Mean spirited cows

I’ve mentioned before that cows are not my favorite animal.

When I was just in my teens I lived on a farm. My Dad had some work horses and a cow. Had to handle the cow but not milk her. I couldn’t then, nor now, get a cow to give milk.

I would take her down the road and stake her out so she could get fresh, green grass. That’s when I learned that cows have a mind of their own.

Flash forwards a number of years to when I met my wife and would drive to southern Idaho to visit her. 

I would get off work at 5 on Friday and then drive the 500 miles to her farm.

I would get there about milk time. She and her brother Bob milked 27 cows, morning and evening, every day, no retreat from work even on Sundays.

Bob got a kick out of getting my shoes caked with something that rhymes with city.

I helped by giving each cow a scoop of oats whenever they got locked in the stanchion. Then I would go behind them and take the scoop shovel and work behind them. I never was able to work the middle.

Bob had a different kind of relationship with cows.

He had a name for each cow and would call out their names. It was special for Bob, and also for the cows.

When the cows were through giving milk, Bob would release them from the stanchion, they would go outside the barn, and another would enter to take its place.

Then I would help by scooping them some oats and then work the shovel. I never could understand why cows waited until they were in the barn before going to the toilet.

So it went; every couple of weeks I would make my courting run to Buhl, Idaho, and help “uncle” Bob with milking the cows.

It might have helped build a friendship with Bob, but I didn’t like it.

I often thought of my days on the farm and wrestling with that darn cow. I had some choice names for it, not the nice girl names Bob had with his cows.

Dorothy and I got married, and it was always the same scene when we returned to Buhl to visit her family.

I don’t think I can remember how many times I had to clean up my city shoes after being out in the barn with Bob. I got so I didn’t mind feeding and cleaning up behind the cows.

Bob’s wife, Sylvia, solved my dirty shoe problem and had a pair of barn shoes for me when I visited.

Bob was special for all those nephews and nieces that a big family produced.

Even after many years, I only knew of a couple of times he had someone step in for him while he went someplace. He was a favorite to all of our family, and when we moved into our Electric City house one of our bedrooms was devoted to his memory.

He was bronzed from being out in the weather all the time, and he rolled his own cigarettes. So, there is a large picture of him in this bedroom with a large grin and another showing his hands rolling a cigarette. There are other things also there. He will never die in our memory or in those of the dozens of nephews and nieces that I am sure feel the same way.

Milk revenue, coupled with crop returns, provided a decent living for Bob and his wife, and his parents.

For one thing, I decided that if I ever lived on a farm again, I definitely would not have a cow.

Years later, while living in Othello, a farmer friend wanted to take a week’s vacation. Knowing that I once lived on a farm, he asked me if I would milk his cow for him and feed his pigs. I still can’t believe that I told him yes.

Well, the first day I went to his farm, and after looking his cow in the face and surveying my circumstances, I saw that there was a calf in the pen nearby.

So, I opened the gate and the calf enjoyed fresh milk morning and night for the week.

I enjoyed the pigs, maybe 15 or 20 of them. I put dry feed in a trough on one side of their pen and water in a trough on the other side. The pigs would eat the dry grain until they couldn’t swallow, then race to the other side for water and then back to the grain. It was actually fun watching the show.

When the farmer-friend returned, he asked me if I had any problems.

I just told him no and left it at that.