My grandma who turns 100 on August 12, 2016, has been telling me how she and her sister milked the cows and then placed the milk into a separator. They would turn the crank and the milk would go one way and the cream would go another. Her family homesteaded on 40 acres near Polson, Montana. Thank you for posting this - this helps me to see what she did - I'm going to show this to her to see if this is like the separator she used.
Im reading a book from 1890s where they talk about milk skimming which is done by hand and I had to look it up. They could have benefitted from this machine although the throughput maybe would not have been enough (Thomas Hardy - Tess of the D'Urbervilles is author/book)
A site called spiritedrose has a full-text copy of the operating manual for this machine from 1940. Search "DeLaval Cream Separator Manual 1940". It states that when the speed is correct, the bell stops ringing. That is how I remember it from my childhood also.
Same childhood, different farmyard. I also had the job of separating milk, many nights , Dad would hear that ding across the yard, if it dinged more than two or three times, you heard him yell ' speed it up a bit!
How wonderful-my mother will enjoy viewing this! We have talked a lot lately about how it was her job when she was a little girl In Oklahoma to turn the cream separator. Thank you for sharing!
I am familiar with these cream separators. My parents came out of the Amish society, but my grandparents still remained Amish. It wasn't my grandparents, but one of their relatives, that had a machine like this. He would milk the cow, and then he would pour the milk into this thing and turn the crank to get it going. I thought it had a motor in it; I was only five years old at the time, but the motor sound was the thing inside spinning after being turned by the crank instead of by a motor. After he was done with separating all the milk, he would clean the separator by pouring water through it, I think with the separator still spinning.
Yes Jeff, I remember as a kid, having to separate the milk, cause I was still too young to milk,, lol( older sisters did that), but I remember getting schooled on the speed to crank it. I saw this and first thought,, you're going too slow, cause of the dings, too much fluid coming out of the cream spout, and also cause its flowing out of the weep hole on the bottom. Later we got an electric machine, That was nice, cause separating the milk from 6-8 cows was a chore
I remember walking to the milking shed on cold winter's mornings.The cones and other pieces would lie waiting, ready to be assembled in the right sequence. When it was assembled a white muslin cloth would be tied over the top and then the milk was poured in. I loved to turn the handle and the humming and the ting ting when it was at the right speed. Pretty soon we'd line up with our small tins for some fresh milk, while around our ankles there would be half a dozen cats winding around our feet Part of their salary for catching mice a nice sardine tin filled with milk. I always wondered who enjoyed their milk the most. Them or us.
@@felixmikkialmosttoasted3911 when you turn it fast enough, it stops ringing. A couple of people here have said it's being turned to slow. When my parents farmed, this was my chore.
