Monday, February 1, 2010

Cow Tripping

I plan to make this a quick one, short and unpleasantly embarrassing, especially whenever I talk about cows. Don't ask me why I have them on my mind. Reader discretion is advised... as in this is going to be a naughty post even if it is true.

As I might have mentioned in many a previous childhood story, we raised livestock on the farm. Cows. Pigs. Chickens. What I didn’t mention were the types of cows we raised. Beef cattle. The whole sitting on a stool and milking a dairy cow never appealed to my father -- neither did the whole breeding and birthing thing. So he would purchase calves, raise them while fattening them up, and then take them to the slaughter house.

Guess whose chore it was to raise the calves?

Now, raising calves isn’t any different from raising babies. They all drink milk. Much like the powdered Carnation and Similac baby formulas bought at the store, the calves had the same thing but it came in one-hundred pound bags. I would scoop out the powdered formula, dump it into a “special bucket,” and add warm water until mixed. Then I carried the bucket up to the barn and hooked the metal handle onto the post so the calf could drink.

Okay, so this “special bucket” had a very interesting design to it. Picture in your mind of a small metal bucket with a wire handle. Since all babies drink from nipples - or in a calf’s case, teats - this bucket had a sort of, um... device at the bottom of one side where an opening in the bucket allowed the milk to pass through.

Sigh. Okay, so imagine the rubber part of a baby bottle nipple. It was a little like this but it was larger to fit the calf’s mouth. It, um, damn...

Well, the teat part wasn’t the same like you would see on a regular milking cow. Damn! Okay, I’ll just say it.

The teat looked like a rubber penis attached to the metal bucket.

It was much smoother sticking straight out at attention with the milk inside. The calf would stick the whole thing into its mouth and suckle, occasionally ramming its head into the bucket side trying to force more milk out like it would against its own mother. Wham! Wham! Wham!



Now, if the calf did this too much and released the teat too often it usually meant there was a clog. Sometimes it happened whenever the powder would clump up without fully dissolving. So I had to dump out the milk, put hot water into the special bucket to clean it, and then “work” the teat to make sure the liquid would come out. By “working” the teat, I had to wrap my fingers around the... yeah... and pump until it sprayed liquid – and at quite a distance too. Then I placed the milk back inside and fed the calves.


Of course the day I return to blogging would be the day I post something like this. Yeah, okay. I promise something nice and wholesome for my next post. Or at least not so embarrassing... look at that thing sticking out. Why on earth did I make this post?

20 comments:

  1. Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, and to think, I thought MY childhood was harsh (giggle). Just wanted to stop by and to say hi, but darn it, girl, what an image to send me off to bed with..!

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  2. Yeah, this is a lasting image in my mind too. I suppose misery loves company.

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  3. hey M! thanks for sharing this lighthearted, funny and yet truly pretty descriptive post! :P

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  4. Michelle...I didn't think it was embarrassing at all! I used to feed our calves the same way...and I loved to see them drink from the milk bucket. I remember helping Daddy mix up the milk...Your post brought back fond memories of when we raised cows. This was a lovely post. Welcome back. (I loved your basketball story, too!! Great!!)
    Smiles from Jackie

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  5. Hahaha! I can just picture you all annoyed as you try to unclog the penis-shaped pseudo teat!

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  6. hahaha...I'm rolling laughing! HAHAHA!!!

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  7. See? One of you understands the calf-feeding thing. Get your minds out the gutter, people!

    (Oh heck, even at that young age I knew what the thing looked like. Who am I trying to fool?)

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  8. That was very funny! Thanks for the laugh.

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  9. Hey! If anyone is actually offended by this post, they need to get a grip and better understanding about the realities of life -for people as well as for the animal community.
    Good post, Michelle -educational as well as interesting too.

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  10. So I'll stop short of asking how your young self knew that the 'nipple' looked like a penis. . .

    (*sigh*). . . All this talk about teats and penises. . . What sort of a blog is this, anyway?

    Altho you did a very discreet job of describing the 'unclogging' process without going into, um, overly graphic detail. . .

    (*snort*); (*chuckle*)

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  11. Welcome ... I guess Got Milk doesnt make you laugh

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  12. Hmm. A bucket with a weenie. Who knew?

    "Calf-eteria"...awesome.

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  13. lol, farm kids get such a vaster understanding of things at a far younger age.

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  14. Not the first thing like that I've seen in a barn, but it's close! Ask my cousin!

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  15. Ah, see! Knucklehead caught the hidden gist of the post. The bucket reads "Calfeteria." A dirty subliminal message of the farming community (okay - I just made that up but it sounds good). Hmmm... I was expecting far more... colorful, as in embarrasing, comments.

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  16. "Hmmm... I was expecting far more... colorful, as in embarrasing, comments."

    You mean to say you were waiting for me to show up?

    OK, then, the important question is this: Did you ENJOY unclogging the teat-penis?

    (Teat-Penis. There's a compound word I never thought I'd hear, let alone write.)

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  17. Oh my god! I think I'm crying I'm laughing so hard! :))

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  18. You had us in tears with this one Michelle ! LOL

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