Organise Us? In Dreams! by Christine Larsen Everyone has to start somewhere, whether it's early education to begin the learning curve that never ends; apprenticeships to learn careers; dating and falling in and out of love — OR even milking cows! We thought we'd learned farming in the wheat/ sheep belt of Western Australia. But then we came home to South Australia and became Dairy Farmers. This was just part of the first 'hands-on' day! “Organisation’s the secret,” I said firmly. “Preparation, organisation, imagination… and any other ‘tion’ you can think of!” And I laughed; as though my heart weren’t thudding so hard I thought it would outdo the solid pulsation of the milking machine. It was on a test run before we went down the paddock to get our girls in for our ‘maiden milking’.
Our ancient dairy had been the first herring-bone style in our area, a breakthrough in its day. At this point in time, however, it had ‘whiskers on it’… as we would discover. The herring-bone style dairy meant cows stood alongside each other in a staggered, zigzag fashion - six girls each side of a waistdeep concrete pit where Kanute and I would milk them with swing-across sets of milking cups. A flat steel bar behind their bottoms and a thick concrete ledge behind their back feet was designed to keep them from joining us.
True to my deepest philosophy, I had imagined the worst that could happen, worked out how we’d handle it and then tucked it away to the back of my mind. Problem solved (or at least faced and worked through). Kanute once believed this to be a type of pessimism, but soon learned I’m actually a born optimist who prefers to prevent disasters by having a pre-planned course of action. An over-thinker maybe, but an optimist nonetheless.
A long feed trough with a walk-space in front enabled hand-bucketing of the cows’ crushed grain rations. In the interest of speed and ease of handling, I carefully lined up the spot where I imagined each cow’s head would be, and evenly spaced out six bucketfuls of their beloved dairy pellets into each trough on both sides. “Perfect”, I announced confidently. “I’m ready.” - 52 -
