Pump and Poop

Yesterday was a gloriously warm day. I had a lot of work scheduled, with a break in the middle. Fortunately, when I'm milking, I'm in and out of the barn, so I was able to be in the sun for bits of time. The morning milking went very well. That's different than the day before, when the milking went just "well." The pump had gone out again, and we had to hand milk. I don't mind hand milking, but I was the one who discovered that the vacuum pump wasn't sucking, and that sucked. We finally called the Surge tech (and I'll do that first thing instead of last, next time), and found that a tiny piece of ice was keeping the pump from creating a seal. There's a pvc tube with a rubber flap on it that lets water trickle out when the pump's not going, and has to close and seal when the pump's on. Though it was warm outside the day before yesterday, it wasn't warm enough for the pump on the north side of the building, and the trickle condensation made ice, a teeny weeny bit. Easy to fix, once you know what to look for.

So I milked again in the morning yesterday and was happy, and then ate a lovely brunch with Rowan at the diner at Tupelo, did some sewing on fabric beds in the afternoon, (with less success), and then another milking in the afternoon. The whole time I was sewing, I felt a pull to the barn, and quit early to find that there had been no barn clean, and so did most of it myself, and then milked. That went mostly well, but good ol' Beru had to let loose with a splatter poop of the worst kind, in the barn. Yuck-ola. Fortunately none got in the milk (it got on me, instead).

Okey dokey artichokey, that's cows!
Kelpie