Mobile dairy classroom stops at park

STAFF WRITER

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A sizable crowd of children descended on Portales City Park on Thursday morning, along with a trailer containing one large dairy cow named Maggie.

Staff photo: Anna George

The Portales Public Library youth program traveled Thursday to City Park for a presentation by the mobile dairy classroom, taught by Cody Lightfoot, right. The children learned about cows, milk and dairy production from Lightfoot and Maggie, the cow.

Maggie was there as part of the Portales Public Library’s summer program, and was introduced to the children by Cody Lightfoot, the mobile dairy classroom instructor for New Mexico and Southwest Texas.

Lightfoot taught the eager crowd of children a variety of facts about the milk that Maggie and all dairy cows produce, including the vitamins contained in milk, how Maggie produces milk and even how the milk is extracted.

The mobile dairy classroom opened up from one side so that the children could see Maggie and allowed Lightfoot to demonstrate the extraction of milk from her udders.

Before demonstrating, however, Lightfoot took the udders and aimed them a few feet away from the gathered crowd, squirting the milk onto the ground.

“Is that good milk?” he asked, to which the children answered with a resounding “no.” “It is, right before it hits the ground,” he said.

While Lightfoot approaches his work in a lighthearted manner, he said he is focused on educating children on where their milk comes from.

“People are so removed from the farms anymore that they assume it comes from Wal-Mart. We just promote milk and trying to get them to drink more of it,” he said.

Carol Milner brought her great granddaughter, 6-year-old Saige Brown, to the presentation. She said that because Saige is visiting from Oklahoma, “we’re trying to find lots of interesting things to do while she’s here. I just think it’s nice that the kids can learn about where milk comes from and why they should drink milk.”

Saige, who liked when Lightfoot milked Maggie, said that she learned that “sometimes, when you milk a cow, sometimes it’s easier to just put those on the cow,” motioning to the milking system that was used.

Lightfoot said that the most rewarding part of doing his job is the reaction that he sees in the crowd.

“Just the look on the kids’ faces when the milk comes squirting out into the jar, the questions that you get — it’s all good,” he said.