PJ...this brought back memories from my youth living on a dairy farm in central Wisconsin. I think I was about 16 when a "holding action" started. This was in the mid 1960's. A farm group of many members called NFO (National Farmer organization) decided to with hold milk from the market, in order to try to get better prices for their milk. The farmers dumped their milk down the drain from the milk tanks in the milk house. This meant that farmers weren't getting milk checks, because the milk was with held from the markets. Farm families who already suffering from low prices, were in more dire circumstances. Every day, before the milk was going to be dumped Mom and several of us kids would skim the cream off the milk in the tank (cream rises to the top). After several days of doing this we had very large amounts of cream to make into butter. How did we do this you may ask... We did it in my moms ringer washer. She would clean and sanitize the washer, dump the cream in and start the agitator. When the butter was formed, she would drain off the buttermilk (down the drain) remove the butter, and we would rinse and press the butter to get the remainder of the buttermilk. We would then form it into one pound bricks, wrap and freeze it. Our freezer was literally full of butter. I hadn't thought about this in many, many years, but wanted thank you PJ for this walk down memory lane. Mom and Dad are gone now, but I will always remember my youth on the farm. I wouldn't have wanted to grow up any other way. Oh, by the way, the holding action worked, and farmers did receive more money for their milk. Wonky

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