Most likely some other fire members were too.

My sister came for a visit and we got out the family albums and she pulled out this gem. One of the many chores I did on the family farm.

Lots of guys here just seem obsessed with teats, don’t know about the stripping part.

Me? I’m not a bad stripper myself



....shamelessly as well.

So after the machine comes off, you had to get the very last drop.

That was my old man's philosophy also.

Been there and done that!

Back in the day, one of the guys stationed with me in San Antonio moonlighted as a stripper at one of the bigger bars in town. Not sure he made a full career out of the military, but he did have some fun!

roundoak, how did those "Chuck Conners" work out for a farm boy?

Chuck Taylors,,no?

That and some cows come up with sore teats and also checked for mastitis.

I think "rong" was correct...converse Chuck Taylor. They were cheap, cow schit did not eat them up like leather and Mom would wash them in bucket and hang them up to dry on the clothes line.

You guys are right, Chuck Taylors, how could I forget. That's what happens when you reach your mid 60's! I also liked the railroad hat.

Dad wore those train engineer hats all the time and I wanted to be like Dad.

You guys were uppity farmers with those milkers. Milked our cows by hand.

City girls bought the old mastitis checking thing, but it didn't work often on farm girls. But when it did! GW

Yep, we were uppity farmers alright, but it was a more dangerous business when the milking machines came on the farm. Some of those cows went ballistic when you first put the teat cups on.

Cool pic. The only thing missing is the cat hanging around waiting for a squirt. ;-{>8

I learned to play the Blue Danube Waltz on 4 teats.

You wasted a lot of feed if you gave them enough keep them occupied long enough to have time to milk through two cows.

Did you make sweet or sour cream butter?

I would liked to have heard that.

No butter made on the farm during my era. For several years we bought butter from the truck driver that picked up our canned milk.

You are right, I am surprised there was not some cats in the picture.

we made butter for farm use. I remember churning the stuff in an old wooden churn. Still have it too, sitting in my front room.

How old are you, Sam? Churning butter!!!! That has not been done around these parts since the Korean War. Wait I should take that back, some hippies moved in this area back in the 1960's and they churned butter as what they called it....a cottage industry. They didn't stay long, though.

That churn should be a cherished heirloom.

well ,did you ever see a black snake suck milk from a cow. my dad showed that to me twice when i was about 8-9.

Cool pick Wayne, how long did it take to grow into the length on those jeans?

FWIW, I never grew into mine as a kid either, seemed like the cool thing to do........

Ah, no. We have the Eastern Milk snake here that folklore has it stealing milk from cows. Herpetologist's claim it is nonsense. The snakes are in the barn after rodents.

Paul, Mom tried her best to make the jeans last with patches, but I grew like a weed so she could not keep up with me.

My brothers and I milked 4-6 cows by hand twice a day and then ran it through a cream separator. The skim was fed to pigs, the cream went to town and was sold.
I am 64 now and this milking was in the 60s.
I hated it at the time but I suppose it built character and work ethic.

I'm in your era, a dairy farm raised boy also behind the cheddar curtain. Had an old guy tell me years ago about snake milching a cow. He swore that it was true, but then again he also told me about a boy that wandered off and was found hypnotized by a snake and was never right upstairs after that. So......... do love the ld pic and memories. We did not have political correctness, illegals, nor a foreign born president back then!

Of course you saved some of that milk for the house.

Our well went dry in the '70's and dad sold the milch cows then. I still have the separator and milk filters that we used as kids. We made our own butter, too. But I don't know where the churn ended up. Maybe one of my sisters has it.The cream separator lives by my woodstove now as decoration. Crank on the handle and milk came outta one spout, cream outta the tuther.




We used one-legged milch stools....

We churned butter on rare occasion - just to reinforce the work ethic thing I would imagine! Also made our own ice cream. Great taste and well worth the effort.

We did not have Woodstock either.

Well, I guess I was a stripper too. Then we got 'Surge Milkers' and didn't need to strip anymore. The cats went on strike!

Huntsman, what brand is the seperator? My Great Granddad sold McCormick Deering out of his general store. I have one of his salesman samples.

You don't need to answer this, but did you ever feed a dog a milk strainer filter?

YES! After every filter change. As I recall, I had to put on gloves a couple of times to help him eliminate them!

just turned 69. Here is the churn. I bet it would still work.

LMAO here...

Sam, that is an awesome heirloom.

What am I looking at?

New Prima No.2 made in Finland

Roundoak

Interesting that your udderly historic thread came up just now.

A couple of weeks ago I discovered a bunch of my Dad's old milk cans in my shed. So I decided to decorate one of them with our old farm scene. Just finished it a couple of days ago.

All the buildings are gone now except the house.

WN

Holy cow, WN you got talent.

Am I looking at fieldstone barn walls?

Thanks, Roundoak. But, the curvature of the milk can distorts the image BIG time. Lesson learned.

Yup. Fieldstone, 2 feet thick...warm in winter, cool in summer! We got lots of it around here. AND, that's no bull!

I had a canned milk pick-up route for a couple of years and delivered butter and cheese from the route while loading the cans of milk from the cooling tanks. Like working on our farm, loading milk cans built muscle and character, and probably contributed to my bad back now!!

That’s king salmon strips, almost finished.

In regard to the engineer’s caps that were once quite common on farms, I would imagine that perhaps that was a leftover from the days of steam (which was well before the days of free feed, seed, and implement brand cap giveaways).

Should have noticed you are in AK. Us city slickers cut them the other way to fit in our little store bought smokers.

I picked this one up a couple of months ago.

Hauling canned milk would have been a tough job, not only the labor part but navigating the roads winter and spring plus farm roads and barnyards. We had a Ford 8N that we could attach a 3-point platform with sides that we hauled hogs around the farm. If the farm road got to bad we would haul the cans out to the main road to meet the milk truck.

Did your milk truck have a whey tank mounted on the truck box? I don't remember how many days in the week that we took a delivery of whey. We had a livestock water tank with two exit pipes with shutoffs that directed the whey into the troughs of two seperate hog pens.

Cool beans, 280Shooter. It looks like the salesman sample I have. It has good detail, the hand crank works and bucket platform swivels.

Spent a lot of time on dairy farms in Northern , Wisconsin. The township had 102 farms at one time , now there are 2.
The best thing raised was rocks. Spent time pickin" rocks on little 7- 20 acre fields, or there-abouts.
I often remind my cousin , he sold the cows 15 years ago, about things like spreadin' $hit with chains on the tractor and - 30 in 3 feet of snow. $hit spreader would freeze up. Barn cleaner would break a link or take a $hit. Silo unloader would crap out. Hauled milk cans to milk house on a sled in the winter and wagon the rest of the year. Before pipelines and bulk tanks of course.
Yeah,
50 years a farmer and never stepped in $hit.
Of course we are on the tall stool when we talk of these memories.

We also had a De Laval separator that we used for more years than care to remember. And I DON'T have any pictures of that miserable thing.

That is very cool.

Anyone remember using one of these labor saving devices?

We used it to haul full milk cans from the barn to the milk house and whey cans out back to the pig barn.

This is a great thread.

I can also say I served my time milking with both DeLaval and Surge milkers. Also have milked by hand more than I care to admit, but feel a little embarrassed lamenting it when I remember my Grandfather was doing it yet in his eighties.

I don't remember what brand our separator was but I remember it had a bell on it to let you know you were turning it fast enough.

Roundoak, what breed of cows are those in the picture?

Nope, very innovative though.

Idared, Guernsey breed.

Thanks, I thought they were but couldn't tell for sure. My wife grew up milking Guernsey cows in Minnesota but everything around where I grew up in Wisconsin was pretty much Holstein.

Youse Betcha! Been there and done that!

Guernsey cows gave less milk but higher butterfat than Holsteins.

Neat pics and thread.


The only milking we do is either working a bad bag or a bitch heifer who won't take her calf.

Pain in the ass for sure but it has to be done.

Squeeze chute and rope a leg or you might get the chit kicked outta you!

Dairy Farmers as a group are the hardiest working farmers
alive!

we got whey back from the cheese factory milk truck.
For years I thought whey back was one word.

In my neck of the woods for years it was dotted with small farms and the Guernsey and Jersey breeds were popular in the 15 - 30 milk cow herds. We actually had a 40 cow stanchion barn. Later, Granddad and Dad built a calf barn and moved out the calves and added another 20 stanchions. County extension agents and banks began encouraging farmers to get bigger and take advantage of economy of scale. Gdad and Dad figured rather than add more cows (Guernsey's) bring Holstein's into the herd because the breed can out produce the Jersey's and Guernsey's. That worked good in theory, however the more Holstein's were added the milk check went down because Holstein's produce lower butterfat.

To bring the milk check back up they were faced with going back to Guernsey's or increase the size of the barn to increase production. They did not want to keep up with the Jones's and go into debt so they sold the milk cows and focused on crops and beef cattle.

Roundoak

Were there any Milking Shorthorn herds near you?

My uncle who lived near Sauk City had a herd of them for several years but eventually switched to Holsteins.

Yes, as a matter of fact, a Great Uncle had a herd circa 1930 - 1965 near Lancaster, WI. His daughters showed them at the local and state fair.

How many 22 barrels got fried shooting sparrows and starlings off that barn roof?

How many 22 barrels got fried shooting sparrows and starlings off that barn roof? [/quote]

My Remington 512A with open sights and I went through about a brick per month. $5.00 a brick for yellow carton Super X's at the local feed mill.

Gophers and barn pigeons got hammered, too! We had the fattest cats around! Even the neighbor's cats would show up when they heard shooting.

WN, with all that shoot'n going on who patched the barn roof?

Head shots!

No whey tank on the truck but I did hear the "ol timers" tell me about it on many occasion. Had a snowplow and chains on one of the rear duals on each side the truck in the winter and helped out many a stuck vehicle with a tow and they followed me down the road if the county was not out. Can remember a time when 20 some vehicles followed me out to the main hwy. Could always move in the snow but steering could sometimes be tough.

I can remember the milk trucks using chains when it got bad, plus there were a couple trucks that had "sanders" mounted just behind the fuel saddle tanks that dropped sand in front of the duals. I think they were used just to get traction from a starting stop then turned off.