Since we now use machines for milking, I 'd suggesting hiring performers for the maids a-milking, too. I run an entertainment company and I can send 8 performers to milk cows. Since they may not be very good at milking and since the recipient is providing the cows and for all I know they might be bulls, I will send along milk for all the guests to drink. Let me know how many guests are expected, price of milk TBD. We will come with pails and jugs, I expect glasses will be on site?
The maids will be in costume (milk maid + Christmas theme?) and will milk for 3 hours with a few breaks. They are kind, fun and professional, suitable for all types of events incl. weddings, black tie events, festivals, raves or children’s birthday parties - we do not do stag dos. If you like we can come up with additional games for during the milking, they could send your guests on quests, have them solve riddles or the performers could quote poetry?
Eight maids a-milking will set you back €3000 excl taxes, travel, milk and cows. Please let us know in advance if there will be a changing room with mirror and we’d like to know where we can park. We’ll be on site an hour in advance. Let us know if there are particular set times and if you’d like us to coordinate with the leaping lords and other performers.
And we’ll have to consider accommodation, in addition to travel. This will depend on the location and event, I suppose. If it’s a twelve day festival we can camp just like everyone else. Anything else will be a lot more expensive.
If you’re only getting them there for 3 hours, it could be the same ones. That should be cheaper.
Incidentally, mute swan ownership in the UK is one of those weird ancient quirky things; swans in open water, unless marked otherwise by a legal owner, are classed as ‘royal birds’ and are owned by the queen. Becoming a legal owner was heavily restricted. It’s not really enforced any more, aside from the one traditional count on the Thames, but eating swan used to be a proper status marker. They’re now just protected under a more normal wildlife conservation law…
It’s not “maid” as in “housecleaner” , it’s “maid” as in “young, unmarried woman”.
Also remember if Merry Maids charges you $75 hour for two people, that doesn’t mean they each are paid 37.50 per hour. Merry Maids has expenses and has to make a profit.
I’m surprised you can get this stuff at any price. If you request maids a-milking, can’t otherwise qualified lads a-milking sue? And do Lords really leap for money? Sounds unbecoming the dignity of the peerage.
Some decades ago I read a “Cost of the Twelve Days” that, unlike the PNC index, gave the basis for the cost of each gift. The ten Lords a-leaping, for example, involved no wages but rather the cost of flying in (First class, of course) ten members of the UK’s House of Lords. Any costs incurred in finding ten Lords capable of leaping was not covered.