Does it seem reasonable, these days, to send a 12-year-old kid out in the dark on a below-zero morning to milk a cow? Apparently it did seem so to my parents, and actually it didn’t seem all that unreasonable to me, at the time. But since I was that kid, it turned out to be an experience I’ll never forget.
In the 1940s and ’50s, it wasn’t unusual for families in small towns in America to have at least one cow to provide milk for the family. They could rent pasture and shelter nearby very reasonably and could sell the milk they didn’t need for extra income. Also, each year, the cow would have a calf that was raised through the winter to be about a year old before being sold. For those who may not know, milk cows need to be milked at least twice a day, usually in the morning and evening. (My father always said that he didn’t own “old Jersey”: she owned him, since he always had to be there to milk.)
Barn cats and a one-legged stool
I grew up in a small town in Idaho where my dad was the postmaster. As we got older, my brothers and I often went with him to milk, so we were familiar with the cow and the process as a normal part of our family’s routine. Starting at about age 10, my older brother was taught to milk in the evening. By the time I came along, when I was about a sixth grader, he moved to milking in the morning and I started milking in the evening.
Dad was usually around early on as we got started, but soon he just expected that we would get our job done. One fun part of the job was squirting milk in the faces of the barn cat and kittens who seemed to enjoy getting doused with warm milk.
The cow was kept in a pasture with an old barn on the edge of town about four blocks from home. There was fresh water for her from a small creek that ran through some willows near the barn. When it was my turn, I would walk up there at milking time to get the cow into the barn, where she would put her head in the stanchion to eat the oats placed there for her. Then, sitting on a one-legged stool (which provided easy movement in any direction), I would milk, getting a fair size bucket full. After finishing, I’d walk home, carrying the milk bucket.
Half-frozen and fully terrified
By early winter, it was still dark in the mornings before school and usually very cold, so I was glad I only had to milk in the evenings. But when my brother was 15 and I was 12, he got to go deer hunting with Dad and two of our uncles, so I had to milk both morning and night for a few days. It was late November and the weather had turned unusually cold.
That first morning, it was 8 degrees below zero according to the thermometer outside the kitchen window. As I walked up the road in the dark, I remember thinking that it wasn’t fair that my brother got to go deer hunting and I didn’t, and now I had to practically freeze to death doing his job. There was no electricity in the old barn and the only light I had was an old battery lantern that hung on a nail and gave off a dim pool of light. We had a young bull calf, about five or six months old, and he had become a kind of a pet. I went to close the rickety old door to keep him outside since he would come in and get in the way, snooping around.
As I closed the door, a terrifying scream made my blood run cold. Fumbling for the lantern, which didn’t really help, I finally realized that it was a couple of tomcats up in the dark rafters, preparing to fight. As my racing heart began to slow down, I grabbed a rock laying on the dirt floor and threw it up there to scare them off. I couldn’t help wondering what I was doing there, in the cold and dark and half scared to death.
Saved by the vigor of youth
I finally finished milking and opened the door, leaving it open so the cow and calf could get out of the weather. I briefly stopped to pet the calf and he followed me as I went down to the creek to check on the water hole.
Normally in the evening, I wouldn’t have to do that since it would warm up enough during the day. I was carrying an old axe that was kept just outside the barn door. Sure enough, the water hole was frozen. As I leaned over, chopping the ice to make a decent-size hole, the calf came up behind me and playfully butted me. This caused me to lose my balance and fall in the hole, landing on my feet in about 3 feet of ice-cold water. After scrambling out, I immediately went up to the barn to get the milk and hustle home.
As you might imagine, my soaking-wet Levi jeans quickly started to freeze. Even though I was hurrying, by the time I got close to home, I had to basically walk stiff-legged. Thinking back, I must have made quite an unusual sight, walking like a robot down the road in the dark. As soon as I got in the house, Mom took the bucket of milk and helped me get out of my frozen pants and boots.
Fortunately, the freezing clothes hadn’t had time to create frostbite, so a warm towel, dry clothes and a hot breakfast got me ready to walk to school none the worse for wear. But after that morning, I made darned sure the calf was nowhere around when I checked on the water hole!
Celebrating an anniversary
When I first started milking, I was so small that I could only milk the two teats closest to me while holding the bucket between my feet. Dad would have to finish milking the teats on the back of the udder. Finally, after a couple of weeks, I was able to reach around and milk the back two teats as well. I was so excited to be able to do the whole job that I told Mom all about it.
From then on, it became a running joke to celebrate “my anniversary” every year. Even when I was in the army in Vietnam, she sent me a photo of a pie with the shape of a cow’s head cut into the top crust to remind me of my big accomplishment all those years earlier.
Although I haven’t milked a cow in more than 60 years, I still have a very strong grip and when I close my fist, a small muscle above my wrist pops up. When our kids were small, they thought that was pretty cool, when I told them the story of my milking adventures. FC
Clark Ballard is the older brother of Clell Ballard, who has been a longtime regular contributor to Farm Collector. A documentary film producer, Clark has travelled throughout the U.S. and many foreign countries. According to Clell, Clark is the classic example of “you can take the boy out of the country but you can’t take the country out of the boy.” Email him at clarkball@bellsouth.net.
Originally published as “A Cold Milking Experience” in the June 2023 issue of Farm Collector magazine.
