Morning At The Farm
I don’t think it’s a secret that I’m half-Canadian. Mom’s family comes from Scottish immigrants (refugees?) and Loyalists that had to leave after “those traitors” won the war; been in Upper Canada since at least the American War of Independence. I happened to be born a mile or so north of the border, so that makes me a US citizen … but I spent a fair amount of time in Canada. Learned to drive, shoot, understand the only way to eat fries is with white vinegar, bale hay, milk cows among other things up there. One of the two Debbies I was desperately in love with was Canadian. God, that was so long ago … Could cross the border without customs (or a passport) back then.
Some years back, we had to give up the family farm. I’d have been the 5th generation to work the place but life didn’t take me that way. Hey, the “new” barn was built in 1902. But, given the conditions with and in Canada right now – and the last of my g’grandfather’s apple trees having died – perhaps it was for the best.
But, damn, I miss the place.
I never lived on a farm, but in the early 70s, while living in Wisconsin in my early teens, I did spend some time with a family with a dairy farm. Chores started early, and could go late, but the reward of freshly chilled milk was outstanding at breakfast, lunch and dinner.
I never lived on a farm neither. But in rural PA we lived next to a big field that had Holstein (black n white) dairy cows. Every day either my brother or me would have to walk all the way across that field to the dairy farm on the other side. On the way over we toted a 1 gallon glass jar and on the way back we carried another 1 gal glass jar filled with fresh raw milk.
They had one of them old fridges that was rounded on top and inside were a bunch of 1 gallon jars loaded with milk with name labels on them for people that were picking them up. On the shelf in the fridge was a small jar and we’d put 2 quarters or a half dollar in the jar then grab our gallon and head back to the house. Every. Day. We were ages 8-11.
There were 5 kids in our family so we went through some milk. Plus, both may parents drank coffee and put milk in that. And our mother was stay at home, of course, as I mothers were in them days, and she scratch cooked 3 meals a day for her tribe and milk was used in them frequently. A suppertime all 5 of us kids ate with white foamy mustaches.
50 cents a gallon for raw milk, as it should be. Now, we pay 8 times as much for milk that has been processed to death. Just one more time I’d like to drink some raw dairy farm milk and see what I’m missing.
Up here in the Amish/Mennonite country of northern MI, raw milk, chilled to perfection, is easy to come by.
My dad was one of thirteen siblings on a farm in Ohio that was big enough to make them self-sustainable during the Great Depression.
He so badly wanted to re-create that life for himself and our family.
He and Mom bought 70 acres, built a house and garage, raised chickens, had a few horses for a while had a garden big enough that I didn’t know some people actually ate food from cans bought in a grocery store.
All the while he worked six days a week as a machinist at Goodyear in Akron. Mom worked her ass off as wife and mother to five kids, helped take care of her mother and carted all of us to Byzantine Catholic church services every Sunday plus Wednesdays and Fridays during Lent.
We had a good life without realizing how good it was.
They both died too young. I miss them every day.
I never learned to like milk straight from the cow (I prefer it cold anyway) and nowadays, I prefer 2%. I do wish I could get it without all the “good stuff” added, just some of the cream removed.
SO uses raw milk to make her own yogurt.
I see I didn’t note “mucking stalls” in my list of things I learned in Canada. Horse stalls are much preferable to cattle.
Horses briquette, cows splatter.
The backs of milk cow legs are atrocious.
Once, when I had walked to the dairy farm to get the milk, I wandered into the barn to see the baby cows. Mr Lehman, the farmer, was on a stool next to a cow, milking it into a shallow bowl for the barn cats. He said, “Hey Ghost, look at the star on this cows tit.”, and I bent over to see it and he squirted me in the mug. We both laffed and laffed and laffed.