Tessie D

I grew up on a farm… maybe it was a ranch? We had cows (like a ranch), but we also grew hay (so an agricultural product, like a farm). Well, I say “farm” because “ranch” sounds way more fancy than anything that I ever knew.

Still, I grew up on a farm. So, working on a dairy has been a different experience entirely. Daddy would get up and go out into the field whenever he wanted to–if he wanted to. But the daily life on a dairy is structured and organized around routines.

The cows are milked twice a day–once in the morning, starting at 4:30 a.m., and then again in the afternoon around 4:30 p.m. There’s no need to go out into the pasture and herd the cows to come up to the milking barn, not like we have to do with our cows at home with a bucket of feed. Milking cows are usually trained to come up to the barn, and their teats are usually so swollen and they are so uncomfortable that by milking time, they want the relief.

The milking barn has a high ceiling and is about 100 feet back from the house where I’m at, perpendicular to the road. I don’t much like going out there so I try to avoid it if I can. People sing children’s songs about Old McDonald’s Farm and think that cows’ “moos” would be something friendly and calming.

Dairy barns are… overwhelming. The first time I walked into the dairy barn during the evening milking I was afraid that I would vomit. They are dark and damp, but worst of all they are an assault of sounds and smells. There’s no relief–you can try to cover your ears and hold your nose, but usually the relief is futile and shortlived.

The cattle’s screaching, echoing off the metal roofs and concrete floors. Dairy hands shouting. Whirring vacuum pumps, clanging metal gates, metal tractor buckets scraping concrete floors.

Most dairies, like this one, are double-sided so that cattle walk up to either side of a long trough filled with alfalfa hay or silage, a fermnented chopped corn with a distinctively sweet and sour smell that seeps into your clothing and hair. The cattle lower their heads into the short metal corrals which is closed on their necks to keep them in place while the hands wash their udders and attach four suctions cups to each one. After the machine pulls out the milk, the cups are removed and the udders are sprayed with an iodine disinfectant.

White, foaming milk moves up the lines into a stainless steel, refrigerated bulk tank. The motor hums night and day, swirling the cream-colored water in the tank. A milk truck comes out every other day to collect the milk and carry it on to the processing plant.

The hands learn the the cows’ temperment and personality pretty quickly, giving some of them nicknames like Big Momma and Bessie. Most are easy to manage and pretty docile. Usually, they’re either too pregnant or too swollen with milk to be anything else. A few of them are mean and will try to headbutt you if you’re not paying attention. But, the worst of it is usually that they just step on your foot, which is why all the hands wear steeltoed boots.

Since it’s August, the barn is brutally hot right now. The hands try to get as many of the morning chores done before the sun comes up and the day gets hotter. But, eventually, the heat comes for all of us. The fans mounted to the barn’s roof do little except blow the flies and hot air around a bit, kicking up the dust and dirt so that it sticks to sweaty skin.