I grew up on a dairy farm. Twice a day, every day, through every season, we milked large black and white Holstein cows. Holsteins are a breed that originated in Northern Holland and are known as the highest producing dairy animals.
Our big ladies provided a steady income for our family. Earnings from the milk helped to feed us, pay our bills and put four kids through college. Each cow had a name and a personality. Mom was in charge of the barn while Dad worked hard in the fields of hay and grain. Kid chores included helping with the milking, cleaning the barn, preparing for milking and feeding the animals. The smell of manure reminds me of home in a good way.
For more Weekword posts visit Frayed At the Edge.
Beautiful painting and way of life. My grandfather and uncles ran a dairy farm in New Orleans.
ReplyDeleteOur dairying days ended in 2001 when we were unfortunate enough to get Foot and Mouth Disease and the whole of our dairy herd was culled, along with every dairy herd in the village. Terrible times. There is now a large Holstein herd on the farm next to us. We had Freesians, never Holsteins although they are the most popular breed around here for milking. Lovely picture.
ReplyDeleteLovely watercolor. Who knew I would be attracted to cows city girl that I am. *laugh*
ReplyDeleteManure smells like home here too...flood, you know...Adore your cows- fabulous! You are amazing.
ReplyDeleteThe word is so associated with book browsing and internet browsing now that I completely forgot about this original meaning! Interesting bit of your history in there too. I grew up in the city and remember my dad taking us to visit a friend who had a dairy farm. I was still young, probably seven or eight, and I remember it as a very unpleasant experience; I hated the smell, and to crown it all the farmer gave us warm, foamy milk from the pail to drink. Ugh!
ReplyDeleteWe milked hostiens and brown swiss (since we sold to a small creamery) we needed the butterfat for pay.
ReplyDeleteThose days are long gone now and the old barn is torn down so we can build a new barn/machine shed.
Good memories about LOTS of hard work.
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com/
Manure stinks after it rains lots...ick. Otherwise it smells like money. :)
I didn't know that meaning of the word browse!! The painting is lovely! We don't have a lot of cows round about here - we ahve lots of sheep!!
ReplyDeleteI didn't really know that meaning either but when I was thinking of the word earlier the word graze came to mind as it sounds like browse and is a similar action. Now I have my explanation for that!
ReplyDeleteI love that beautiful watercolour. I grew up in the country but not on a farm. We used to walk through a field of cows on the way to the village-called 'The Bull's Field'-it was kind of mythical in my small mind! I was quite scared of cows actually! On one occasion one pushed me over-I was offering it my chocolate bar(I thought it might like it!) I like cows now.
also ,Neener- need to know is the colour lavendar OK to your sensibilities? Or is it too close to pink?
ReplyDeleteLeenie, I appreciate your comment on my blog. Fun to follow the link and see that you are also in graphics. Dairy farming has a lot of memories for me from a different angle; my husband's first job out of vet school was in a practice in north-central Minnesota, where there were lots of small family dairies, run by quite a varied cast of characters! He got so many early-morning calls ("Hi Doc! You up yet?" at 3:00 in the morning; groan) and treated a lot of milk fevers, dystocias, displaced abomasums, etc. I rode with him on calls when I could.... Goodness, that was 20 years ago and more!
ReplyDeleteThis reminded me of very happy childhood holidays spent on my aunt's dairy farm. They had Holsteins too (and a few Jerseys) and I always loved their big soft faces and the activity of milking time, morning and night. There's something about that warm grass and cow smell that still appeals to me enormously and brings those lovely memories flooding back...
ReplyDeleteGreat I love black/white cows ;) Say hello to the redheaded hubby from me ;))) hehe
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