Many years ago, I worked on a small farm. There were lots of birds: ducks, geese, turkeys, chickens and even peacocks. And there were two milking cows. Belle, a large Holstein who was implacable and aloof, and Honey, a sweet natured Jersey whose milk was very high in butterfat. While the regular person was away, I milked the cows and ran the milk house, which distributed milk to many in the community and made butter and yoghurt.
The owner of the farm was a very unusual man. He had a unique view of things and a particular fondness for chaos. Some people thought he was eccentric, but I thought of him as concentric.
The morning milking was early. Eric would bring the cows into the barn. Cows pretty much take their time, all the time, you never see a cow hurrying. Eric would move them along by tapping the base of their tail with his walking stick and muttering to them in cow language which requires you to talk in a calm soothing voice and call all the cows Bessie. I don’t know where this Bessie thing came from, but it is certainly universal. You could go to Kazakhstan and you would hear them muttering Bessie to all of their cows as they bring them in from the pasture.
After they were settled in their stanchions, I’d give them something to eat.
As tradition dictates, I sat on a three-legged stool. Before you start milking you have to thoroughly wash the udder and the teats. This is time consuming especially during the muddy months of the year, which here in Maine are all the months of the year, except August.
Then you have to check for mastitis, which is done by squirting a small amount of milk from each teat onto a metal device which allows the milk to run down a shiny metal plate. If the cow is sick the milk color and consistency will be different.
We had a cranky vacuum milking machine which was run by an ancient vacuum pump which always seemed ready to die. But every day I got it to run. Sometimes you just had to bang it with something heavy.
It’s a remarkable feeling sitting there, leaning on a thousand-pound beast who is about to give you several gallons of milk without the slightest show of emotion, except perhaps, relief! Sometimes, as I was sitting there contemplating the wonderfulness of it all, Belle would let loose with a tremendous fart, loud enough to frighten the bejeezus out of you and smelly enough to put you off your breakfast. It was like she was saying, “enough with the philosophical baloney, let’s get on with it.” And get on with it we did.
In the milk house, since you are dealing with raw milk, everything must be scrupulously clean, including all of the milk jars the neighbors brought for milk. If they didn’t smell right, I couldn’t fill them, making me a very unpopular guy.
Eventually the regular milk maid came back and I left the cow barn for other work. But I really did miss those farts.
