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Chuck Hinman: Where Does Butter Come From? Part 1 It's Just Me Again No. 130 Where Does Butter Come From? Part 1. The next earlier Chuck Hinman story: Eating OutIs Chuck Hinman your favorite Sunday with CM columnist, as many tell us? If so, we hope you'll drop him a line by email. Reader comments to CM are appreciated, as are emails directly to Mr. Hinman at: charles.hinman@sbcglobal.net By Chuck Hinman It does NOT come from butter-nuts! You city folks will probably say - "Oh, you can get it at Wal-Mart's or Braums and a lot of places." This story is what I remember about Mom making butter in the olden days of the early 1930's. We lived on a farm in southeast Nebraska near Liberty, Nebraska. We had a herd of short-horn cows and we milked eight to ten of those. Sometimes we sold the whole milk to a creamery which had a truck that picked up the milk. Other times we separated our milk (the cream from the milk) and sold the cream to the same creamery that bought the whole milk. I believe the creamery was in Sabetha, Kansas and is still in business. Butter is made in a process called churning cream. Part one of this two part story is about gathering the main ingredient for butter. Part Two is a shorter account of separating the cream from the milk and culminating in churning the cream into butter. In the end you will have a glimpse how we got our butter in the good old days -- the pre-Wal-Mart days. Now, if you have never lived on a farm, you are saying "where does the cream come from?" I'm glad you asked. A standard cow has four "teats" -- that's the little thingies that hang down between the lady cow's back legs. The gentleman cow is arranged differently. The farthest back two teats are where cream comes from and the two front teats (and make sure you know I am not talking about teeth) are your choice of chocolate or plain vanilla milk. No, I'm pulling your leg! I forgot you are not my city cousins who believed anything! In those days we did not have milking machines. We milked the cows by hand twice a day - in the morning and in the evening. It was just a part of the farm chores. After I got home from school, I had a snack before heading out to the pasture to find and bring in the cows. Sport, our collie dog, always followed along to see if he could stir-up a cottontail rabbit for his supper. The cows would invariably be in that part of the pasture farthest from the house. Not only that, they would be leaning against the fence. Or maybe it just seemed that way. When I got back to the barn with the cows, the barn door was open and the cows walked in. Brother Bob or Dad had their alfalfa hay from the hay mow in front of their milking stalls. The barn was brand new. Dad had dismantled the former Blue Springs Lumber Yard, east of Homer Knight's two-story machine shop, and rebuilt it as a big new barn. It was buff-colored as a lumber yard but red-colored as a barn. Each cow had a can of ground corn. A block of salt was always available for them to lick in the barn yard. That improved the taste of the milk (and I'm not pulling your leg). When the cows' heads were locked in their stanchions and they were munching away on their food, we three, Bob, Dad, and I were about ready to start milking. It took about 45 minutes. We each milked about three cows. One of us brought the three clean milk buckets and milk strainer from the house plus a ten-gallon milk can. The strainer was set in the neck of the ten-gallon milk can with a paper filter to filter out any debris that might have gotten in the milk in the milking process. While this preparation was going on the ten or so barn cats were taking their strategic positions. If this was their lucky night, they might get a squirt of milk in their direction. These cats weren't dumb; they knew how to work their favorite milker with plaintive pathetic cries and they knew the effectiveness of eye contact at the appropriate time. They were experts at upstaging each other for the best positions. When the barn lights were turned on and the radio was turned to the evening serials like Lum and Abner and Amos and Andy, we were ready to start. It was wholesome family centered farm life, a father and his sons chatting about any and every thing, laughing, teasing, especially during the evening milking time. The cows were contented chewing their cuds (a farm term) and munching away, swishing their tails at a pesky fly that was munching a little too freely on the cows' backs, the sound of the milk hitting the sides of the three milk buckets, the cats making cat sounds etc. It was the Barnyard Symphony at its best with everything in harmony. There were three T-shaped wooden stools scattered around the barn floor. We three "men" milked the same cows morning and night. We sat on a T-stool on the cow's right side with our heads pressed lightly in the cow's flank to remind her where we were. Then you squeezed the cow's four teats alternately until no more milk came out. Each cow would give from three to five quarts of milk at each milking. The final step in the milking process was to "strip" the cow's teats. That was to insure you had milked the cow dry. In stripping you used the first and index fingers of each hand as opposed to your whole hand in the milking process, squeezing the teats from top to bottom. Well my readers, that's the first step in making butter - gathering the raw material, the milk. Stay tuned for the separating and churning processes. Written by Chuck Hinman, January 3, 2008Chuck Hinman, 88 year old former Nebraska farm boy spent his working days with Phillips Petroleum Company in Bartlesville, Oklahoma and Houston, Texas. He lives at Tallgrass Estates in Bartlesville where he keeps busy writing his memories. Chuck is visually impaired. His hobbies are writing, playing the organ, and playing bridge. This story was posted on 2010-10-24 12:11:31
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Have comments or corrections for this story? Use our contact form and let us know. More articles from topic Chuck Hinman - Reminiscences:
Chuck Hinman No. 112: The Watermelon Patch Chuck Hinman IJMA No. 035: Divorce - Is It the Only Solution? Chuck Hinman IJMA 099: Help for Visually Impaired Dummy Chuck Hinman: IJMA No. 075: Properly Dressed Chuck Hinman IJMA No. 106: Sleeping Bag Predicament Chuck Hinman IJMA No. 119: Beta Beta Beta : the Black Bottom Boys Chuck Hinman IJMA No. 162: A Tribute to Our Horses Chuck Hinman. IJMA No. 016: Twenty froggies went to school Chuck Hinman IJMA No. 092: Borrowing Stuff Chuck Hinman IJMA 078: Fried Chicken View even more articles in topic Chuck Hinman - Reminiscences |
 
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