I may have mentioned the milk separator that we had. I will try to add a few more details so that you can understand what a neat machine this was and why it was important to our family. I don’t remember exactly when we got it, but it would have been after we sold “Betsy” the goat and got “Sleepy” the cow.
“Sleepy” came from an operating dairy and she gave a lot more milk than we could drink. Mom and Dad realized that and decided to get the separator which essentially separated the milk from the cream. The separator was mounted on a table in the wash house right above the cellar door. It was a strange looking contraption but it worked in an amazing way. It consisted of a large vat that was mounted on a bracket up about shoulder high. That is where the raw milk was put after milking. The vat held up to five gallons of milk. The vat had a spigot that could be opened to let the milk run into the separator mechanism. The mechanism had two long spouts that went off of it like arms off a body. The spouts could be adjusted for angle so that the skimmed milk and cream could be collected in different buckets or pitchers. One of the spouts dispensed the cream and the other dispensed the skimmed milk. Inside the mechanism were a bunch of cone shaped metal discs that were attached to a shaft. The shaft would rotate very rapidly and as the milk ran down through the discs, the cream would rise to the top and be separated from the milk. The shaft was made to spin with a handle like a crank that the person operating the separator would crank during the operation.
Once the discs were spinning fast enough, the spigot on the vat was opened to let the milk enter the separator. Shortly thereafter cream would begin to come from the one spout and skimmed milk from the other. The entire operation took about ten minutes from start to finish. Then all the parts had to be washed in hot water and dried to be ready for the next evening’s milking. As I recall, the morning’s milking was what we used for drinking. The evening’s milking went though the separator. The cream was used to make butter or whipped cream or ice cream or for other uses. The skimmed milk was put in the “swill barrel” where it was mixed with other food scraps and rolled barley and fed to the pigs
Since we had lots of cream, Mom allowed us to make homemade ice cream whenever we wanted. During the summer we probably had homemade ice cream at least a couple of times a month. We also churned our own butter. I think we had enough butter that Mom also sold some of it. We also sold a few quarts of drinking milk to some of the neighbors who didn’t have a cow. I was usually the delivery boy when we sold milk. (see “Fifth Grade”)
“Sleepy” was a Guernsey cow and her milk had lots of cream. When she “came in fresh” after every calf was born, she would give up to three gallons of milk per milking for several weeks. Mom and Dad knew how to take advantage of that for a little extra income for the family. We boys didn’t think much about the extra money but we did enjoy cranking the separator and watching the cream and skimmed milk come pouring out of the spouts and we certainly enjoyed the homemade butter and the rich homemade ice cream.