When I was a kid, we had a cow. For a while, we had two cows, but most of the time we had only one milking cow. That was where I learned to hate milk, I think, since I found drinking milk with bits of cream floating on the top of it to be disgusting, and that was before I had ever tried homogenized. Sorry, but I am not crazy about milk, and I'm even less so about fresh milk. Nevertheless, we all took our turns milking the cow. I didn't mind that so much because we had a milking stanchion that helped to keep the cow in place, and it was a pretty cooperative cow, anyhow. Of course, I'd squirt some of it for the barn cats who always came around knowing that I wasn't too concerned with how much of it actually made it into the house. We made our own butter, not with a butter churn, but in large mayonnaise jars. We had a butter churn, but I don't recall it ever being used. Probably because we had only one cow, and didn't make a lot of butter at one time. The cream would be put into a mayonnaise jar, and we'd shake it up, roll it on the floor, play catch with it, and otherwise agitate it until it turned into butter. The butter was never yellow, but always white. If we were expecting company, sometimes mom would add yellow food coloring to it. As compared to butter that I can buy in the store, even the expensive brands, I much preferred homemade butter. Or maybe it was the fact that it was fresh. Mom would make cheese from goat's milk but I played no part in that and never paid any attention to it, so I don't have a clue as to how it was done, but we made the butter. Once in a while the jar would get dropped, like if someone missed catch, but mom was pretty understanding about such things. For that matter, sometimes the eggs got thrown at a sibling and didn't make it into the house, and that wasn't the end of anyone's world either.
I had a laugh with your mischief in squirting milk on the cats. But maybe the cats like it because they love milk. Gee, I didn't know that butter can be made using a simple jar. Now that there are plastic jars, I guess that would be easier to do. However, kids nowadays wouldn't like that chore for butter is cheap and easy to buy. There is a farm here somewhere in the northern province that has a farm for tourists. Owned by a certain Tony Meloto, the farm is a huge one that includes animals and fruit trees aside from the vegetables.They make salted eggs and processed meat. They also make their own butter and cheese. I still have to go there, quite far but I think the trip will be worth it.