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Boonville

Erika's picture

A Milking Parlor Retrospective

I had a meeting with our architect, Steve, yesterday to discuss details of our raw milk cheese aging racks. At the end of the talk I asked where we were in terms of progress on the creamery. Our construction team, (members of Navarro’s vineyard crew), are very skilled in construction, concrete work, and welding, and have spent much of the last two years building the dairy rather than working in the vineyards. However they got pulled this week to aid with harvest as rains over the weekend made getting grapes off the vine the more immediate priority. The creamery site has been vacant all this week with Alvaro, Carlos, and Andres occupied with harvest and crush at Navarro. From what Steve told me, we would have been due for a lull anyway.

Milking parlor, October 2009
Milking parlor, November 2009
Milking parlor, December 2009
Goats being milked in the parlor, 8 at a time, by Lourdes
View of the goats in the headlocks, grain is dropped down via white tubes into the trough.  Saanen in the front is Petaline, she comes in first 99% of the time!
Close-up of headlock system
Close-up of bucket milker
View of vacuum reserve tank and gauge, hand-wash sink, and glove dispenser
Goats entering the milking parlor
Goats exiting the milking parlor
Bucket washer system in action
Cleaned milk buckets stored inverted to drip dry
Cleaned milk lines and clusters hanging to drip dry
Two compartment wash sink, with temperature gauges in faucets (red buckets are for chlorinated water used to sanitize milking clusters between goats)