The Tales of a Hot Water Heater...

Once upon a time, there was a hot water heater in a milk house.  It was used hard for several years, and then it began to leak.  It's water was still pretty hot, but the floor in it's corner of the milk house was constantly wet.  This alerted the farmer to a problem, and a new hot water heater was ordered.

When the new water heater arrived, the old one was removed, stripped of it's heating elements and thermostats (because they were still in good working order and you never know if they might be needed sometime!) and delegated to the hot water heater graveyard...

The new one was installed into it's corner, and it began doing it's duty like a champ...

The hot water temperature in the milk house needs to be steadily between 170 - 180 degrees F to properly sanitize the milking equipment and pipeline.  The proper temperature was confirmed, and the new hot water was deemed to be in good working order...

But as we warn people who aren't familiar...be careful when you wash your hands!

Fall Barn Cleaning...

What do you do when you have a free morning on a beautiful fall day?

And oh yes... you have a helper?

You wash the outside of the pipeline...

Although the milk never touches the outside of the pipeline, it helps with overall cleanliness in the barn.  Day after day of bedding up with sawdust, spreading fodder in the gutters, and cows swishing their tails (or coughing when they poop!), all the surfaces in the barn get dusty and dirty.  Daniel was helping this morning, and he got that fun job.  It's especially nice that he's tall, and can reach those places that I have to stretch for!

Look how nice it looks when it's finished!  The stainless steel shines...

I got the job of cleaning the barn windows.  Again...day after day of dust accumulates on the windows.  When we can start writing on them, we know it's past time to clean them!    Here's an embarrassing "before" picture...



First I hosed them down, inside and out...

Then I used a long handled brush with some soapy water to scrub them...

...and after a final rinse, the view is much better!  It makes the whole barn seem so much brighter when these two jobs are finished!

While cleaning is not something I enjoy, it's satisfying to see the difference when the job is finished!  Thanks to Daniel, both jobs were completed in one morning!