Look what John and The Matriarch brought me back from Missouri. The label on the back says Flynn milk. I need to try and date the bottle.
The theory is that you let the milk sit overnight, all the cream rises then you can pour the cream off without any milk diluting it. Usually I very carefully submerge a ladle and skim the cream off the top for my coffee or to make butter or sauces. Isn’t that great!
There are a terrific number of very useful American inventions that make life easier for the homesteader. Especially in the kitchen and the fields. Many of these stunning implements are loitering in dusty bric a brac stores and antique shops and the lofts in barns. And like the butter churns and the grabber for lifting hay, post hole diggers like big tweezers, corn shuckers and sausage makers, potato shovels, coffee grinders, mangles and hoes, I am happy tor relieve them of their museum existence and use them. No electricity necessary.
And they are always built to last for centuries. I think that the people who worked the land, milking their own cow, raising their families, growing their own wheat and beans and meat and vegetables and storing it all for the winter, heating their houses with wood and planting trees to keep the house cool in summer, being sustainable and organic before the labels were touted, all without electricity, were some of the most innovative bunch I am learning about. And the bravest.
This is how we spent our Easter Sunday morning. The tree assassins are going to start setting fire to the piles of unwanted trees today so we are working against the clock to pull out firewood. My shoulders ache, but it is a good ache. The teenagers are set to help today so I have a reprieve from the job of hauling the wood out of the piles. John is hoping to get a couple more loads. While they are off doing that I shall split and stack this lot.
Thankfully we have a wood splitting thingy that attaches to the green tractor. I have two sharp axes, but I really do prefer to take the easy way out when dealing with this much wood at a time. And as you know I prefer to pack my own woodshed (we call it the Wendy House) so that in the dark of the winter I know exactly where to go to grab the weight of wood that I want.
I have a wee list of people who would like a tree planted in their name. What an absolutely stunning thing. Thank you so much for wanting to do this. It is a joyful task for me and you can watch your own trees grow on these pages. I have a lovely local tree nursery, you and I will visit it today in my break and start to make some choices.
Have a lovely day.
love celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
59 responses to “Milk bottle from Missouri”
Wonderful firewood. And I loved your tale of Horace over at Parents’. Brilliant therapist! Hope the treatment did wonders for the parents in the long run, too–the opportunity was certainly presented nicely. xo
I love the milk bottle photo!
What a happiness creating photo of all the cut wood! I could almost feel warmth rising out of the screen! It must make you feel so good you have a headstart on the next cold season. I suppose they are a wee bit too raw and smokey to burn on another rascal of a freezing spring night still in the offing . . . .
yes there is,, two more below freezing, then maybe, just maybe it will start to warm up! c
I believe a widow maker is a branch broken off up high and hanging, just waiting to fall on some logger and make his wife a widow! We have blown through an amazing amount of wood in this endless winter in east central Wi.. We have piles in the back forty but probably won’t be able to get to them til all the snow melts and the field dries enough to drive on. Hopefully that’ll happen before it gets too warm, hate dealing with firewood when the creepy crawlies who live in it come back to life with the warmth.
Oh dear, that is a nasty thought.. I love that expression . ‘the back forty’, The Matriarch says that too! c
Came back for a quick look!! Are we going to have a virtual party after another 35? Have been checkin’ that top right awhile now and she is goin’up mighty fast 😀 !!!!!!!
Hopefully you won’t run out of wood before the end of winter next time. I imagine your shoulders do ache! I haven’t seen a milk bottle like that in a long time.
I’ve found another use for my excess kefir grains…………Kefir butter. Smen? Can’t wait to try it out; I really do need an antique butter churn now.
Celi, I also have a cream separator bottle, but mine has a small spoon–the bowl is bent at a 90 degree angle and the short handle curves into a hook to hang on the lip of the cream bowl. Both the bottle, and the spoon are stamped “Cream Top”. The bottle, painted with the logo of the Meadow Gold Milk dairy (a local dairy here in east central Illinois years ago), also has the date 1-11-14 stamped onto the bottom of the quart bottle. Other stampings include “sealed 1-11” so I think that date is probably accurate. Elsewhere on the bottle are stampings: “Cream Top Reg Patent Office”, “14” (again I think that is the year of production) and “mTc” (haven’t a clue what that is). Hope this might help somewhat in dating your bottle. I’m amazed that mine has survived and stayed together so long.
I have discovered that they first went into production in the early 1900’s, and went out of style in the 40’s , the spoon in yours sounds fascinating. How incredible that it has a date, legible too, that is wild. Do you use it? c
Sorry about the “anonymous” reply. No, I don’t use it as I have no source of fresh milk/cream around here. Seems such a waste, doesn’t it?
Jan
Beautiful day, beautifu bottle and beautiful that you are planting trees (will have to go back, must have missed that one)!
If you have any trees left in need of a name, I would love to think one was growing for me so far away. We are planting koala friendly trees here at present as a food source for our local koalas. I will name one for you, it will be a grey gum or spotted gum or tallowwood. I grew up with mangles, boiling clothes in the copper in the kitchen, no car or phone. We could eat spotted dick (suet pudding with butter and syrup) and never put on weight!! Joy
Am I too late for a tree? xxx