"The eighth day of Christmas my true love sent to me
eight maids a milking..."
A dairy farm manager and one maid-a-milking...
My 2nd great uncle, William John Porter moved from Ulverton Quebec to Jefferson New Hampshire in 1893, when he was about 17 years old, and found work on a farm. He later moved to Colebrook and became a manager of a dairy farm. But I didn't have to go that far back to find fodder for an article on dairy farming.
My beautiful hard-working sister is a special ed teacher at a high school. Like our Dad, she always has to have something to do, so when a friend asked if she could help out with milking one evening, she was happy to do it. Now she helps out with the evening milking at the dairy farm on weekends plus on call at other times, and 7 days a week during school holidays.
She is what could be called a part time maid-a-milking.
She doesn't go into the barn swinging a bucket and carrying her little stool. Today milking is done by machine.
She has to prepare the cows' teats for the machine by stripping them by hand, dipping them with a solution to clean them, then wiping them with a paper towel.
Then they are ready to put the milker on, which comes off automatically when milking is complete. Next she has to dip the teats again and move the milker to the next cow. The milking takes about 1½ hours for 39-42 cows.
Other chores take another 1½ to 2 hours... including scraping out their stalls, cleaning the alley way, and putting fresh bedding in their stalls. The cows go outside either between milking or for the night depending on the weather.
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