Welcome to my world and beyond...

A collection of snippets of the books I write and, occasionally, my life and the things that inspire my writing...

Monday, April 15, 2013

A to Z "M"

And in keeping with my country/farm childhood theme, M is for Milk cow.


In my generation, we had a lot of different animals over the years, and the "famous" ones have remained in my memory.  I've already written about Cheeper, that cute little peep that grew into a monster of a flogging rooster.  And today, on the topic of milk cow, I'll tell you about Betsy.

She was a milk cow, a Brown Swiss, maybe. If she was a pure bred cow, it was probably by accident, because I think even our cows were mutts.  

I don't know how old she was. I can just say that she was part of the farm as far back as my memories go. Betsy was about as tame as any cat on the farm, and the most dependable animal for showing up at milking time.

We milked by hand--also just part of life. It was something you learned, and all of knew how, and all of us did it. Although I will say, some of us did it more than others. Being one of the youngest, it didn't fall on me very often. It was more of a novelty when I got to do it. I'd beg to get to take a turn.

Over the winter, the cows were in the barn, and were let out once a day for water, then herded back inside. But in the summer, they roamed the pasture, living outside. And Betsy was milked over the summer.  But we never had to go chase  Betsy down and herd her back to the barn to be milked. She showed up at the yard fence at milking time.

I'd think that a cow's udder becomes quite painful if those gallons of milk aren't removed in a timely manner. Or...maybe she just liked us. I remember feeding her bread as a treat while she stood at the fence..  Really...sliced bread.

And then we'd milk her right there at the fence.

Drum roll...   I give you Betsy... the milk cow. My sister Betty, 14 months younger than me, is beneath Betsy, milking her. I'd guess that Betty was 5 or 6 years old in this photo. Look at the dogs and cats! In the second photo, I am the little girl in the foreground, holding an egg carton. The photo dated Sept 1964 tells me that I was four years old. But sheesh--you'd think I'd have known by then you don't bring an egg carton to milk a cow. :-)





11 comments:

  1. Ah, special memories!
    My mum grew up on a dairy farm and she has many stories to tell :)

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  2. Mutt Cows...funny! Great 'Farm Girl' story and the pictures are priceless. Did most farms put stock in a Betsy or an Elsa...I know ours did...Elsa was a heifer. Also a Bull we called TBone...yep, he was destined for the freezer. My Dad was a Cowboy...more rancher than farmer. I loved the chickens and Elsa...TBone not so much.
    Great Letter M post.

    My Letter 'M'...Modern Marvels
    Sue CollectInTexasGal
    AtoZ LoneStar Quilting Bee

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  3. If you recall Teresa Betsy was a horse also before we had the horses. We would use an old stick to tap her to make her go the direction we wanted her to go in. Great story, and great memories.

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  4. Sweet pictures and wonderful story! I'm enjoying your A to Z so much. ☺

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  5. Adorable! My best friend from home had cows. We used to feed them bread. They were adorable, and their babies were even cuter. Can't say I've ever actually milked a cow, but it is definitely something I would like to experience at some point! Happy M Day!

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  6. I love your A to Z farm theme. Always wanted to grow up on a farm and after reading your posts I can see what I missed. Looking forard to more stories!

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    1. Thanks Vicki. :-) It was a hard life, but I wouldn't change it for anything.

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  7. Such interesting memories you have, Teresa and I love the photos! I've never even seen a cow up close, just while driving by on the highway.

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    1. Isn't it wonderful how different we all are? I can't imagine the things you've seen, Debbie. There's still time...we have so many more things to see. :-) Thanks for visiting. :-)

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  8. What a great photo of the family and the cow! Do you think you had little creatures or a collection of other things in the egg carton? Do you remember?

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    1. Thanks, Bryan, I'm not sure what was in there that was so fascinating, but it had my attention. It could have been little flowers like violets or dandelions, or it could have been bugs, lol. Glad you stopped to visit!

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