Woody grew up on a farm and as of about six weeks ago he became a farmer by trade. So Woody is used to cow poop, milking, checking to see if animals are in heat, etc. Me...not so much. I grew up on the west side of Columbus where the only animals I saw regularly were dogs and cats. So while I was at Woody's in Norwich he wanted me to experience a bit of his daily chores...mainly milking the cows. I, of course, had no idea what this process was like so Woody decided to use my fingers as the training object. We had a good laugh.
Here is the real lesson that took place the morning of the chores:
Here are the steps:
1. Clean off the teets with this special cleaning agent. You just dip the teets in the stuff (no touching the teets yet).
2. Wipe off the teets with a paper towel (still no hand to teet touching).
3. Squeeze some milk out of the teets to make sure it is OK (now the first touch).
4. Hook the teets up to the vacuuming agent (pictures above) for the milking.
Now when people found out the machine actually milks the cows they questioned my true milking experience. They thought I had to manually milk the cows to get credit. Whether a machine or I milk the cows is not the issue for me. It was that first touch of the cows private area. Come on! Look at those things!
So don't devalue my milking chores. I, for the first time, became intimate with a cow for the sake of milk. This was a major moment in my city boy life. I must confess it felt good as Woody and I stood at the edge of the barn and looked out on that beautiful upstate NY countryside after doing a little work. There is something about farm life. Not sure I am the man to claim farming as a profession, but doing some chores every now and again with a great friend is something I welcome.
And the milk was great. That's right - I had milk straight from the cow. It was thick and glorious. I even made Gretchen try it. And for those of you that know Gretchen - that is an accomplishment. She won't even drink milk from the grocery store.
3 comments:
I loved the pictures of facebook. I don't come over here much Jamie since you don't post that much. I like regular posters. Could you please work on that? : )
Do you know what kind of cows they have? I asked Gretch and she hasn't responded yet. I was thinking maybe Guernseys but I am not sure at all.
I love that you got to do this! SO cool! Why doesn't Gretchen like milk? I remember that either Gretchen or someone in her family put water on their cereal so they wouldn't have calories in college. I thought that was WIERD as could be.
I like how your posts went from touching teets to Gretchen's Birthday. I think that is very special. Super duper special.
I can't believe you wrote a blog called "Touching Teets." I just giggled my whole way through it...especially when you introduced that "Woody" character. Anyway, I gotta side with Gretchen on this...fresh milk is warm and smells like grass...at least that's how I remember it. Now that I think of it though, I think I had goat milk ...that might have been the reason grass flavor. Anywho, glad you had fun playing with "Woody" and "touching teets" and whatever else you did on your vacation.
-Dan
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