The New Electric Cream Separator - (All guesses were correct)

 

 We have been using this old cream separator for all of the years we have been milking cows and I'm very grateful to have it.
I taught myself to turn the handle at just the correct speed to get delicious thick cream from our cow's milk. It requires a bit of fancy foot work and juggling whilst tipping heavy buckets of milk into the bowl while the handle is still in full spin mode. But we country women are multi-taskers and multi-skilled, determined to get the job done when there is no one about to lend a hand.

Occasionally we have made an effort to find an electric separator like the one on the farm that I visited as a kid.
Memories of milking time on the farm as my friend's mum hand-milked all eight house cows of varying colours and breeds. Hand milked...! Here's me fifty years later,  like a princess.. needing a machine to milk my one or two cows because my hands get too sore after the first five minutes. (Rolls eyes with shame!)
She would let us milk one of the quiet multi-coloured old girls, squirting each other with warm milk straight from the teat. The cats lined up, happily accepting our squirts of milk onto their coats before slinking away to lick themselves clean.
After milking was done I loved to follow Mrs A into the cream room where she tipped the milk into the electric milk separator. Golden cream poured into a container from one spout, and the whitest of white milk poured into buckets from the other spout.
Perhaps that is where it all began? My ingrained love of cows and obsession with all things cream, milk and cheese. Who knows, but I've always had a hankering for one of those electric milk separators.
All of my searches for the holy grail of separators, over the years, amounted to nothing. All that showed up on Gumtree and similar on-line market places were old and beyond repair.

 

Recently we were invited to a long lunch as a thank you for hosting some organics agriculture students at our property last summer.
The three course lunch was entirely made up of ingredients grown and cooked by the students.
Can you imagine how thrilled we were to be attending this beautiful event?
And by the way, it was held on a weekday. You already know how we never commit to lunches out during our busy working weekends.
*Edited to apologise for the blue coloured words. All of my editing efforts will not remove them.*

One of the students had supplied the fresh jersey cream for the amazing citrus desert.
I was chatting to him across the table about milk separators (as you do) and which type he uses.  I mentioned that although we have a hand winding one, we have been looking for an electric model for years, with no luck.
The older couple sitting along from us heard this and called out that they had one they wanted to sell.

No time was wasted agreeing on a time to visit them early on the following Saturday morning. All planned farm jobs were moved aside to accommodate this special excursion.
We bought it for a song at twice the asking price.  Neither of us could walk away without paying a fair price for this beautiful piece of working history, but it was definitely a "start the car" moment.

So to all of you who guessed correctly, it is indeed Alfa Lavel brand, congratulations and well done!

There were just a few minor teething problems, getting the the thickness of the cream just right; the tiny allan key was missing so we had one made up by a friend.
At present I'm not into full-swing milking mode as Lavender holds back the best part of her milk for her calf Minnie, and I'm milking only a couple of times each week. But come October, when the calf is weaned AND Poppy's calf is born, there will be milk and cream and all the good things.
So I will enjoy this relatively relaxed milking time, using my energy elsewhere for now.

As I've been writing this, the rain has been pelting down for two days, with 20mls in the gauge so far. It couldn't have come at a better time. Our rainfall is well below average again this year, our crops are only just hanging on. It is also allowing me some respite from outside work as I've injured my shoulder and am feeling rather helpless until it recovers.
Brian is on hay feeding and firewood duty for another couple of days, while the-up side (for me) is having the time to sit at my laptop and write.
Covering for each other when one of us is away or ill/injured is a good reminder of the work and effort that each of us adds to the smooth running of our home or farm. We can easily take for granted all the work that the other does. I can't help feeling that the universe throws these hiccups at us for a reason.

And as the rain falls here, filling our tanks with precious water, I feel so terribly helpless for all of the parts of our country that haven't seen rain for too long. Stanthorpe in Queensland is only hours away from running out of water. Millions of dollars of water will be trucked into the town until it rains again. Our thoughts are with all of the residents there and in surrounding districts.

Thanks for dropping in friends.
Cheers!
Sally XX