How nice of you to share a moment with Evelyn and her calf. I am sure that not all farmgirls at heart have milked a cow. Merry Christmas. Bonnie

Thanks, Bonnie! What I REALLY wish is that you all could come and milk with me IN PERSON! Oh, well…next best thing, I guess! xoxo, Libbie

I swear by bag balm- after cleaning the udders after milking- I liberally apply bag balm to them. It keeps them soft, and helps sanitize them. I find this keeps down infections. Bleach tends to dry out udders- so this would be really good for you to use.
We lived across the street from a dairy farm and I milked a cow every morning for our personal milk. The owner/neighbor believed in me learning the old fashioned way as a kid- and I learned to love it. I use bag balm on goats as well- and even my own hands. I always keep a tin of it on my farm. Good luck with your new girl!

I have used Bag Balm – and I just love it, too. I hadn’t thought of the anti-infection part of it, though! Now it’s on my next shopping list… Thank you! xoxo, Libbie  

I don’t know that I could milk a cow like I did grpwing up on the farm now. We milked about 10 cows by hand and had quite a bit of milk. We strained it and put it in gallon jugs. When the cream rose to the top it was removed and we churned it to make butter. The buttermilk was used for made from scratch biscuits. As a family of seven children and our parents we made two large cookie sheets of biscuits for breakfast. I would use the sifter and sift Martha White self rising flour into a big dishpan. Then I would hollow out the center and pour in about four cups of buttermilk and a about cup of melted butter. I would use a spoon to begin with stirring the milk and butter while scraping a bit of flour from the sides. When it reached a workable consistency, I used my hands and pan kneaded it til it was just right for biscuits. Light and fluffy. I would take a handful and roll it around and then place it on the greased cookie sheets. When I ran out of dough I flattened them til they all touched. Then they were baked in a preheated to 400 degree oven. They rose and filled the pans while baking. They amelled heavenly and went well with the rest of the meal. Often when we came in from school and changed our clothes to go to the fields to work we would poke a hole in a left over biscuit and pour cane syrup we had made in and let it soak up and repeat til we had what we wanted of the syrup in the biscuit. On the way to the field we would eat those syrup filled biscuits and be ready to pump the water from the hand pump so we could all get a drink of water before starting to work. And if you really want a treat make biscuit pudding out of left over biscuits. It is like the bread pudding people made out of bread but we didn’t have light bread so we used biscuits. Yummy.

Oh Alice! Those biscuits sound WONDERFUL!!! Thank YOU for making them "with" me. xoxo – Libbie

Hi! I so want a cow, but we haven’t ventured down that path yet. Do you milk once or twice a day? What do you do with all the milk? do you drink a gallon a day? I haven’t gotten a handle on how we would handle all that milk if we did get one. Here is Texas iwth the drought I am glad I don’t have one right now. enjoyed the article!
Thanks,

I miss life on the farm. I live in the city now, but dream of a small farm someday soon.(we have the land, need to build the house) I grew up with milk goats. The process is very much the same.

Now, you have to do this two times a day, right?

Nice story- thanks for sharing. The note from the boys was a definite hug. It’s been many a year since I tried to milk a cow, but I remember Grandpa Lloyd milking Jers and Old Gerns at our farm in Ohio when I was a kid. Mamma and Grandma Grace would make caramels out of the cream and sell them for a dollar a pound ( this was in the ’50s). My job was to cut the squares of waxed paper to twist them in. Your boys will have such memories, too.

I grew up in the 4-H program, we showed and milked dairy cows, Jersey. My school teacher lived on a big dairy farm that I spent time on each summer with my dad. He put up silage with her hubby, and I kept her youngest son company, riding his pony which wouldn’t behave for him, we would do clean up after dinner, and go out to pick goose berries for her for pies,on the creek, take out lemmon aide and cookies to the guys, and get everything ready for the evening milking. They did 100 or more twice a day. Galen and I would get all the feed ready, and bring in the gang when it was time. We would make sure the wash water was always clean and hot, and that the milk was running through the tubs, and not getting plugged going into the tanks. and let the girls back out again. It sure didn’t seem like work, we enjoyed it, and each other. We were pals, and we learned alot together. Then Dadand I would go home and milk our 2. the only problem I had was one of our cats jumped off of something, landed on my cow, Star, while I was milking her, clawed her as she slid down her side, Star freeked out, jumped forward, and stuck her foot in the milk pail and messed up the milk which had to be thrown out. So my suggesstion would be to keep the cats out.

We are contemplating farm life and a cow would be fun. I have never been around farm animals and am a little apprehensive. It looks like a fairly simple thing to do. I am reading everything I can get from the library.

hopefully soon, down on the farm.

I am currently milking 2 nubian goats. For nyone who cant do the commitment of a cow gots are great. the cream doesnt rise to the top though like cows milk. That is becuse goats milk is naturally homoginized. So if you want cream for butter or other things you will need a cream seperator. I also milk from the left but this is because of how my milking stand is set up. When I strain my milk I use a big milking funnel (available from Hoeggerfarmyard.com) and it fits on a mason jar. I dont use the paper filters though. I use butter muslem (like cheese cloth but finer, available from cheese making supply houses) and I fold it in 4 and strain my milk through that. i wash it out after each use and hang it to dry. Also the jars I store my milk in are place in the freezer before I go to milk. The milk cools a little faster then i put the milk in the fridge. i milk twice a day. Happy milking!!!

WOW how amazing, Our Dexter calved on Dec 1st and we just started milking her in much the same way, sharing the milk with her calf. Brought me back 20 years to my first homestead milking experience in Pennsylvania (when I would nurse my baby while milking!)
Thank you for sharing such a sweet story.
Not too many folks know someone who can milk in our neck of the woods!
Happy HOlidays, love the note from your boys too!

Oh I just love this! Thank you thank you! I am a suburban girl who now lives in Kansas country and love the farm life, even tho i dont do a lot of it, i live next to it. I have always wanted to milk cows and have chickens but until I get the nerve I live vicariously thru people like you! THis was wonderful!

I am so glad to hear that living a "farmy" life is interesting to you – I was a suburban girl who moved to the country, too, and let me tell you – there’s no going back for me! Go right ahead and get the chickens – you’ll love them. Then you can move on to a cow from there! Thanks so much…..xoxo, Libbie

We milked 2 cows and my brother raced – hated it when I won. We would pour the grain in a trough in the yard and have to be finished before she walked away. It’s funny how careful you are about washing Evelyn’s bag. I don’t remember anything more than brushing off the straw and big pieces. The milk was strained and separated (we had an electric) and the skimmed milk went to feed the calves while the cream went downstairs into the cream can for sale. Our milk was kept in gallon jars in the fridge, whole milk before it was separated, and I loved skimming the cream off the top. Took it for granted, really, fresh cream for baking and coffee and porridge. Those 40 below prairie winters (I grew up in Saskatchewan) seem so far away, now — I have been living in Hong Kong since ’92. Thanks for the memories.

This brings back memories for me! I loved going down to the barn and milking our one Jersey, Mikki. She was so adorable and very old, but she gave 4 gallons of milk a day, minus one bad teet!! The mornings and evenings with her, the smell of the old hundred year barn, the quietness of the open fields beyond, bring a sigh to me right now. I loved those times and the cats loved it too!
The saddest day was when we took Mikki to auction because she was getting so old. I couldn’t stand it! My husband took me back out to the auction yard to try and see her, but she was gone. I always figured she ran away and is out there in a beautiful green field somewhere, at least I like to think she wasn’t made into glue. If you see her let her know that I still love her for all the great milk she fed our family over the years. Bless you!

I love your stantion set up in the picture. I want to do the milk cow thing and have done it a few years back but I run my ranch myself and I bartend so the hours of that are not condusive. Plus if i have to go anywhere there is no one to take my place. Must tell the story a few years ago when I did try the milk cow thing. I answered an ad in the paper for a holstien named Oreo, who had had one calf. the owners had raised her from a calf as a pet and low and behold found that their kids just didn’t want to do all that milking. (surprise). She had never been tied up, just lured around with left over vegetables from the grocery store from where the owner worked. (cute) She was very tame. I bred her to my beef bull. I put a colar on her and when she was ready to calve put her in the barn with nice fresh hay. I watched her calve and even took pictures. that went well and then I new I had to milk that 10 gallon udder by hand or I thought she would soon explode! I tied her to the wall by her collar but she kept kicking at me to I tied her back legs together and that helped. and i spent the next 3 hours trying to get her milked out. It just kept coming and coming. Even though I let the calf (cookie) suck on her all the time too. somehow I preservered and went out to milk her every day twice a day. the milk was wonderful but I was bartending so I Would milk her in the afternoon and then after work at 2 am in the morning. I thought I must be a crazy person. If anyone in the bar knew what a did when i got home at night! After a few weeks my arms started to go knumb in the middle of the day when I wasn’t even milking and plus they were getting very big ungirl like muscles. So I bought a portable milking machine ($1,000). that worked pretty good and saved me from carpel tunnel syndrome, but there is a lot more cleanup of equipment involved. but the milk stayed fresher longer because I could get it cooled faster.
I am very proud of myself for that endeavor and plan to do it again but here is what I learned
1. First of all i like your idea of just milking the back 2 teats and letting the calf milk the others. Brilliant.
2. If you only milk your cow once a day or only milk a certain amount out of her,her milk supply will adjust to that. just do things gradually. Beef cows do that naturally.
3. Its better to use a cow with less milk production and more butterfat, like a jersey or something.
4. Half gallon canning jars are perfect for keeping milk in your fridge. the milk cools faster in the smaller container and you can pour right out of it like a pitcher without spilling.
5. milking by hand is simpler as long as you don’t have a 10 gallon cow.
6. It would be so great to have a house husband who could do all the cooking while i did all the taking care of the animals and gardening. Plus who was a great electrician, plumber and mechanic and had lots of money to buy tractors and equipment and stuff. Lol! We can dream