Shatto Milk Company

Friday, the 14th, our field trip took us to the Shatto Milk Company. 

She was so fast I barely got a picture.  I think the size of the cow alarmed her a little.

Elise's long-time friend, Kennedy.

Max stayed as far away as possible; I'm not sure what his thoughts were except that he was glad he tried it.

I was really glad I tried to milk this cow. The udder was warmer than I expected (shiver) but as this was my first time too, I was pleased I actually got it to work!

Making of root beer flavored milk.

The truck that they used to deliver milk in.  It had a horn that said "Mooooo"

It was really fun to visit this working dairy farm!  The kids each hung out with a friend and learned much about how much work it took to take care of and milk all the cows.  This particular farm has employees who take one of two 12 hours shifts (from 2am-2pm or vice versa).  Many of the large tanks had to be cleaned daily.  All the glass bottles are recyclable and can be brought back to when you buy another 1/2 gallon or quart of milk - and I thought they said that they send them all the way to Canada to be sanitized and recycled before they get them back!  When I was in Canada years ago, I was pleased to find that they had been keeping up with recycling bottles that way - a tradition that I think we stopped doing in the midwest a long while ago.  So it was nice to see that this company was recycling their bottles. 

A very fun thing about this company is that they make flavored milk to sell: banana (which the owner said he uses on his Cheerios), strawberry, cotton candy, chocolate, orange creme, eggnog (around the holidays), root beer and much to my children's disgust, coffee (Mom! who would drink that?!  Apparently all the parents and most of the kids in our group...except me...I didn't much fancy it either; though the cotton candy was a little sweet for my taste too.) 

The also made ice cream sandwiches, cheese and butter; all of which were delicious!  

It was a fun day, which was partly proven by Elise saying that she wanted to work there when she was a teenager: wanna-be farm/ranch girl.