Working our way from the cow to the table, we quickly realized that we needed to find a way to keep all of the milk in the refrigerator straight. We didn’t want to end up always drinking the freshest milk first while leaving the older milk to spoil and giving us an unpleasant surprise!Since we have quite a few little children who can not read, we thought it would be the most beneficial to have a color coded system. Every day of the week has it’s own color (or two colors for the since Staples only had five colors).
Sunday- Red
Monday- Orange
Tuesday-Yellow
Wednesday- Green
Thursday- Blue
Friday- Red/Orange
Saturday- Blue/Yellow
The system is easy. Just drink milk from the jar with the color from the earliest day in the week you can find. The color label is a circular sticker placed on the lid and sealed with a small piece of shipping tape to make it a bit more waterproof so it will last longer.
The daily totals of milk are recorded on a monthly chart based on a four week system on the refrigerator. The day of the week is colored as a reminder. Daily totals are tabulated at the end of the week and end of the month and recorded on a separate yearly chart. I took this picture a couple weeks ago and we just finished this chart. We got over 61 gallons of milk in September!!! (A third of which went down the drain in botched mozzarella recipes.) I also measure in gallons instead of pounds like I should. I would forever be trying to calculate and convert it into the gallons that I can understand.
I store my milk in glass gallon pickle jars, and instead of using the metal lids I stretch a piece of plastic wrap over the top, then use a permanent marker to label it with the date and milking, and a letter for the jar. For example, the first two jars from this morning’s milking will be labelled Feb 2 am A and Feb 2 am B. This is what helps me keep my jars straight in the fridge.