I am 63. I am a retired school teacher because my dairy farmer dad told me I didn't want to be tied down to milking cows twice a day everyday. He was right, I guess, because growing up our 'vacations' consisted of going camping at a nearby lake resort with swimming and fishing. I can remember waking up in the tent and hearing him get dressed in the dark to drive back home for the morning milking. He'd come back around 9:30 and spend the day and leave again around 3:30 for the evening milking. He was back by around 7:00 for the night. There was no one else who could do what he did the way it needed to be done until my older brother and I were old enough to take over. Even then he would never leave for more than a couple days at a time. From the time I was about 10 years old I had helped with the milking. My job was to call in the cows and take our collie Lady and bring them into the pen to await their turn to be milked. At that age I was always barefoot going down the cow paths to avoid the "careless weeds" which some might call "hogweeds. They had vicious thorns that could penetrate even my tough feet. Lady and I didn't have to do much. The cows already knew the drill.
I helped dad milk from four to about 6:30 in the evening. I couldn't help in the morning after chores because I had to go to school.
Dad always had the radio playing in the milk parlor. The Chuck Wagon Gang always came on singing gospel before the 4:30 news. And we milked about 40 cows every milking. We sat on stools and talked while we watched each cow empty out. The milk being carried in containers and poured into a refrigerated tank that was constantly stirred by a huge paddle. This was grade A and before he went to a more modern method which conveyed the milk to the tank through glass pipes.
This continued for years through my childhood until I went away to college. I managed to graduate with a decent GPA with a BSE in education. My mother wanted me to teach as she had for years. I thought I wanted to dairy like dad. Dad told me in no uncertain terms that he had sent me to school to do something other than milk cows. So I became a teacher for 30 years.
I've been retired for a while now. I have a lot to thank Dad for. I have 80 acres that I rent to a good man who runs cattle and bales hay on the land. And I'm glad to let him have it. I baled enough hay while a young man to last me for a lifetime. Dad passed away first and then mom some years later. They left me the house I grew up in on my 80. My brother's 80 acres is east of mine and he's already sold off 40 acres of his. I am loathe to sell mine. They're not making any more land and land is always money in the bank. I'm hanging on to mine. But there is the house.....The family home.....It's been vacant for five years now. I could not bear to sell it while mom was in the nursing home and quite ill. As you can imagine it is beginning to go to ruin. The ceiling is falling down. My brother and I do our best to keep it mowed to discourage vandals and thieves. I refuse to rent it because of the headaches that involves and the kind of people that might trash it. I hope that one day to sell it with a few acres to our renter.
But I go there quite often and walk through the mildewed rooms and think of all the things that happened in that house. So much. To renovate it would be a money pit. And then for what? I don't want to rent it. So I will keep it up as best I can and remember every time I go there all the happy times and farm life we all shared in that house. I'm thankful for the life I had there and the parents that made it home. The life I had with dad milking and his wise counsel to go into another line of work.
