How to Milk a Cow

1. Lasso the cow by its horns and tether it to the side of the corral.
2. Tie the cow´s hind feet together.  Be careful - if she doesn´t feel like being milked, she´ll make it hard on you.  Also, you are in the "discharge" danger zone while doing this - be aware!
3. Let the cow´s baby out of the other side of the corral.  If necessary, help it find the udder. (Little cows are apt to try and suckle knees, pants legs, and tails in an effort to eat the first few days!)
4. Make sure the calf suckles at each teat for at least a few seconds, and then lasso it and tether it to the side of the corral with its mom.
5. Splash water on each teat to rinse it of calf spit, dirt, grass, ticks, and who knows what.
6. Milk! Don´t be afraid to seriously pull - that calf is rougher on her than you will ever be. 
7. Attempt to be cool and develop a sophisticated "finger drumming" type technique for squeezing out milk.  Realize you´re not that cool and will just have to settle for whatever movement makes milk come out.
8. About halfway through, let the calf nurse again for a few seconds to encourage milk to keep coming.
9. Pour the last of the milk from the pitcher into the bucket, carefully release the cow´s legs, and let the calf nurse in earnest.
10. Use this distraction to undo the cow´s horns and slip out of the corral.
11. Repeat daily.

How to Pick Coffee

You will need:

• a coffee grove
• a laundry basket with a sack attached as a belt
• hands

1. Attach the laundry basket around your waist, tightening the grain sack around your hips to hold it snug.

2. Approach coffee tree.

3. Pick any berry that has blushed red. If in doubt, give the berry a hard squeeze.  Could the seed pop out? Good, pick that one too.

4. Do not slip on the banana leaves that cover the ground of the cafetál!  This is all shade grown cofee, so there will be plants of all kinds scattered among the coffee trees.  Take a moment to look upward.  What a peaceful day.

5. Picnic lunch with Memo - beef from our farm, a fried platano, rice, beans, and cabbage salad.  YUM.

6. If you come across a coffee flower, for goodness sake, smell it!  It will smell wonderful.

 

7. Bag up the coffee and take it to the co-op´s sorting machine.  Mixed with all the surrounding farm´s coffee and processed to remove the meat of the berry, this coffee will soon head off (still green) to all corners of the world.