The creamery was a refreshing oasis on hot summer days at the farm. Until the late 1960’s, when milk cans gave way to bulk storage, milk from the cows was poured into metal cans and stored in the creamery tank.

You may be picturing a sterile-looking refrigerated room when you think of “creamery.” This was not the case on my grandparents’ farm. The milk cans were carried out the back door of the barn to a wooden shed built over a spring. Entrance to the building was through a tall sliding door. On the right side of the room stood a long cement tank filled with cold, cold spring water. My uncle or my grandfather immersed the cans in the water and, using pulleys and counterweights, lowered a heavy lid onto the top. Even with the tank covered, the air inside the creamery stayed deliciously cool and made for a peaceful respite from the heat of the midday sun.

“The Creamery in 1972,” Carol Crump Bryner, pen and ink, 2013

On Friday:  Watermelon Pickles