Milking a cow

Earlier in the week I had been chatting with my friend Jen online. We hadn't seen each other in quite some time, and so we decided we should get together. I suggested she come with me to do one of my new things, and we decided to go and milk a cow.

I had done a little bit of research on this particular new adventure, because I didn't know anyone who had a cow. I called a family in our ward who has goats and oxen, but they didn't know of anyone I could see to learn how to milk a cow. I guess I didn't realize what a dilemma it could be to try and find a cow to milk. I don't quite remember why, but I was looking online at the Historic Wheeler Farms website. I think maybe I was considering this as one of my final new adventures, and as I was browsing around, I was looking at the different activities they provide. Lo and behold, you could milk a cow for $.50! They do this every day at 5:00 pm. Even better!

So, Jen and I had decided to meet up at the farm and milk cows. I was going straight from work, so I climbed in my car, typed in my desired destination on my GPS, and followed the British voice where she told me to go. I "arrived at my destination," but there was nothing there! Seriously, there wasn't even a place to turn off the road! I had seen a few signs on my way telling me I was going in the right direction, but now, there was just a long fence with tall, dead grass growing in front of it. I drove around for a little bit, hoping to find another sign, but I eventually happened upon the entrance to the farm. (Which doesn't, by the way, say Wheeler Farms on the sign at the entrance.)

I parked, found Jen, and we asked around about where we could buy a ticket to milk a cow. Tickets in hand, we then asked where this milking would take place. We were given vague directions (to the left of the country store), but we couldn't find anywhere that looked promising except for a pen holding two or three milk cows. We eventually figured out where we were supposed to be, and quietly made our way to the back of the barn. There were signs all over the place to "please be quiet during the milking." It kind of felt like we were in the library.

We had found our seats, looked around, and realized we were the only adults there who had come to milk a cow. There were probably 20+ kids there, all patiently waiting to have their 30 second turn to milk this poor cow who had her head in a feeding trough. We waited our turn, and then it was us. We took our respective turns, and I'm not quite sure what I was expecting, but it was an....interesting experience. The employee standing behind the cow didn't give me any instruction, just watched as I awkwardly grabbed on and started milking. The udder was a lot warmer than I had expected, but it wasn't so bad. Then Jen took her turn, and we ignored the strange looks from the girls working there.

We made our way back outside, where we looked at the water fowl, mostly ducks and geese, in the pond, then wandered around a little bit. We went back to the cow pen and took some more pictures of the cows there, looked around the "Country Store," and then decided to call it an evening. We both had places we needed to be, and it was starting to get dark.

It was really good to see Jen again, and I can't think of anyone I would rather have milked a cow with. It kind of makes me glad that most of our milk gets machine pumped now-a-days. Does that make me sound spoiled? Eh, oh well!