First Day Blues by Christine Larsen

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… 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. “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?” 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.

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.

And then I set up their feed in the troughs…

On this first day of milking, Kanute and I had gone out on foot to bring the cows in, guessing it required one human in front for them to follow, and one behind, encouraging forward impetus. We bravely believed cows that a sheep farmer had herded with his over-enthusiastic dogs would respond in amazingly docile style to quiet, firm encouragement by humans ‘on foot’. They would follow, gratefully and calmly moving into whatever position or place you desired. Right? Kanute clears his throat. “Actually, NO-o-o… Our girls responded much differently.” He’s right. The drippy dames stopped everything to stare wide-eyed; poop; turn around and start following us (cows are SO curious); poop some more; finally move together (in the wrong direction); and for good luck, poop again. But at last they were in the concrete holding yard with the iron swing gate firmly chained behind them. With a press of a button, the milking machine sprung into action and finally we had ‘all systems go’. **Author’s Note: I know I told you this last month, but for those who missed that one, here is THE next disaster of that ‘quaker/cracker’ that was our first-ever milking— Everything appeared to be in perfect readiness… except! The first cow entering the dairy stopped at the first pile of feed in the long trough and started eating. And the monumental pile-up began, with pushing and shoving like a mob scene at the opening of a department store sale. Soon, there were cows in the engine room - and the milk room around the huge refrigerated milk vat. Some went down the steps into ‘our’ pit; two wedged themselves impossibly tight between the tail rail and the trough; and another tried to jump over the feed trough, straddling it instead, totally unable to make her way forward or back. And they didn’t ‘cry us a river’, they pooped it instead. “And we thought we were nervous before our maiden milking began.” I can’t help a wry smile and a shake of my head, recollecting how sure we’d been our bravado could overcome anything. Ha! Our stomachs and nervous systems closely resembled jellyfish status as we tried to restore order to the incredible chaos.

“Just had to let them all back out into the dirt yard,” says Kanute. His eyes narrow and his top lip curls. And my nose crinkles involuntarily. Who could forget having to clean down the dairy before we could even continue, plus hastily removing the offending feed from the troughs? Another learning curve! You feed them AFTER they have walked in and shuffled and arranged themselves and pooped again.

At last, there we were calmly milking our cows, until a flurry of sounds sent us into panic mode. First, the blaring air-horn of a milk tanker resounded through the dairy, almost drowning out the chugging, hissing milking machine. Seconds later, a squeal of brakes, frantic yelping, and a sickening thump, followed by a stranger racing into the dairy… face red and flustered, voice loud and harsh with distress. “Jeez… come quickly! I’ve just hit your dog! I think I might’ve killed her!” And as he turned, he shouted over his shoulder, “She MIGHT still be alive… but I think it’s pretty bad.” Couldn’t be one of our dogs? We had carefully tied mother and daughter up back at the house, where they were safe… weren’t they? My world stopped turning, fear buzzing painfully in my ears, drowning out even the pulsing rhythm of the noisy milking machine. The briefest moment of numbing shock preceded a flurry of furious action as Kanute quickly whipped the milking cups off. Did our hearts or feet race faster out to the roadside where our precious dog lay frighteningly still on the grass where she’d been tossed like an empty paper bag? “Oh my. Do you remember her shallow breathing? Such short little puffs.” Tears well in my eyes as I relive the fear. We were sure we were about to lose her.

They say your life rushes before your eyes when you’re drowning, and when I saw she was still breathing, and we carried her into the dairy’s milk room, memories flooded my mind of the first moment I saw her. Ugly as… in her umbilical sac. Adopting the role of midwife assisting my darling far-too-young dog giving birth to eight near-lifeless puppies, I cleared Gypsy’s mouth and tickled her nose with a dry stalk of grass to make her sneeze and take her first breath of life. There was never a doubt which puppy we would keep when the painful time came for the rest to be weaned. Gypsy had stolen my heart from that Day One. We pledged ourselves to each other until death us should part. On this first milking day, we thought that day had arrived, as we gently lifted her onto a pile of hessian bags and saw the pads of her paws torn almost completely away. So many cuts, grazes, and large bald patches were already weeping badly where the road gravel had ripped her fur away. She could barely move her limbs or lift her head, although her body trembled uncontrollably. Poor love. Her tail thumped constantly as she whimpered, telling me of her fear and pain. Alarmingly, blood trickled from the side of her mouth.

“We thought it meant internal injuries,” I say. “Remember how distraught we were?” “Do I ever! Imagined the worst... both of us.” Thankfully, it turned out to be no more sinister than her teeth having lacerated the inside of one cheek. Amazingly, this nightmare ended with no broken bones, no internal injuries. Dazed and ‘shocky’, the constant pulsating rhythm of the milk, whooshing and squirting into the milk vat comforted her, as did our constant vigil between the dairy and the milk room to check her progress and comfort her between ‘runs’ of cows.

Poor Gypsy. She’d understood the need for a wide detour around those gargantuan beasts, but this took her onto the dirt road alongside our dairy. She did not understand the dangers of roads and traffic. Her only experience was the extra long driveway in to her birthplace, the farmhouse in faraway Western Australia. The traffic on our new dairy farm road was sparse but fast, swerving for nothing smaller than a stock truck or another milk-tanker.

Our sore and sorry girl had difficulty walking for some days, but soon made a complete recovery. Many years later, arthritis would remind us of her old war wounds. After this drama, Gypsy climbed and conquered each seemingly insurmountable wall for 17 years (or 100 human variety), surviving comfortably through two strokes and a couple more minor accidents.

They were certainly ‘testing times’, but as promised, ‘what didn’t kill us, definitely made us stronger.’ In fact, strong enough to survive a decade of dairy farming.

Christine is an Australian in the middle of her seventh decade - a writer, farmer, wife, mother, grandmother - now on their retirement farm, and returning from an absence to reignite her works. Christine’s three main genres are - Memoirs - of growing up in the 1950's in Australia, of farming, and of treasured collections. Children's Stories - mostly for middle-school age readers, but also excellent read aloud stories by parents, siblings, grandparents, babysitters, teachers. Short stories + Flash-fiction (and non-fiction) Collections - a range of almost every genre, encompassing every emotion from humour to deepest sadness.