Family Photo Friday: Surprise Family Member!

 Today we have a different family member to highlight!

This is Gumdrop!  See how beautiful she is!  Look at her sturdy legs and beautiful markings! Also notice her lifted tail.  This meant she was excited and getting ready to run.  She was a wonderful well-loved family member for years.  Here she is learning to lead by our oldest son who was ten at the time, getting ready to take her to the fair as part of his 4-H project.

Here is the story of the genealogy of family cows on our little "farm"...a matter of 2.6 acres on Cranberry Hill.

First thing we did was build a barn.  Yes, we built the barn...mostly Dear One, but with a little help from me from time to time. I already told the story of getting the lumber from the sawmill to our house.  With the barn built, our friend and neighbor, Mr. Dexter, went to the auction barn one Monday night, looked over the cows for sale, and bought a beautiful gentle Jersey cow named Buttercup.  He took Buttercup to his barn for a few days while we got ready for her.  We had been given a milking machine by Mr. Ordway and were ready to go.  Or thought we were.  We had bought into milking twice a day, every day, unless it was the few weeks leading up to the birth of the next calf.  No vacations.  Ever.

Buttercup's bag was not ideal for milking, which is probably why the farmer sold her, but since we only had one cow, it was not so much a problem for us.  Something to think about if you plan to buy a family cow is that the udder should ideally be easily available to be milked, not have the teats more or less behind the legs.  Also, it would be great if they were more than two and a half inches long.  Still, milking can be done if you work hard enough.

 

Buttercup gave us several gallons of lovely rich milk every day.  We loved it and used it all.  Buttercup also gave us Petal, a mostly pleasant, but sometimes feisty, calf.  We had maybe one more Jersey calf, but being a bull calf, he went to the auction.  Don't ask.

Because our children were growing up, and because we wanted them to participate in 4-H where you need to have a registered animal, we got a registered Holstein named Gloria.  When you buy a cow, you always want her to be expecting.  Gloria was.  Gloria was also quite a switch from gentle Buttercup.  First thing was that she was HUGE plus she gave 6 gallons of milk a day!  It had way less butterfat than Buttercup's milk, but that was not problem.  We did not need the extra fat.  Not that we knew that at the time...

Gloria's first calf was Gumdrop.  She was so beautiful and so much fun.  Son Number 1 spent hours leading her around  the yard with a halter so she would be ready to show at the agricultural fair not too far from our home.  She was a great calf and did win at least one price at the fair.

Eventually our cow barn filled up.  We had four cows at one point.  Can you believe it?!! And both Dear One and I worked full time.  We did have Dear One's dream come true: our children learned how to do real work and every one of them could milk the cows and care for them.  We had cows for seventeen years before we let the last one go down the road due to just too many other activities to give them the care they needed.  We did miss them.  I still think fondly of them.  The one thing I do NOT think fondly of was washing the milker twice a day in the bathtub.  NOT ONE BIT!!