My great grandparents owned a dairy farm, which ties in neatly with this week’s Sepia Saturday prompt of a man on horseback, entitled “Off to the Creamery.” Granted, the fellow in the picture was carrying only one vat of milk with him. Perhaps he was going to buy milk rather than drop it off. It seems that one vat wouldn’t be much of a contribution, but a community creamery would accept milk from all comers. Poppy & Granny had many more than one cow on their farm, and also had the various farm animals you find on a working farm, plus they grew crops. To look at family photos, they spent a lot of time dressed up in their Sunday best, but I doubt that was the case! They just liked to have a nice time together – work hard/play hard, you know.
Clay processing
All right, so this is neither a cow, nor anything related to dairy. These horses are at the clay processing station on one of the farms owned by the family. The pile behind the horses is raw clay. The dark colored horse turned the mill and the clay was ground into a finer consistency. Once it was milled, the light colored horse carried it in the cart down to a fine china manufacturing plant for further processing. It was then made into dishes. There are two men in the image who were responsible for keeping the processing running smoothly.
A cousin, a nursemaid and a foal
All of these images were scanned and shared by Cousin L. She noted on this particular image that the little girl was on of Granny’s nieces, so my grandmother’s cousin. Cousin L is really my dad’s cousin. In a large family it can be rather confusing!
Poppy & Diamond
This is Poppy on his favorite horse, Diamond. That’s the barn behind him, and the little window is on the tack room. The entire family rode horses I believe. At least at some point.
Jeannette & Ted
This is Poppy’s sister Jeannette and her horse, Ted.
Poppy and his cart
Not to be outdone, here is Poppy and his horse cart. The cart was custom built for his wedding, I believe.
Well, there was nary a cow to be seen, but plenty of horses for your consideration. Many thanks to Cousin L for scanning and sharing the photos! For other images of horses or otherwise, click over to Sepia Saturday. You will be happy you did!
Galloping along…!
Who Were They? 
Even better than the pictures of the horses is knowing their names. I love that!
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Thanks for sharing these photos! I enjoyed them.
There are several “Creamery Roads” in my area – all of which went to Creameries back in the day. My understanding is that the farmer brought milk in, got a “chit” for the amount, went around the back and picked up the “chit’s worth” of butter, which he would package and sell under his own “brand.”
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Yes, I have heard of that also. Plus we still have contributory dairymen, just that they take their milk to the milk station and it goes off to Horizon or Lucern or whichever company distributes it.
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I don’t know what I was expecting to see but I thought I recalled some pix with cows or goats maybe with me on the farm. Then I remembered… those are in Mom’s album most likely. I remember them from when I changed out the old album for a new one. Silly sister.
I do love our family pix and seeing them here to share with the world. I really enjoy all your work. xoxo
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From Mom’s side? I don’t recall any farming photos from them, just from Dad’s. You must show them to me at some point.
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Another lovely collection of photos. Poppy and his cart and the house in the background, tell me that your farming ancestors did a lot better financially than mine!
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Whata great name for a horse, and isn’t Poppy’s custom-built cart smart?
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Those carts are great — all clean for the photos — and the horses all shine in the sun. Nice.
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A very prosperous farming family by the look. Love the photos. Thanks.
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A nice bunch of family photos. I especially liked the clay processing photo because I had never seen anything like that before.
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What a fascinating group of old photographs. I particularly like the rather faded one of the clay processing machine – same priciple as a flour mill, I suppose. The light buggy in the last image looks rather stylish, to match the gent driving it.
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A fine set of old photos from a farming family. A joy to see.
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Goodness knows, how I love to see photos of good horses — and riders. And to be carried behind prancing horses must have been a treasure, or so it seems to me. Thanks for sharing great photos.
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