Five-year-old Alex Rodriguez guided his older brother’s thumb into the portable milking machine.
It was the only way to show where milk came from to his legally blind brother.
“It feels like it goes up and down,” said 7-year-old Jonathan Rodriguez, grinning. “I felt some air.”
Becki Rodriguez, 32, of Alachua, brought her sons to Family Day at the UF Dairy Unit in Hague on Saturday because Jonathan was learning about cows in school.
“This is the first chance we’ve seen to show him cows,” she said. “We don’t know many people with cows, so this is nice.”
Jonathan said cows were his favorite animals.
UF animal sciences associate professor Albert De Vries said he brought back the event for the second time to give families the opportunity to see a real dairy farm.
“Let’s give people real-world experience so they can pet calves and see the farm,” he said.
De Vries said about 1,500 people disembarked a hayride from the parking lot to the registration tent and shuffled from station to station in plastic booties clinging to their ankles. The event had more than twice as many visitors as last year.
One hundred volunteers shook cream into butter, drove tractors and recited history about dairy farms.
Animal science junior Illeana Brody, 22, patrolled the cow stands. She’s familiar with the stable; as one of De Vries’ students, she visits the dairy farm daily.
“Most people don’t know the true story about milk,” Brody said. “Happy cow, lots of milk. Stressed-out cow, bad milk.”
About 500 cows roamed the dairy farm on display. Visitors could see the hospital barn and the handling of the cow manure.
Gainesville resident Jonathan Jasinski, 27, showed his 3-year-old daughter Isabella how to shake cream into butter.
“It’s just something to do on a Saturday with the family,” he said.
When the cream was solid, Isabella anxiously took off the lid and stuck her tongue into the fresh butter.
“It tastes good,” she said with butter smeared on her face.
Willie Bryce, 5, scaled a tall tractor to reach the driver’s seat. He posed as his mother took photos of him.
Camille Bryce, 31, of Newberry, wanted her son to have a better understanding of the process behind the gallon of milk on their dinner table.
“I wanted him to learn how the farmers do things,” she said, “to see the process behind his bowl of cereal.”
Contact Colleen Wright at cwright@alligator.org.
