Grandma's Milk Cow was always a Guernsey. Guernsey's produce a little less milk than most other breeds but had a higher butter fat content in their milk. More cream means more butter per gallon of milk. This was an important factor in selecting a milk cow. Grandma did not sell very much milk but she did have a lot of people that wanted her hand churned butter.
There were 6 boys and 3 girls, so every Tuesday and Friday one of the boys and one of the girls would hitch up Ned and Jed, 'grandpa's mules' to a wagon and deliver milk, butter and eggs to town folk. It was only about 5 miles to town and would take the better part of two hours to get there. Most town folk did not have a milk cow or chickens.
They would make their way to each house that would buy milk, butter and eggs, carefully giving each one what they needed, never more and never less. If after completing their rounds there was anything left, their last stop would be O'Rears market. O'Rears never paid cash but would write it down in his book and apply that amount to grandma's or grandpa's next visit to buy things that could not be grown on the farm, livestock feed, chicken feed, sugar, flour and coffee and such.
Milk, butter and egg money was grandma's to do with as she saw fit. Most of the time, most of her money went to buy shoes and clothes for one or more her 9 kids before a new school year started. For some reason she seemed to favor her girs when it came time to buy 'new' clothes. As you can guess the younger you were the more hand me downs you had and fewer 'new' shoes and clothes. Nothing was wasted, when clothes became to worn to wear to school they became work clothes, in the end they were was cut into small patches and was used in grandmas next patch quilt.
Now that's living green, didn't burn any gasoline, cut down any Amazon forest, or eat a sea turtle. copyright © 2008
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