Homemade Butter

Daddy had taken a job in town working at the cream station. Women saved cream from their cows' milk and took it into town to sell it on Saturdays. Daddy's job was washing the milk cans and hauling the cream to a plant where it was made into butter.

Mama saved cream to sell, but she kept some to make butter. Whenever she milked the cow, she strained the milk and set it back in a cool place and waited for the cream to rise to the top. Then she skimmed it off, and when she had enough saved, she put it into the churn. Sometimes the girls churned for her; Wanda churned with a rhythmic motion; up-down, up-down, but Charlotte's churning was more like, up-down, Splash! Splash!

After some time, the little lumps of butter began to separate from the whey and rise to the top. Mama took a big spoon and dipped the lumps of butter into a bowl of cool, clear water. As the lumps cooled she worked them into a ball with her hands, squeezing out the whey. Then she pressed the ball into a wooden mold, and formed a delicious pound of butter. She covered it carefully and carried it to the cellar where it would stay cool until she could either take it, or send it, to town to sell.

Mama's butter churn and butter mold

Have you ever churned or eaten homemade butter?