Milking Cows and Time Management

 "Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin' Into the future..."  - The Steve Miller Band

Time is a very precious commodity.  Every minute squandered is something you can never get back.  There are countless books on effective time management, telling you how to make the most of your time.  There are apps that help you budget time, computer programs and websites that teach you to effectively plan, and efficiently structure your life so that you can be organized and at your best.

Oddly, saved time is not something you can quantify or 'bank' to use for recreation or earmarked for leisure.  Somehow or another, all our best-laid plans and efficiencies result in more time that we fill up with other busyness.  Like a dog chasing its tail, we're in a vicious cycle.  it's not a bad thing in and of itself, but we are always looking for better, easier, faster, more efficient ways to do things.

Milking cows is not one of those things.  One might say, "Hey, instead of waking up and milking every morning, why don't you stay out longer on Monday and do all your milking for the week?  Then you could do other things Tuesday - Sunday."  It doesn't work like that.  Cows must be milked every day.  They moo.  You milk.

Don't get me wrong, we do have a process and we've honed it over the years, but it's not something you rush.  Especially when the weather is nice, it is a pastoral, quiet, peaceful time to enjoy.  It is a great time to pray, to be thankful, to appreciate the sights, sounds, and (yes) smells of the barnyard.

We'll put the cow in the milking stall and have some bermuda hay in the hay rack for them to eat on while we prepare the feed bucket.  In the feed room, we mix some sweet feed, alfalfa, diatomaceous earth, molasses, and minerals in a bucket.

We hobble one of her back legs with a dog leash wrapped figure 8 around a boat cleat.  This keeps her from kicking over the bucket of milk.  Yes, that's happened a time or two.  We'll use a length of baling twine to wrap around her tail.  If you don't do this, you run the risk of getting a urine-drenched tail swishing across your face.  

We dab a little vaseline petroleum jelly on the cows' teats to serve as a lubricant.  It makes the milking process smoother and easier.

Then we pour the feed in the trough.  The bucket sits on the ground directly underneath her bag.

Then we begin milking.  Tricia and I use different techniques. She uses the 'thumbs tucked in' and I use the 'thumbs out' technique.  Different strokes for different folks.  In twenty minutes we're done.  If the cow finishes eating before you're finished milking, she'll inevitably back up, making the process stop until we throw her another cup of food so we can finish up.  (Sometimes I wonder if she doesn't try to eat very, very quickly so that I will have to get additional food to finish milking.)

We carry the buckets of milk inside.  As you can notice, we cover the top of the stainless steel bucket with muslin cloth.  We milk through the cloth, using it as a filter.  The milk runs through the muslin cloth, catching hay, dust, mosquitoes, flies, and hair so that it doesn't contaminate the fresh milk.

We pour the milk into gallon-sized jars and put them in the fridge.  The cream will rise to the top.  Once chilled, the fresh milk is ready for drinking.  It's an investment of time, for sure, milking cows.  It's like putting time in a bottle.

"But there never seems to be enough time

To do the things you want to do, once you find them

I've looked around enough to know

That you're the one I want to go through time with"

from

- Jim Croce "If I could put time in a Bottle"