Milking the Cow

 

 

“All the good ideas I ever had came to me while I was milking a cow”

                                                                                     Grant Woods

 

 

 

I am up at 4:00am every morning to milk the cow(s).  It's a fact of life if you have a dairy animal that you don't get vacation days unless you find someone else to do your milking for you, until that animal dried up.  Of course once that animal dries up you don't get milk, so it's 6 of one half a dozen of another. 

 

At night I take the calf away from his mamma and put him with his aunties. (I only milk once a day) Ten hours later I HAVE to milk that cow and put her back with her calf.  If I don't several things will happen.  The cow will kick down her stall, break down a few fences, and go to her calf.  She will probably get mastitis and will stop nursing the calf, and then I'll have to clear up the mastitis with drugs that cost too much and I hate using, and while that's going on I'll have to hand feed the calf, turning it into a demon that will run up to me when it is full grown and knock me over looking for that bottle.  Nope, no matter how tired I am at 4:00am, I'm getting up and milking the cow(s) because I will regret if for a long time if I don't.

 

 

I have often had people either feel sorry for me or tell me that there is NO WAY they would ever tie themselves down to that way of life.  Which is fine, if we all milked animals every morning other jobs wouldn't get done.  We each have a role to play and mine is getting up at 4:00am and milking the cow.  Thing is, I LIKE getting up at 4:00am and milking the cow.  Call me crazy, and I won't always disagree with you, but it is usually my time to prepare myself for the day.  I don't drink coffee so there's no jolt to start off my morning, instead I do it slow and easy with a routine that is so known to me, I could do it in my sleep.  There are days when I wonder if I did.

 

The cool thing about milking a cow, or any dairy animal for that matter,  is that they have a say in what is going on right at that moment.  If you are ticked off, she may decide to not let down her milk.  If you are feeling sorry for yourself and not paying attention, she may "accidentally" step in the milk pail.  If you grab her too hard...WATCH OUT!  If you grab her too soft, nothing happens.  No, you have to be calm and in the moment to milk a cow.  She isn't going to do what you want if you aren't.  If you don't get her clean enough, her milk will taste like whatever filth you left behind.  If you use too much cleaner on her your milk will taste like cleaner.  Milk picks up scents and flavors very easily.

 

 

This means every morning I get a wake up call...no, not the alarm.  Not that I need an alarm any more.  After doing this for 24 years I couldn't sleep past 4:00am if I wanted to.  But I am forced to not be so inside myself, worrying about trivial things or even big things.  If I want milk, cheese, butter, yogurt, kefir... I have to give my all to that moment.  It is a meditation of sorts, but instead of going to a make believe place in my mind, my milking meditation draws me out of myself into the world that I am a part of.   For me it makes me able to be a part and handle what ever the day has to offer.

 

When I first started milking on my own I decided to only milk once a day.  I was only milking for the homestead so I didn't need tons of milk, and with the heritage breeds of cattle, the calves can be taken away from the cows for a few hours without doing any damage.  This way I don't have to have replacement feed for the calves and I only have to milk once a day.  I started with 2 cows, a highlander and a dexter.  Both were great cows but I really liked the highlander and stuck with the breed.  They can be milked for about 9 to 10 months with each freshening (when you breed a cow to produce a calf and therefor milk it is called freshening after the first time) and I stagger their breeding so that I am never without a milking cow.  This means sometimes I am milking one cow in the morning, sometimes two and rarely three.

 

My milk house is attached to a spring house, which is how the Wisconsin farmers of old often did things.  This way the milk house stays cool in the summerr and warmer in the winter because the spring water flowing through the spring house is always between 45 and 55 degree F.  This makes milking a great way to cool off on sticky summer mornings and warm up on biting winter ones.  I tell you, there is nothing like running your ice cold finger into the hair of your milking cow to warm up (unless you are doing it in your horse's hair).  The spring house is nature's cooler, and where the milk cans go right after the milking is done.  Unless I want a warm chocolate milk on a cold winter's day.  Then I take the chocolate syrup that always sits on the shelf in the parlor and swirl some into my still warm raw milk.  I tell you, unless you are lactose intolerant, you will never have a better treat than drinking chocolate milk made from milk just minutes out of the animal.  Especially if there is a nip of cold in the air.

 

Yes, I do drink my milk raw.  Because I am in control of the milking settings, the cow, and utensils and the farm itself, I can trust my milk raw.  In fact I can trust it raw more than people who get their milk from dairies where hormones and antibiotics are given to the cows.  The first is given to make her produce more milk, the second is to keep the infections at bay from a cow that is producing too much milk!  And we wonder way we are creating so many super bacteria now.  My cows give the milk they give, I manage their pastures so they get good grazing without over grazing and the plants they eat won't do damage to their milk.  Milk, like everything else, starts with the ground which grows the plants, which the cows eat, which I milk.  Without caring for the earth, I don't get good, safe milk to drink.  Drinking my milk raw gives me all that energy and it starts with the earth.

 

So this morning, while I was cleaning off Mir's udders, I felt sorry for all those who weren't up at 4:00am, getting ready to receive the gift of the earth and the sun and the grass and the cows.  How could I be more blessed?  And all that before the sun comes up.