Tuesday, June 02, 2009

 

since by last post, my Dad past away (4/7/09).

I found this hand writen article he wrote in Nov. 07 in reguards to an article he read
in a local news paper 11/20/07

Raw Milk.
I was born in Cherokee County Jan 24, 1915. My father Thomas Alonzo Lacy,
my mother Annie Mason Lacy. They had seven children. Two sets of twins, I was
the last child and I'm one of the second twins. My sister Jannie was a few minutes
older.

We kept two milk cows and had from 2-5 gallons of milk aday which we drank raw.
I starting milking, by hand, one of the cows when I was 6 years old, My mother milked
the other one, while my sisters cleaned up the house, made up the beds, swept the
floor and hand washed the dishes. In the summer time we took it to a spring about
250 yard down in the horse pasture to keep it cool.

At dinner time we went a got the milk. Mother skimmed the cream off the top of the
milk about 1% for us to drank and put in the churn to clabler to churn with a laddle to
make butter and buttermilk, all we did not drink of course.

When a cow had a calf, the calf had to have milk. We usually weaned the calf from
the cow in about 2 weeks and taught it to drink milk out of a bucket. They soon
started to graze on grass and we and we gave them some dry food.
We quit giving milk to the calves when they 6 - 8 weeks old We then had all the milk.

What we did not drink as sweet milk or butter milk, we gave it to the hogs, along with
the water the dishes were washed in with the scraps from the table, it was all put
in a slop bucket and carried to the pig pen. Nothing wasted.

We also had a dog or two that had to be fed from the scraps, and two or more cats,
which we gave some milk, by pointing the cow teats and swuezing it and coating
the cats face with milk. They would try to catch it with thier mouth.

My mother made sure all the vessels and glasses were sanitary. We did not drink
old milk. It was fed to the swine.

I am not againt milk being pastirized, but I think people should have a choice in
what they drink and eat. When I was a boy we had a choice of what we had to drink,
water, raw sweet milk, butter milk, or coffee.

posted by Johnnie 2:12 PM