by
Vern Zielke
It used to be that every farm
boy had to milk cows. It was not that many of us lived on
large dairy farms with modern, state of the art facilities
for milk production. Family farms had cows to supply the
daily milk and cream for household use. Milk was also fed to
the young calves and to the pigs, which were being fattened
for market. It was an absolute certainty, like death and
taxes, that the cows would have to be milked twice a day.
This job was always referred to
as "doing the chores." This would include getting the cows
from the pasture, putting feed into their feed troughs, and
letting them come into the barn to find their designated
stalls. Most of the time the cows were truly domesticated
and easy to handle. Each of them had a name, and they always
knew which stall to occupy after they were trained.
We never had an electric
milking machine and so we had to milk "by hand." Generally
there were three of us to do the milking and we would
usually have at least ten cows to milk. The procedure was
to take a clean three-gallon pail from the separator room in
one hand, a three-legged milk stool in the other, and
approach Daisy from the right rear. The stool was then
placed next to her and you would sit with the bucket between
your knees. For those not acquainted with a cow's anatomy,
it would be helpful to explain that Daisy's udder had four
teats. The object of the entire exercise was to empty the
udder by squeezing the teats with a pulling motion until you
were sure that the udder had been thoroughly emptied. Since
there were four teats and you had only two hands, you
usually worked on the two to your left first, and then
finished with the two to your right.
All of this was pretty much
routine and to have to do this twice a day was, for a young
boy, a somewhat unexciting task. There were, of course,
times when the routine was interrupted. In the summertime it
was flies. Flies loved to congregate in barns and they also
loved to gather on the backs of cows. They would bite the
cows and the cows were, of course, equipped with a defensive
instrument, which was known as a tail. They were extremely
adept at constantly swinging this lethal weapon back and
forth in an effort to sweep away the pesky flies. If you
were seated in the position described above it was
inevitable that you would be under constant bombardment. A
slap in the face was irritating and could be painful.
A "slop" in the face with a
tail laden with fresh cow manure was especially hard to
accept. A cow's tail was sometimes thus fortified in the
Spring when the fresh, green wheat on which she had been
grazing brought on diarrheic symptoms. This often resulted
in a verbal diatribe by the milker, directed mostly at the
cow, but also inclusive of the whole wretched business of
having to do "the chores." If the cow was insulted by any of
this she mostly kept her feelings to herself. Sometimes,
however, the cow would respond by perversely raising her leg
and neatly placing her foot in the milk bucket. Then you
were faced with a two-fold dilemma: First you had to figure
out how to get the foot out of the pail. When you would
finally persuade her to allow you to lift the foot from the
pail you had to decide how to dispose of the milk which was
now not fit for human consumption. At times like this, it
was the pigs that got an extra supply in their troughs.
There were other diversions for
a young boy bored with his task. A skilled milker can
extract milk from the cow with quite a bit of force. My
mother was a skilled milker. When she began her task with an
empty bucket between her knees, the sound of the milk
hitting the bottom of the bucket resounded throughout the
barn like a symphony tuning up before a performance. I tried
to develop a similar technique, and it was gratifying to
hear the milk spatter against the pail's bottom, and as it
filled, to see a head of foam build up in the bucket. But
alas, I would too often digress. I soon discovered that by
turning the cow's teat away from the pail one could aim the
stream of milk out into space and shoot the stream clear
across the barn. This was especially effective if you had
friends over and they came to watch you milk. You could,
without warning, direct a stream of fresh, warm, whole milk
at anyone within range.
We always had numerous cats.
They were always present at milking time, because they knew
that eventually they would get some fresh, warm milk in
their dishes. They would congregate in front of the door to
the separator room, and generally make a nuisance of
themselves. But the presence of the cats at milking time
presented the possibility of a very enjoyable diversion for
the young milker, which would test his milking skills to the
limit. It did not take long to engage a cat's interest by
squirting one of them with a stream of milk. At first, the
reaction was to retreat a safe distance and lick the
affected area. Upon tasting the fresh milk, it was not
difficult to lure them back for more. The trick now was to
aim the stream just above the cat so that it would have to
stretch a bit to make contact. It was not long till a cat
could be trained to walk about on its hind legs in pursuit
of an illusive stream of milk. To keep the cat interested,
it was advisable to occasionally aim directly at its mouth,
thus restoring its confidence in the integrity of the game.
And so it was that not all was work and no play. Jack was
not always a dull boy as a result, and as for the cats,
well, they were generally well fed and they really did seem
to think that they were the "cat's meow"!
(Copyright Vern Zielke)
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