Hospitality Begins Again

Phil worked on the built-ins for several more hours on Monday. To finally finish it, he needed to sand and hand plane and use some wood filler and such. But when that was done as good as it could be, he then finished the trim around the windows and put up some crown molding. Crown molding has some quirks to installation, so that was not a fast process.

And we had unexpected visitors for a few hours. Every surface is covered in sawdust and wood shavings, but how lovely to welcome people and be able to offer even a folding chair inside to sit in. We haven't had that in a long time.

When we were first married, we tried to have visitors at least two times a week: once for church friends and once for anyone else. Sometime after that, we hosted anyone who wanted to come after church.

Once we had children, our hospitality slowed some, but the meager accomodations we've had to offer meant that our hospitality slowed to almost nil. We averaged perhaps one annual dinner invitation, along with drop-in guests at times.

But now we can begin hospitality again! We had another visitor come down this morning. I love that.

Besides visiting, Phil spent a lot of time cow wrangling today. He had separated the calf, probably permanently, yesterday. He headed out before I woke up this morning to do his best to milk. I don't think it went very well. I think he had spent about a half hour trying to milk by hand, and then got out the milking machine, but Charity was simply not cooperating.

When I got up, I volunteered to help. Charity was not much interested in letting me milk her. She slashed with her hoof over and over. My training back in 2011 with Reese the rotten Jersey stood me in good stead: I jumped out of the way over and over.

But like the goalie who finally misses a puck after repeated hammering, Charity did finally kick over the bucket. What didn't spill on the ground I poured on her back. Not that that helped anything.

Phil took the milk pail to rinse, and she actually started to stand for me so I could do two hands at once (rather than one hand milking, one hand swinging the bucket out of the way when she kicked). Maybe the spilled milk actually did help a bit? It was an intense period: cow quivering in fear and shock, me growing more tired physically from bending and jumping aside. Then the existential angst began: why am I on this farm? I hate cows! (I don't really, I don't think. I always think that in the painful first milking attempt.) What more pleasant things could I be doing with this time?

But I kept the crazy in check! And we had a quart of milk in the end. As much as my mind tried to tell me that I didn't really care about not having milk, the boys were pretty thrilled to have some to drink.

The afternoon milking went better. Phil started off, as the end goal is that he would do the milking. He hasn't ever been able to hand milk before, and we don't have a permanent set up for milking machine (or even just a stanchion where the cow would be immobilized), but he managed to get out about a quart. I had brought a jar for him to pour the milk into, so if the cow did kick over the bucket, not as much would be spilled.

I finished off, and although it took longer than I'd prefer, Charity had a good, strong let down, and gave a full gallon. (Her calf had been eating on a teat through the fence while Phil was milking, so maybe Charity could give a bit more.)

Phil put up crown molding and baseboards in several more rooms. He has several more days of trim yet to go.