Good-bye Brown Cow

I would never in a million years have imagined myself the dairy maid of the family, the one with enough passion for wholesome goodness of fresh milk and golden homemade raw butter to maintain the daily chores a milk cow requires. A family cow wasn’t even my idea when ten years ago we began entertaining the notion. That honor goes to my oldest son. He was the one campaigning back then and knowing what I know now of dairy cows, he did an exceptional job with that first ornery beast we brought home to our brand new barn still smelling of fresh-cut pine and shiny with newness. We were greenhorns of the deepest shade of green. Today I would let that first cow right where we found her. What we needed was a docile creature with a little age on her, already trained for the stanchion and willing to submit to the twice daily ritual of being milked. This little black cow was wild and my son spent hours in the field enticing her into the stable in anticipation of the birth of her first calf. She was on to him and refused all his enticements until a violent thunderstorm blew through. In the downpour she found shelter in the stable and the wind blew the door shut behind her. It was determined that she would stay in quarters until the arrival of her calf. In those days I wasn’t much invested in what happened in the barn. I bottled the milk and put it on ice when he brought it to the house, delighted with the abundant supply of goodness.

That was the beginning of our family’s dairy adventure. It grew on us and I loved it. A few years down the road and the boy now has a job that has him leaving the house early and getting home late for several days each week. It seemed unfair to ask him to continue his milking duties on those days and since my babies had become toddlers, I took over the evening milking. It was only a few times a week. At the start I didn’t have any special affinity for cows. I was never a huge animal lover. I like having them around but mostly for what they contribute.

The next spring the little black cow was supposed to be growing another calf. We dried her off and as her due date arrived, watched with anticipation for signs of birth. Even after several years of experience I find it difficult to follow the signs. Back then we had no idea what we were looking for. Besides variables to each sign of imminent birth added up to confused homesteaders. We eventually called the vet out and he informed us there was no calf. This cow was not currently pregnant. She had either miscarried or the breeding had not actually taken.

That was when we bought a second cow. We brought home a lovely brown and white creature recently freshened with all the familiarity of being milked. She was gentle and amiable from the beginning. She had her moments, of course. If you don’t believe in hormones, milk a cow who has just given birth or is in heat. She was no exception but for the most part she just faithfully did her duty to our family. She produced gallons upon gallons of rich, raw milk with an incredible cream line.

After a few years, I found myself in the position of full time dairy maid. It grew on me. I’ve sat cow side now most mornings for the past five years or so. I’ve grown to love getting out of the house in winter even though I despise the cold. A cozy house feels much cozier if you’ve spent a bit of time in the barn breaking ice off of waterers and filling hay feeders. Also the sunrises are worth it. I’m willing to recommend it as possible treatment for seasonal affective disorder also known as the winter blues.

The brown cow was our main family cow for nine years now. At first I used a milking machine but I came to love hand milking. You have to build up to that though. The hand strength required to extract gallons of milk from an udder is a learned technique. Every morning I pull up the crate I sit on to milk, wash up the cow and begin milking. On cold winter mornings that part is the best part of milking. Right up next to the furry bulk of a cow, with steam rising from the milk bucket is actually quite comfortable even on the coldest days of winter. On hot summer days, the challenge is staying out of that flyswatter tail’s path. I’ll never enjoy the sting of those tail hairs slung right across my eyes.

This week that routine jolted to a halt rather abruptly. One morning I opened the barn door to my cow laying down in her stall. Usually she’s up and at the gate, sometime rattling the gate and mooing if I’m not as quick as she deems necessary in letting her in to her bowl of grain. I wondered at her posture especially since I was late milking this morning. I went about preparations figuring that any moment she would be rousing herself. She didn’t stir. Not even after I opened the gate and called her. She just looked at me with her big eyes and kept chewing her cud. I urged and poked at her. She made a weak attempt but nothing more. You begin to realize the beast status of a cow when you wish to move her and she doesn’t want to participate. There was little I could do to induce her to move. She willingly ate the grain I put in front of her. I put some extra bedding around her in case it was traction she needed getting up. Nothing worked.

She had just had a calf a few months ago and was quite willing to let the calf feed off her when her calf got close. I let the calf in hoping that the his nuzzling might encourage her to get up. She tried but again no success. She just didn’t have it in her. Finally I realized I wasn’t going to be milking her. You simply can’t milk a downed cow so I called the vet and took my own half-sick self back to my own bed.

After a vet visit and multiple attempts to try and help her to stand, we made the decision to put her down. I’m still grappling with the suddenness of this. I’ve grown used to this brown cow. She’s always been my favorite. I didn’t think I would actually cry over losing her and I might not have if I hadn’t gotten that last look at her. I bawled my eyes out on the way back to the house.

I’ve been thinking of her all day and I realized I have good reason to miss her. She has seen me though some really difficult seasons. She was quiet presence when tears of grief and confusion coursed down my cheeks. She was witness to moments of deep frustration when I grappled with the senselessness of harm that I didn’t know how to process. She quietly listened to some of the angry words I flung at God when life was too much to bear. Those milking times in the barn every morning were times I knew I was unlikely to be disturbed. It was just me, my cow, and whatever kind of life I was currently processing. I listened to dozens of audiobooks while I milked. I played music, sometimes one song on repeat because those particular lyrics spoke what my heart couldn’t find words for just then. She overheard my conversations with myself and the ones I wished I could have with real people but was only brave enough to hold in imagination, my prayers, the thoughts that needed saying out loud. Cow side isn’t the only place for processing what is happening to you but having a living, breathing creature next to you when not much makes sense is something. Her quiet munching steadying to my runaway thoughts.

I miss her already. It might be weird but I kind of hate the thought of getting used to another cow. I realized how well I had gotten to know her. I could tell when she was about to do her peeing or pooping while she was in the stanchion. I’m quite sure she knew how much I hated that and a lusty yell usually convinced her to take her bathroom activities outside the stanchion. Unless she had recently birthed a calf. Then all bets were off. She was going to do whatever she was going to do in the stanchion or out of it. If I forgot her hay ration on my way back to the house after milking, she would stand and glare at the house, bellowing insistently until I came back and filled the hay feeder.

I had an extra hour in my day today because milking is no longer in my routine. But I miss my brown cow. I still have several gallons of her rich creamy milk in my fridge and a few pounds of golden butter in my freezer. That and the bull calf in the pasture is all that is left of the brown cow that has become such a part of life for our family. Someday probably soon we’ll want another cow. Right now I miss my brown cow

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