Milk

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Milk

I would have hated Swedish Farmers if fate had not been kind to me ; having finished my practice at Aske Gård, one of Sweden's largest farm (4000 hectares, 20 trainees, 20 Farm Hands, only two crazy workers), owned by the Super Phosphate Industry, I became a Farm Hand at Count Oscar Bernadotte's farm, Frötuna, ten miles east of Uppsala. In those days it was a Fideï Commis, meaning a King's Estate Farm, a status that was to disappear in the name of equality and thereby Frötuna disappeared. Kindly note the huge increase in my social status, I was no longer a trainee, but a farm hand, which meant that instead of receiving 60% of the legal salary I received 100%.

For the first time in my life I was treated with consideration, I had the same duties and rights as the other workers on the farm. If you wanted to look for a difference, I was not entrusted with expensive farm machinery.

If I think of a man who changed my life without doing anything but being himself, it was Count Oscar Bernadotte; he was a true noble man, I have met some in my life, they are so totally devoid of any need to ascertain themselves that they treat royalty and beggars with the same respect. I was very sensible to that attitude as this had been the golden rule for my mother who never let any gold or diamond or title or luxury car impress her.

Count Bernadotte was slightly in advance on what was to become the normal way of life in Sweden. His family consisted of his children, his wife's children and their children. I cannot remember their children, except for very beautiful Ebba.

Being well treated, meaning that we were treated with respect and with respect to the Trade Union Rules, we all worked our best, just to be on par. Work would begin at seven o'clock exactly, in the Ironmonger garage as it was the warmest part of the farm in the morning. We would be gathered their before seven o'clock but not one word was uttered about work before seven and at seven exactly the foreman went around the workers and distributed the daily tasks.

Being the youngest and the one most in need of money I would often receive the favour of working the dairy on Sundays. It meant double pay and as a Sunday was no different for me from any other day, I took it with pleasure.

I have cheated a bit, cows in those days were not that color, not at all.

The dairy had another advantage, it was five kilometres away from the main building, meaning that I was the King of the Empire, I had the whole day without having to report to any boss. Of course this being a dairy, it meant that I had to start milking the cows by six o'clock to be ready for the milk van which arrived at seven. Which meant no breakfast. The milk collection lorry was driven by a very patient and understanding man, I remembered he once waited ten seconds for me to get the last 50kg milk container on board before starting. If my milk was not ready when the milk van arrived I could as well drop the milk into the drain, it would be useless.

When you arrive at the Dairy Shed, the cows are still out in the fields, wondering if it would not be the proper time to have one last appetizer. Let us say that you have forty cows, as they are milking cow and not beef cows, they will be spread over 10 hectares, each one of them lost into its own thoughts; No problem, you stand on the edge of the field and call the cows with the blood freezing shout:

<<KOOOOOOOOssssssOOOOOrnAAAAAAAA!!!!>

and they come tramping peacefully. Well they come except one which has decided that today she is not quite in the mood, she very much prefers to stand where she is, she does not want to be interrupted in her thoughts and who is this idiot disturbing her with these idiotic sounds? So, down the ten hectares you go just to get one cow back to the shed.

Milk comes from cows; you think that this is obvious? OK then tell me why the cow should release her milk at the time you have decided and with the machine you have bought? Old cows are OK, they are like old bridge couples who know without thinking what the bids of the partner indicates. Young cows are totally bewildered by this procedure.

The rule of the game is that you are supposed to have twelve cows stick in their head through holes to get at their morning food and when they all have stuck their heads, you lock the mechanism and you milk first 6 cows to the left and then 6 cows to the right. Regretfully, it does happen that 11 cows stick to the rules of the game and cow number 12 suddenly decides that she is going to try and see whether she could improve her best time on running along the milking gallery, thereby knocking the heads of the other 11 cows out of position. Cows are very sticky about protocol, a cow which each morning sticks her head into position six deeply resents, first being disturbed, then seeing another cow try to stick her neck into her position, she will start expressing her views on the subject by banging forward and kicking backward at anything that happens to be passing in the range. The final ten yards in the Super Bowl are nothing compared to the pandemonium you have in the milking shed.

To add to your pleasure, some of the cows had already the milking machines attached to the udder and are now running with the milking machine trailing into mud and shit. Did I state in the beginning of the story that hygiene is of uttermost importance when milking?

If you are a bit young and lack experience you will start running after the cows, hitting them with the shit shovel, all actions which while highly satisfactory do not add to the calm and peace needed when milking.

When you are more experienced, you try to recover your milking machines, you push your cows into a waiting shed, you go and try to wash the milking machines as fast as possible, you get a new set of cow in the shed after having added flour in the trays, which means that this new set is eating both the ration of the previous set and its own ration. During that time the waiting cows deeply resent this procedure and start meowing and it gets louder and louder, which the remaining cows understand to be a sign that a danger is approaching therefore they have the natural cow reaction, they retain their milk.

When the milk van arrives, that day your milk production is at the best half of what it should be and on the monthly statistical board the real Head Man of the Dairy, grossly underscores your production figures and makes it a point to clearly indicate to anyone and everybody that this would never have happened if He, the Head Man, had been there that day.

It sounds fair, it is not quite as fair as it sounds as the Head Man carefully avoided telling you that one of the cows was mad and that she should be milked as the last one and preferably alone, if she had to be milked at all as she would at the most contribute two litres to the daily production.

When the locals arrive and ask what happened this morning, why did the cows mow so much and so loudly and why do I have band aids all over the face and halt when I work and cannot straiten my spine, I take my most innocent look and explain that nothing very unusual happened this morning except that a bale of hay rolled from the top when I tried to get it and I did not manage to get away from it's path. Of course they will not believe it, but a good story is a duty.

When milking, we always kept 50 litres for the locals who would come each morning to buy their milk; I learned some rather interesting grammatical formulation used by the locals when they found in the milk floating on the surface, dead flies (would they prefer them alive), or the local who looking in the 50 litre container which was nearly empty fond an earthworm. I really cannot see why he made such a fuss, an earthworm is very much appreciated by all kind of birds so it must be very nourishing.

I might have overlooked something that will sound very strange to you. In those days, bulls were made of a lot of flesh and did not come in a test tumbe packed in an ice container. Bulls would wander around the meadows, now ans then checking switcher one of the cows would not be receptive to a little bit of frolickingg. Mostly the cows were totally uninterested.

At milking time, the bull, day after day, morning and afternoon, tried to enter into the milking shed, he just could not see why the ladies would get all that extra food, and He who was a big strong fellow still growing, who needed a lot of calories, why he should not be invited to the feast. As we were rather a hurry at milking time, the bull was encouraged with a few taps of the head with the shit shovel to divert his interests to more philosophical objects. Every time he expressed his great disappointment at the lack of understanding of us milkmen and would amble off in search of a bit of hay that would have blown here or there.

Milking the cows is a demanding job, you do not have much time to be kind to them, as a beginner you still have to count the ear homes to know which cow is which one and give her the right amount of food, later you would recognize them one of the advantages in recognizing them being that you would be careful of the practical joker who loved to hit you on the head with her hoof when you were milking her.

The farm was keeping bulls, I cannot remember why, one would already have been one too many.

Sometimes bulls had to be kept inside; They would just stand in their box, looking totally stoned, as if they had not been feeding on hay but on cannabis the whole day. If they were inside, it meant that something was wrong with them, and if something was wrong, we had to give them drugs and care for them as they are not very good a grooming themselves when locked inside.

Bulls will stand inside the box, just so far away that you cannot reach them from the left and if you go to the other side of the bow, the bull moves in an invisible way and you cannot reach it from the right.

So what do you do?

As you are in a hurry and rather upset by that stupid animal, you climb over the planks and start tendering the bull. You do notice nothing, absolutely nothing but suddenly you notice that you are beginning to have breathing difficulties, these difficulties not being totally unrelated to the fact that the bull has managed to slowly squeeze you between him and the wall. If this happens, do not try and rush to write your last will, it is too late, there is no way you can move a 700kg bull who has got into his mind that he will see how long it would take him to transform you into a hamburger.

Yet, year after year, farmers would be crushed by bulls. It is really difficult to believe that such a stupid animal can be so cunning and mean.

At the first farm I worked, Aske Gard, they kept bulls, again, do not ask me why.

During winter, we had to take the bulls for a walk, the way you would take your beloved red haired girl with freckles from next house, on a walk, basically, the final objective not being very much different for the bull and for the red haired girl.

The boss would take one bull, I would take another one; OK, OK, do not get all steamed up, I do admit that this would not happen with the red haired girl from next door.

The boss being the boss walks in front with his bull and I walk behind with my bull; Of course, my bull, seeing in front of him that stupid animal that pretends he is that much better than himself, well boys, here we are going to show who is the master, so my bull gets into a canter and overtakes the first bull. Having done that, he feels that he has done his good dead for the day and he returns to the slow walking bulls affectionate, you know, move one leg, give a thought to the fragility of our life on this earth, move another leg, give a thought to the purpose of our life on this Earth, move another leg, and so on.Now it is the bull behind that feels that this game has gone on for too long and suddenly, as the true quarter back he thinks he is, he makes his move, jumping forward and breaking down every thing which is on his way;

And it goes on and on, and as it is winter, when the behind bull suddenly gets into his head that he wants to be the before bull and jumps forward, sure you can hold on to the rope, with the result that the bull will drag you on the icy road until he reaches the goal line.

Well, even if you are a City Reader, you might have seen these picture of bulls with a ring in the nose. That ring is there because there is a belief that if you hold on to the ring, the bull will obey you. You are the Lord of the Ring but it may be that bulls are neither good at reading best sellers or going to the cinema, as a result you end up in a rather undignified struggle, both of you holding on to the ring, none wanting to yield.

As a bull farmer, you end up with very very strong fingers, when you feel the bull is getting unruly, you will grip him inside the nose with two fingers and you will squeeze as hard as you can.

That was Winter Walking Waltzing Bulls.

As if winter was not bad enough, it had a tendency each year to turn into some kind of summer, like some discontented child who first tries one toy then another, then goes back to the first one.

So summer time would come, the bulls would be out in the pasture, but as you may know, well at least you will know it once you have read this sentence, bulls are different from cows. Cows produce milk, bulls produce fights. So when you put them out in the pasture, you have to tie them to a sting attached to a pole which is supposed to be firmly planted into the soil. It started by being firmly planted into the soil, but, that is really no game for a bull, after he has spent a few hours pulling and banging, the pole will get detached and the bull will kindly wander to next bull and offer him a chance to prove which one of them is the Master of the Meadow. Never has a bull been known to refuse such a proposal.

Summer time is also sunshine time. The Head Farmer will come out, stand there, and after having moved his tobacco stump from one side to another a couple of time he will say

<< look a bit thirsty to me?>>

And off you are, getting the 12 liters buckets and carrying one bucket to each bull. I often wondered when the bulls had the time to attend the Actor's Studio, how they could have acquired that thirsty look which is so convincing.

So I will bring that 12 liters bucket 500 meters to the bull, he is really only 100 meters away but as I have to move in circles to avoid the bulls, it makes a long trip. I put down the bucket, the bull, bends down, bangs the nose ring a couple of times against the rim, just to make sure that he has got every body's attention, and then he lowers the head and turns over the bucket, which of course if most satisfactory to the butterflies, less satisfactory to me.

I have really never been able to make up my mind whether bulls are the most stupid animal ever created, or the smartest. For sure, the most vicious.