Circle of trust

Unni and Inge spent the weekend at Leknes for the annual country festival. So it was a night of cowboy outfits and country music. More importantly this meant that Inge wouldn’t be here to milk on Saturday evening as well as Sunday morning. The task was thus entrusted to Frode.




Inge has a thing with milking. It’s gonna be done to precision, no room for error. For that reason, it’s gotta be done by those he can trust. So the circle of trust includes Unni, himself and Frode, with me on the outside, having just the right amount of trust to clean the udders and cow poop.

Well apparently Frode’s position in the circle of trust is kinda marginal. Before Inge leaves for Leknes, he and I bring in all the cows into the cow house. Instead of letting them out after each milking, they were going to spend the night in the cow house in their individual stalls until the next morning’s milking is done. Reason being was that he was worried that we’d have problems getting the cows in and into the right stalls. And for that reason, we may get them into the wrong stalls.

(that's me getting the cows to move in the direction of the cow house. The field is expanding by the day, which means i gotta walk more and more each day!)

I am not amused loh. Coz the cows staying the night in the cow house means 2 things. That we’d have to feed them grass for the night, which is a hell lot of physical labour. And more importantly, that they’d most likely end up sitting in their poop and pee which would mean really dirty udders in the morning, and guess who has gotta clean them?!

Before Inge leaves, he draws up a map of the cow house with instructions for individual cows with special needs.





Frode and I then get to work. Well the good thing that came out of it was that Frode was giving me a 1101 on milking. He showed me the technique of squeezing the teats for the milk to come out. How to tell when the udder is almost empty, how to do the preliminary test before milking starts to see if the milk’s got any problems.

The milking took a little longer than usual coz we had to bring in all the grass for the cows for the night. 18 cows in the house. Roughly 1 wagon of grass between 2 cows. It was a whole lot of physical work man.

So then we leave. Frode tells me he’d come the next morning at around 830 for the morning milking.

Next morning I get up on time. 815 and I’m dressed and ready for the cow house. By then the cows were moo-ing away and the goats were joining as well. I wait a little while for Frode to come.

830. Still no Frode. The cows were making a hell lot of noise. Which they usually do when it’s about time for them to get milked, coz it’s like having a really full bladder you just gotta empty. The young cows were starting too, coz they were awaiting the feed as well as supply of new grass. The noise must have been amplified a million times coz they were in the cow house. And the goats started too. The noise was driving me crazy so I decided to get started with the goats. I fed the goats, fed the rabbits as well. Then went to the cow house and fed the cows first. Hoping that it’d shut them up.

And Frode was still not here.

I left an angry note on the door and went back to the cow house to get started.

I was clearing the cow poop when he came. It must have been a little past 9. Whalau ey.

So then the morning milk began. As expected the cows were pretty dirty. I just don’t get what goes on in a cow’s brain. There’s a drain behind the stalls which they stand. All they gotta do is stand in the right position and poop/pee such that it goes straight into the drain and everyone stays clean. And some of them have gotta stand a step farther away from the drain and poop/pee right onto their mat. The concept of sitting in your poop/pee. Cows do it, goats do it, rabbits do it. I don’t get it man. And coz it had been many hours, some of the cows have dried crusty poop on their udders, all of which I had to clean off. Then when I was cleaning one cow’s udder trying to get the dried poop which was stuck to her hairs off, she kicked me right in the arm. Cow’s have fast reflexes and I’ve got slow reflexes, which doesn’t make for a very good combination. My arm’s got a blue black now. And it’s not the first time already.

The cleaning of udders takes longer than usual, and by the end of it all, I had used all the towels (which I don’t usually do), and turned the water dark brown. It was a lot of washing and scrubbing as I cleaned the towels for use for the evening milking.

After the milking was done, Frode came in and asked ‘Is everything under control?’. ‘Yah’ I answer, and he goes off to take a bath. So I was left to clear the cow house of cow poop as well as all the left over grass.

Typical loh, I’m always the last to leave the cow house… *hmph*