Bianca: Not Yet an Easy Milker

Instead of sleeping and reading the Bible, my hour from 7am to 8am was spent doing something much less pleasant.

Buoyed by the easy milking of Bethany last week, I set out at 7am, hopeful that I could manage milking her on my own, but I had Phil come, just in case.

Bianca had passed a rough night, lowing for her baby across the fence periodically.

She allowed me to lead her and tie her, but she began to dance around as soon as I began to milk her. Phil adjusted her tie; she danced some more. And pooped. A lot.

Phil went to get more molasses to appease her, and I tried to milk in his absence. She knocked me over on my side. We moved her into a head gate; she refused to allow me to sit on her right side. Trying to milk from the left, she continued to dance. Milk spilled all over my jeans.

It helped us persevere that we knew that she had to be milked out, lest mastitis strike.

But after I knelt in some older dung, then had fresh dung pooped on me, I stripped off my soggy, filthy jeans (so clean only a few minutes before), and milked in my underwear.

A few tears, a few silent screams, some sore muscles from pushing her, and tugging stubborn legs into place. . . . It can only get better, I suppose.

After we took a breather, and I tried to project calm, happy thoughts, she allowed me to milk her, though as I examined the milk later in the day, I think she withheld all the rich hindmilk (the cream). The rascal.

And to add insult to injury, after I was done, I went to hang the pail on a T-post, to prevent her from knocking it over while I massaged salve on her teats. I poured almost half the milk onto me. I couldn't believe it.

Both of us, working hard for an hour, managed to produce 6 cups of milk.

And we're not sure what to do differently tomorrow, to have a better experience.