Horse Milking

We were out prospecting for well sites this afternoon and came upon this herd of horses and it was milking time. They milk about 20 mares about every two hours during the day. It was amazing to watch their technique. They sell the fresh milk and they also make airag. We stopped, got our cups and went over to buy some fresh mare's milk. It cost 200 tugs, which is less than 20 cents. It was delicious. It reminded us of fresh watermelon juice, not like milk at all. One of the mares had a health problem and two of the men hobbled her hind legs and bled her in several places. Ariuka says that this is acommon practice here and the horses get healthy and fatten upafterwards. We asked if we could take their pictures and they were very pleased, so much so that some of them went into their ger and put on clean shirts. They also woke up the baby so he could be in the pictures. They were so gracious. They invited us in for bread, milk and tomatoes. We sat inside for a while and visited and looked at the medals that their horses had won at Naadams throughout the years. They had a wall full of medals. They have placed first a few times and the horses that won were sold along with all the medals they had won in the horse's lifetime. These people live in Selenge and come down to this area every summer for Naadam and start back home around the middle of August. They invited us to come back to visit again. We want to go back and take them an album with these pictures and others that we took. They were a delightful family. We really enjoyed our visit with them.