A. Faith Brummel
It’s a raw cold day. Snow covers the ground like a sheet. I wish very much that I did not need to go outside, but one of the treasures of having a milk cow, is that you are obliged to go outside rain or shine. It’s a wonder that I think of the operation of milking my cow in 10-degree weather as cozy! I put on my mom’s old coat over my pajamas. A few feathers drift from a hole. It is covered in manure and paint. I retrieve a bucket with warm water, two rags, and a stainless-steel mixing bowl, and trudge out into the burning cold air.
As I walk to the 115-year-old green barn I think of the two male cats that ran away a few days ago and am glad of the one girl that is left, Tawny. She always sits on my lap well I milk. She is the reason I think of milking my cow as cozy. The icy wind causes boards to creak in the hayloft. I set my load on a rickety old desk we had found in the old bunkhouse’s attic.
I went over to a garbage can in the corner of the dark room and filled a bucket with yellow kernels. I hear a ‘mooo’ my cow is ready to be milked. I shake my pail of corn as I open the sliding door. The cold metal handle bit into my gloveless hand. She shook her head at me and walked into her stall. My cow is very cute. She is an American British White Park cow, with black ears, black feet, a black snout, and white everywhere else. I followed her quickly and closed the head gate. I spilled corn into her trough and rushed to put her kickers on. The kickers are metal with a place to hook her carpal joint on each side which restricts her kicks enough to give me a warning when they are coming.
I stumble across the frozen manure and hay-covered floor to retrieve the bucket of lukewarm water. I dip my fingers and a dry rag into the steaming liquid and quickly wash her teats before it gets cold. Then I take a bit of an old t-shirt and dry her udder off. Then I take the stainless mixing bowl, grab a teat, and squeeze out a thin stream of white liquid gold. Drips cling to the bowl as a rainstorm of milk soon turns into a lake of frothy whiteness.
My fingers soon began to ache. I let go and I can feel the strain leave my fingers. Tawny my bottle kitten climbs on my lap and settles down to watch the milk me sprayed into the bowl. I snuggle in and quickly grab the bowl back before Daisy’s kick lands. I press on, starting with the top figures I close them all, and the stream hits the lake.
Every time Daisy kicks, I move the bowl and keep milking. Soon the bowl is full, my fingers aching, and Daisy is ready to go. Tawny jumps off my lap and mews at me. I aim a milk stream at her head, and she opens her mouth to let it in. I take off Daisy’s kickers and let her back outside, where she has the tradition of mooing once, and then goes to eat her hay. I hurry back into the barn, shooing a cat away from the bucket. Too often I have had it happen where a cat will decide to take a long drink of the milk and make me give the rest to their naughty feline race. I take the container inside where I run it through a cheesecloth into a glass container. I finally run upstairs to get dressed, only to repeat this chore in 12 hours.
The Old Calvinist 