While making dinner tonight I reminisced about our first milk cow and dreamt about getting another one.

Her name was Goldie. She was a beautiful Jersey-Guernsey Mix. A great starter cow. More like an oversized puppy than a cow. She was spoiled, and demanded our attention, which often included just a hard scratch on the head and she was happy.

Goldie was four years old and bred, when we got her. She had always been hand milked and like I said, very tame.

I remembered our first time milking Goldie. We had milked goats before and assumed it would be practically the same.

Udders, Teats, Grab, and Squeeze…. No Problem!

So we brought her home late one evening after she had already been milked. We settled her in for the night and the transition seemed to go well.

That night I could hardly sleep. It was so exciting!

We had waited so long and finally had gotten our very own milk cow!

The next morning, I got my bucket, my cleaning solution and rags. All the kiddos were up and followed me outside for our very first milking.

We were really farmers now!

I sat on a stool, cleaned her up, and grabbed a teat.

Gave it a firm squeeze…AND…Nothing!

I tried again, just like I had done on our goats.

I squeezed, moving my hands around switching positions from one way to another. Some squirts would come out and as soon as I thought I was on a roll, Nothing!

Minutes turned into hours and I started to cry.

My husband helped.

My kids helped.

After 3 hours of begging this cow to give us some milk, we stopped!

We were defeated.

We tried and failed miserably!

We took our hard earned half-gallon of milk into the house and savored every drop.

My hands were tired! I had used muscles I didn’t know I had. At that point I was afraid that I hadn’t milked her out enough and she was going to dry up.

I thought ONLY US!

This stuff only happens to us.

We bought a perfectly good milk cow, get her home and she dries up.

Really?

By that evening, all of my excitement had turned to dread and I wasn’t sure if I could handle this again.

We did fine!

And Goldie did just great!

It took us (as a family effort) a full hour to milk her out completely but we got the hang of things quick. She really let it go!

She had given us well over a gallon and a half.

I guess she was just stressed. Or maybe she sensed that I didn’t have a clue…either way we were blessed to have her with our family for a year.

She gave us many, many gallons of wonderful, healthful milk that we miss so much.