An udderly unique process

But at an Ottawa dairy farm, "carousel" means a high-tech milking

process. Sundstrom Farms, Ottawa, uses a Roto-Tech milking carousel platform to allow 180 to 200 cows to be milked in about an hour and a half, Harry Sundstrom, owner, said.

The farm was one of nine stops on the third annual Franklin County Farm Tour Saturday. The tour gives people a glimpse into what life is like at an orchard or a winery and shows the effort it takes to raise horses, alpacas and cows.

At Sundstrom Farms, people watched as cows proceeded in an orderly line to the platform and took their spots on the large carousel. Their heads faced to the center of the carousel while their udders faced out, which allowed them to be wiped off and then have the milking apparatus attached.

As the carousel turned, the cows were milked. After the milking was done, the teats, or nipples, were dipped in iodine to keep bacteria out, Ruth Sundstrom said.

The cows are milked twice a day and one cow will give anywhere from five to 12 gallons of milk at a time, Harry Sundstrom said.

The uniqueness of the milking carousel brought Julie Hibdon, Rantoul, and her sons, Chad, 7, and Cade, 9, back for the second year. Hibdon also brought Sharon Shields, Princeton, and her son, Ethan, 8, to see it.

"He liked it so much he wanted to come back and see it again," Hibdon said of her son Cade.

Cade Hibdon said his favorite part was watching the cows come up to the carousel to get milked.

When asked what he thought made the farm so popular among young and old alike, Harry Sundstrom mentioned the unusual quality of the farm.

"They get to see something they haven't seen before," he said.

The Farm Tour had lower numbers this year because of rain most of

Saturday morning, Kristi Lee, Franklin County Visitor Center director,

said.

"It did dampen things a bit," Lee said.

Although she hadn't gotten attendance numbers totalled yet, she expects the numbers to be about half of what last year's numbers were.

Lee said she talked to people at all of the farms on the tour and the crowd picked up in the afternoon after the storm had passed.

Other stops on the tour included:

Ottawa Farmer's Market; Littlejohn's Sherwood Farm, Richmond;

BlackHattedMaverick (Barnhart Farms), Ottawa; Dunn's Landing,

Wellsville; Kansas Alpaca Company, Ottawa; Power of the Past

Association, Ottawa; Peckham's Pumpkin Patch, Rantoul; and Pome on theRange Orchards and Winery, Williamsburg.