Milking in Ballybay

Most people may not know, but since September 2009 our community started to milk cows again. Pictures in the community give proof that people did milk before in the community but the year of appearence of those pictures is unknown. It may be 10 or 15 years ago. Since our cow Susan gave birth to `Vincent` in September last year we started to milk her by hand while the calf was still suckling its mother. In November, one day after Saint Martin, Claire gave birth to `Martin`. Soon we also started to milk her. Since December/January both calves have stopped suckling and we kept on milking alone. We milked by hand and received around 12 – 16 litres a day. We started to buy less milk. In January 2010 the milking machine was finally installed and we could start to use it. Quick the cows got used to it and the amount of milk increased – we had around 25 litres a day. At that point all orders for milk had stopped and we had enough milk for everybody in the community. We started to make more yoghurt on our own and since March we stopped to buy yoghurt as well. Since May our cows are staying outside on the field again and we have around 30 litres of milk a day. To give the cows a better rhythm of milking we started to milk before breakfast at 7.00am in May. In the afternoon we milk after 2nd teabreak around 4.45pm. Our milk is cleaned and cooled straight after milking and goes into the fridge immediately.

From now onwards we will try to have our own milk during the whole year. After 9 or 10 months of milking we will stop to milk Susan in June/July and Claire 2 months later. But hopefully we have already our next calves at this point so that we can start milking immediately and avoid a milkless time.

Outing to the American Folk Park

On the Thursday 13th of May we went for an outing – it was the Ascension day. After breakfast we prepared sandwiches, cheese muffins, chocolate cake and black tea for the picnic. We took two buses and left at 11:45. The weather was very windy. Thomas was taking pictures of the chicken. We were walking and seeing some old houses with the fire inside, it was smoky. I saw the ship and the school. My favorite place was the ship.
On the way back we listened to my cds.

By Brendan Stewart