Our other two "girls"

One of the hightlights of our week - according to Lily Kay - is going to "visit" our two other "girls":


Bobbie (so named for her bobbed tail)...



and Jenny.


We've been drinking raw milk for almost 3 years, although the first two years of that time we simply bought the milk straight from a local dairy. When the dairyowner decided to close her operation, what were some of us diehard raw milk converts to do??? We went in together and bought two of her cows...so now we co-own the girls with several other families. Jas and I are responsible for milking them on Thursdays - the children and I go in the morning and daddy goes and milks them at night.



So my three oldest have been making milk runs for quite a while, and it's old hat for them.


But no so, Miss Lily Kay.

Lily Kay usually asks several times a week if we're about to go see the "tows" (those pesky "c" and "k" sounds again).

She loves "helping" to feed them.





She loves "helping" to set up the milking machine. You didn't think we milked them by hand, did you?

(Funny story: when we first bought the girls I had sweet visions of milking them by hand and was disappointed when everyone else wanted to buy a machine. But by the time the machine actually arrived a week later, I was VERY happy to not have to do that by hand anymore - it took the machine about 4 minutes to do what it took me an hour to do by hand!)

She loves turning the machine on...and then off...when mama tells her to.



She loves holding the filter while I pour fresh, warm milk into our containers.

This is what we got for our efforts this past Thursday morning...and Jas brought home that much on Thursday night also.

She's not so sure she loves the actual "milt". When some sprayed on her this past Thursday while I was unhooking the machine from Bobbie, she said "Yutty...milt!" (read: Yucky...milk!)

I'm not really sure what the big deal was...that was, by far, not the worst thing that has splashed on us while working with the girls!

I'm over my Heidi-esque visions of milking, and to be completely honest, I am not crazy about having to load the children up for us to go do this every Thursday morning...but it is totally worth it to be able to have this raw milk for our family.

(Here is a great website that we used several years ago when doing research to determine if we wanted to start buying raw milk for our family: www.raw-milk-facts.com . )