THE DAIRY

While my father worked his 60-hour week for the land baron, my mother and us children supplemented his meager pay by running a grade C dairy.  We milked 12 to 14 cows by hand twice a day.  Initially we separated the cream from the milk and sold the cream to a local produce store.  Later we sold the milk to Kraft Foods to make cheese.  We separated the cream from the milk using a hand powered “separator”.  This device was a type of centrifuge that took advantage of the differences in specific gravity of milk and cream.  The milk with all its butterfat removed had a bluish color and was called, “Blue John” and tasted awful, a harbinger of skim milk.  We fed it to the hogs which we raised for our pork and occasionally selling some as a cash crop.  As there was very little money in circulation during the great depression, often we would barter for other necessities we needed.