First Day Blues by Christine Larsen My nose crinkles involuntarily even today… Who could ever forget having to clean down the herringbone dairy BEFORE we could milk? AND remove the offending feed. All those compact little piles of pellets and grain I’d carefully lined up in the long open trough, exactly where our girls’ heads would be. Uhrr… incoming lesson! You feed the beasties AFTER they have walked in and shuffled, and snuffled, and arranged themselves… and ‘pooped’ again. NOT before! We were up for the challenge of leasing a dairy farm and milking twice a day… especially following the woeful efforts of the temporary dairyman — a sheep farmer. “So what’s wrong with a sheep farmer milking cows?” you ask. Well-ll…
It’s true. No job for the faint-hearted with all those enormous heads and poppy eyes staring fearfully at you. Some wanted to sniff and taste you with great snake-like tongues as rough as sandpaper. Others rolled their eyes, laid back their ears, and tossed their heads in disgust. Much head-swinging and foot -stamping took place as they tried in vain to withhold their milk.
For starters, this reluctant milker rounded up the cows twice a day with his trusty working dogs, and his equally 'old faithful' utility. Hard to tell which moved the cows faster - the incessant yapping, or the combined roar of the vehicle’s motor and beeping of its horn as it belched great clouds of stinking smoke. He appeared delighted with his highly successful method (to him) of herding the girls into the dairy in the shortest time known to man. As spectators, there to ‘learn the ropes’, we were unimpressed by the quantity of milk spread over the paddock by the swinging udders of the sprinters. Maybe we knew zilch about milking cows, but it didn’t take an Einstein to figure this was all wrong.
On this first dairying day we’d graciously refused all offers of help with the confident air of two old hands at this milking ‘gig’. It was ironic, in retrospect. Kanute and I are scrupulously honest, always… and yet, on this subject, we blatantly lied and deceived everyone around us so none should witness our quivering interiors and glowing ‘L’ plates. “That trusty sheep farmer actually did us a massive favour,” I say, full of confidence now, all these decades later. We both remember, only too clearly, our sincere and steadfast belief that nothing we could do would upset the girls more than that sheepish dairyman.
“Even as city slickers,” Kanute says, shaking his head in disbelief, “we learnt how to handle our big girls successfully for the next ten years!” He pauses, tightens his lips and shakes his head, still in disbelief. “For the next ten years! Who’d have thought, hey?”
And then I set up their feed in the troughs… - 47 -
