Old McDonald Had a Farm

I made a trip to Western New York and had the opportunity to visit a good friend of mine. She and I were roommates our Junior and Senior years in college. After college I moved across the country and she stayed at home and began working as an accountant. Since college she has become my travel buddy and we have met in Vietnam and Costa Rica. This time around I got to spend the night with her at her aunts house. We spent the afternoon and evening catching up and eating. On Saturday morning I woke up at 8 and walked over to their barn to witness milking of the cows. I surprised my friend, Aimee, and her dad as they didn't expect me to actually make it out of bed yet. I arrived just in time for milking the final round of cows. I put on a too large pair of rubber boots and walked out on the milking floor. Aimee handed me a bottle of iodine and told me to sterilize one of the cows teats. I crouched by my cow and dipped her and then used a towel to clean off the iodine.

She then showed me how to milk by hand. It really isn't so difficult. You don't pull, it's more of a squeeze. When we go swimming my dad is fond of bringing out his friend Charlie. You see Charlie is a clam and he squirts water at people. I eventually learned how to introduce Charlie to others, all you do is close your pinkie first followed by the rest of your fingers and the water squirts up into someones place. Milking a cow is just the same except you do it in reverse. Then you attach the milkers which are like four mini vacuums and the machine does all the work. When we finished with the cows we cleaned the milkers and moved on to caring for the calves.

I scooped poopy straw with a pitchfork and threw it out the small window. Then I put out new straw and helped feed the calves. We cleaned up the barn and then headed back to the house to clean up ourselves. I really enjoyed learning a little bit about cows and seeing how many people live.