk, but I know that milking was not an enjoyable task for my husband. It is such a daily task! Our son and daughter-in-law would also like a milk cow for their family's needs as well.  It will be interesting to see how all of this works out in this next generation.