Farming Chronicles

Oh. I thought that cows came to owners like toys came in packages: in-tune, fit to its task, good as long as you don’t wear them down excessively. At least, that’s what it seemed while I was milking under the Dougherty’s cows, with legs outstretched, forehead cocked against a warm hide, and milk flowing. Imagine my surprise when, reaching down to politely squeeze my potential cow’s kind teat, she shot out her hoof at my hand! This sweet encounter of cow meets owner has turned more into a bullfight. Squeeze, whir, step back, thump of my fist against her thick leg. Squeeze, whir, step back, thump. That was the first attempt at milking. 

Day two I was ready to show myself the human. Armed with kant-kick chains and the gait of a bad actress (I was advised on the internet that cows feel posture and I needed to inform her I was the boss cow), I leaned over and swung my legs over the panels. I felt my bravery in sticking my face in Flora’s back legs as I swung the chains around was poorly rewarded by the one minute of tense stillness and the millisecond of thrashing it took for her remove them. I also tried 204, but she pranced around like a rodeo horse until they clamored to the floor. 

When you’re alone at a task, and you believe the only way out is through, you start to wonder whether you will be repeating this sequence until the day you die. (In which case, it may just save everybody’s sweat just to sit down and die on the barn door.) Right before I sat down, Ryan came by. After a circular conversation, Josh also passed through and asked whether we had tried tying baling twine around her hips. (Since you can’t sell that one, of course it was not online.) The three of us triangulated around the cow, I gingerly reached for her udder, and – she stood! I milked. Can she take a bucket? Clang-thump. Instantaneously her hoof muddied the inside of the can. How about a plastic one? Bam. She pinned it onto the ground. Milk on the floor then. Fine. 

Day three involved Amy as my twine resistor and milk in a bucket. Day four was a step back for Flora, and a surprise to see how well 204 took to the ratchet strap treatment (the upgrade from the baling twine method). In fact, she even daintily perched her legs back for me. Day five 204 let me milk her again – with a rope – and Flora was thoroughly uninterested.

A well-tuned milk cow isn’t a given, like an unworn toy in a package. To make her work, she needs to be old. She needs experiences. And for her to be my cow, she does not need just any experiences. She needs her skin against my skin. (Or, my skin against her skin? I look at my potholed forearms and hands and wonder whether they will heal this interim week before I take to the cow again.) The golden days come when we’ve worn paths onto each other.

In the meantime, my old fridge acquired for milk has stopped working. God, grant me a new fridge and an old cow.