Yes - Milk Comes From Cows

But then there is the distribution. On the one end of the spectrum, the supermarket sells cartons of processed milk - and on the other end, it is common to see a farmer wandering through the streets of the city on his horse, with a 5 gallon plastic pail - strapped to his saddle - one on each side. He stops when people enquire and ladles out the quantity requested.

Then there is the more refined milk vendor, who offers fresh milk while riding his bicycle fitted with a cart containing bright metal traditional milk containers. Question is - is he the farmer? If not - where does he get his milk from?

WELL - it couldn't have been scripted better as the milk vendor biked up the hill of our street early this morning. Watching with interest, he stopped directly in front of our side door. Within seconds a motorcycle packing 4 large dirty plastic containers - 2 strapped to each side - - - approached from the opposite direction. He hopped off of his motorcycle, exposing his legs heavily coated with mud from being with the cows in the field.

The Milk Vendor

The Dairy Farmer

The two chatted for a bit and then went through the procedure of first emptying each of the containers of "freshly squeezed milk", into the vendors containers. First through a colander that the vendor held over a red pail - - - and then filtered again as the contents of the red pail were poured into the metal milk pails.

Then the money transaction took place. We have noticed before that Nicaraguans are meticulous bookkeepers. That was the case with this farmer as well. He opened his notebook and wrote down the calculations of his delivered product and price the vendor was to pay for that. Then the agreed amount of money was handed over.

Once done each went off to fulfill the rest of their day.