Mandy

Getting ready

This is Mandolin Rain, a 4-year old daughter of Ocean View Zenith out of an old homebred cow, being milked after the show in the fair's milking parlor. It amazes me how the cows take to the parlor, not being milked in one at home. Lemonade had to be milked off the wrong side and is only a first calf heifer and she stood like a champ.

I see you!

What is amazing about this picture is what Mandy is looking at, staring at in fact, over the side of the parlor stall. There is a roped off area where fairgoers can watch the cows being milked. I was standing in the center of about thirty people a good twenty feet from her. She is not one that I milk, she hadn't seen me in a week, it was way past dark, and yet she picked me out of the crowd and stared at me most of the time she was being milked.

I was amazed and humbled. ...although I guess that there was no reason for me to get all excited. One of the kids' friends showed her in one class last year and as soon as she came over to the string this week Mandy recognized her and wanted to be petted. The cows come home tomorrow night and I am way past ready... a night with more than five or six hours in it would be a real bonus.

Doing pretty good here....92 pounds in a day