Wake-Up Call

Wake-Up Call (7 June 2019)

Some experiences are so vivid that they leave a lasting impression on your mind. Your experience yesterday climbing Eagle’s peak, with Caleb’s fall and all the search and rescue, firemen, and others that came to make sure you were okay and made it down safely may be one of those experiences. Some day you’ll share these experiences with your children, just like I share cow stories with you. Today, since I know you feel deprived never having lived on a dairy farm, I want you to share a story and have you imagine yourself living through a wonderful dairy farm experience:).

Imagine your father waking you up around 3:30am. He has already been up long enough to get dressed and ready for the day so he heads directly out to the barn to start the milking process. You really want to snuggle back into your warm bed, and you do, but only for too short a time. You know that you can only risk a few minutes of that warmth before getting ready.

There have been times you’ve fallen back asleep, or just waited too long, only to hear the phone ring in the front room. Nobody’s happy with you when the phone rings, so you pull yourself out of bed, throw on your work clothes, grab a couple cookies from the freezer, and rush out to the barn, hoping that the final rush makes up for the initial delay.

Uncle Wayne standing in the Milk Barn

After corralling the cows, and counting to make sure they are all there, you join your dad in the barn. The milk barn consists of four milking stations on each side elevated about 3 feet above where you stand. Your dad has already started four cows milking on one side and has just let in another four cows. You pull a cord letting down a little grain for each cow and then grab the rear sprayer and wash off the udders of the rear two cows while your dad takes the front two. After thoroughly washing and drying, you connect the automatic milkers on each cow and make sure milk is flowing freely from each teat.

By this time, the first four cows are about to finish so you start watching them to see when the milk stops flowing. When it does, you remove the automatic milking apparatus, hang it upside down, and cover the sucking ends. Then you use your hand to strip the final bit of milk out of each teat.  Failure to do this can result in inflammation and possibly an infection. This is called mastitis and can sometimes result in a pretty sick cow and days of lost milk. Finally, you dip each teat in an antibacterial solution that also reduces the chances of infection.

After you’ve completed this for the first four cows you let them out, bring in four new cows, and the cycle repeats. By now it is around 4:15 and you are still very tired and doing monotonous work that you could do in your sleep. If fact, maybe you are still half-asleep as you go from one side to the other, eyes mostly open, but not really registering all that much, and your head resting against the metal poles when the opportunity presents itself.

WHAP! A manure-soaked cow’s tail swats across your face! Adrenaline rushes to your cells, your body is in high gear, and you are suddenly wide awake! You think for a second about hitting the cow as hard as you can to release some of your anger, but you’ve done before and know better. That doesn’t have any noticeable effect on the cow, and it usually ends up hurting your hand, sometimes pretty bad, especially if you accidentally hit the metal bar like Keith did.

So you stand seething and start doing the only thing you can do, you start wiping the manure off your face. That’s when you start wishing you didn’t breathe through your mouth. You also wonder how it is that a cow that’s eating grain, and can’t even see you, can have such pinpoint accuracy as to directly hit your open mouth.

You clean off your face with water, spray the water directly into your mouth to rinse it out, and wipe the manure out of your hair the best you can.  Despite this, you know that you’ll have to hurry today to make sure you have time to wash your hair before catching the bus, otherwise you’ll be smelling it all during school. Even in farm country, it’s best not to stink too bad in the presence of non-family members… Then, like a small diamond in a coal mine, a small glint of gratitude enters your heart. You are grateful to be milking with your dad today- at least he doesn’t laugh at your distress like your brothers would.

Grateful or not, you’re not about to be bested by a beast of burden. You’ve been given an indomitable spirit and a brain to think. The next couple hours as you milk sets of four cows again and again, your previously sleepy brain is wide awake, thinking of what must be done to prevent a recurrence.

Your saga will continue in the next installment of Farm Story Friday, “Man versus Beast”...