CHORES

MILKING

It takes a special talent to milk cows by hand properly. You put the milk bucket between your legs for stability. Sitting in the proper manner is important, and the type of stool you use makes a difference. Some people used a one-legged stool, but we used three-legged stools. You have to place the stool in a position where you can lean over and reach the cow’s teats easily. For me, the most comfortable position was to put my forehead in a depression just in front of the cow’s hind leg.

The proper squeeze on the cow’s teats is to close off the teat at the top with your forefinger and your thumb; then you close the middle finger, then the ring finger, and last the little finger. After one squeeze, you would open your hand and start over. You alternate hands so that when one hand is squeezing one teat, the other is opening to get ready for the squeeze on the other teat. When you finish milking the cow, you “strip” her to get out the last drops of milk. To do this, you take your thumb and forefinger and pull down on the teat until no more milk comes out.

Most cows didn’t seem to mind being milked, but others just wouldn’t stand still. They seemed to know just where your foot was so they could stomp on it. For these cows you would use chains, a set of “clips” that are placed on the cow’s hind legs to keep them from kicking you.

Their feet weren’t their only weapon; their tails could also be dangerous. The cow seemed to know just where your head was most vulnerable. You had to be in a position where the cow’s tail didn’t hit you in the face. This was particularly important if the cow’s tail was wet—especially if the tail’s wetness came from the cow’s urine. In the winter the cows often stayed in the barn because the weather was too bad for them to go outside. The stalls would get dirty, and when the cows would lie down, their tails could get encrusted with manure as well as urine.

Once all the cows were milked, you would put the milk in the separator. We sold cream instead of whole milk, and the separator used centrifugal force to separate the cream from the rest of the milk. The milk was poured into a large container at the top of the separator. When the container was nearly full, you turned a crank very fast. That caused the milk to swirl around, and the cream would come out of one spout and the whey came out of another spout. Some of the cream was kept for our own use, and the rest of the cream was put in a can to sell to the creamery.

When we got a milking machine, milking was easier. Each machine had four suction cups that fit around the cow’s teats. All you had to do was put four suction cups on the cow’s teats, and then you could relax a little. You still had to be careful not to get stepped on or to get swatted by a tail; and the cows would occasionally kick off the suction cups, and the milk would run out on the floor.

With the milking machine it took less time to finish the milking because one person could milk two cows at a time. Once we had electricity in the barn, we could listen to the radio when we did the milking. Milking cows is not mind-challenging work. That is why it was good to have the radio playing; you could listen to your favorite programs while you milked. Afternoon milking time was just right for “The Lone Ranger” and “Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy.” I think “Little Orphan Annie” was on during that time, but it never seemed like the right program for milking.

When Frederick and Robert were away in the service, the morning milking was usually done by Dad and me, and the evening milking was done by Mother and me. If Dad had to work in the fields early in the morning, Mother would also help then. If I had an evening function at school, Mother would do all the milking. During the war she probably milked as much as—or more than—anyone else.

Even though milking was not an unpleasant task, it was constant. There was no way you could avoid it—two times a day every day. Uncle Mike worked on one farm where they had to milk the cows three times a day! In milking there was no “wait until tomorrow.”

MAKING HAY

During the summer, farmers make hay at least two times. When it is haymaking time, everyone in the family must become involved. My dad, of course, led in the field. My mother made sure that we had something to drink when we were thirsty and had the dinner meal prepared when it was time to eat. (On the farm, dinner was the noon meal; supper was the evening meal.) My older brothers, Frederick and Robert, worked in the field with Dad. When I was around five or six, my job was to take jugs of drinking water out to the field.

Dad and Fred would walk along the side of the horse-drawn wagon and throw the hay up to Bob. He drove the horses and arranged the hay on the wagon so the load would be balanced and not fall off. When they had finished filling up the wagon, Bob would drive the wagon up to the east side of the barn. Dad would get on the wagon to set the fork in the hay.

Fred and Bob would go to the hay mow to spread the hay around evenly. One of the horses would be unhitched from the wagon and attached to a single tree that was attached to a rope. The horse would walk away from the barn, and the rope would pull the hay up into the hay mow.

When I was seven or eight, my new job was to ride the horse that pulled up the hay. That was a step up from my job of just taking water out to the field! And it wasn't necessarily an easy job, either. If I didn't take the horse the right distance, the hay couldn't be dropped where they wanted it; and there was no way to back up if I went too far. When I got too old to ride the horse, I would lead the horse. You had to be careful because the horse could step on your foot!

When Fred left to go to college (and eventually to the Navy), I would drive the wagon in the field while Dad and Bob threw the hay on the wagon to me. (I would have been about 10 or 11.) Since hay-making time is done during the hottest times during the summer, we would usually wear jeans but no shirt. As the load got bigger and bigger, you would have to stand high up on the standard to drive the horses. When the hay was piled high, it would scratch your back.

After the hay was cut, it would be raked up into piles or rows. Some farmers baled their hay. In that case the hay was raked into rows, and the baler would drive over the rows, pick up the hay and compact it into bales. Two people would sit on either side of the baler. As the compacted hay came through to them, they would take binder twine and wrap it around the bale to keep the hay together. I once saw an episode of “Barney Miller” in which the plot revolved around an Amish farmer coming to the big city. At the end of the show, the farmer said something like, “I’m going home to bale hay.” I knew the scriptwriters didn’t know much about farms or the Amish because a baler is a machine, and the Amish don’t use machinery in their farming!

There is reason behind the phrase "Make hay while the sun shines." Since hay has a lot of moisture in it, it has to "cure" before you put it in the barn. We would mow the hay and leave it in the field for a few days before bringing it in. Otherwise, the highly compressed hay in the hay mow could get hot and smolder. That could cause spontaneous combustion and set the hay on fire. It wasn't unusual to have a few barn fires each summer. The McTurnan family a few miles north of us seemed to have a barn fire every summer. Many other farmers thought the fires were deliberate and they were just trying to collect on their insurance.

PICKING CORN

In late October or early November it was time to bring in the corn. Most farmers used a corn picker—-a tractor-driven machine—to pick their corn. Since we had horses, we had to pick the corn by hand; that is, we truly “picked” the corn. To pick the corn, we would put on special six-fingered gloves.

The part you put around the glove was leather on the palm side; the leather was covered by a metal strip that had a small “hook” on the end. The pickers would walk down the corn row and grab hold of each ear on each stalk—one at a time. You would take the device and put corn silk and the top of the husk—the outer covering of the ear—between your thumb and the “hook.” Holding onto the ear with the left hand, you would strip away the husk from the ear. This was called “shucking corn.” (Shuck is a synonym for husk.)

Once the husk had been removed from the rest of the ear, with one hand you would hold onto the corn stalk near the stubby end of the ear and with the other hand break off the ear. When you had the ear shucked and free, you would throw the it into the wagon.

Dad would walk down two rows of corn and shuck both rows. Since I wasn’t very good at shucking, I would usually take one row. When I got behind, Dad would come over and help me finish my row. No one drove the horses; they would move ahead on their own. They were so experienced in the process of picking corn that they knew when to move and just how fast to move. If the rhythm wasn’t just right, Dad might say a word to the horses, but usually they knew just what they had to do.

Once the wagon was filled with corn, we would take it to the barn and shovel the corn into the bins in the barn. What corn we couldn’t use, we would usually take to town and sell it to the grain elevator. If the corn had too much water in it, the corn would not bring as good a price; so Dad would wait for the corn to “cure.” When I went to college and Dad bought a tractor, he would have someone bring in their mechanical corn picker. That machine would not only pick the corn but it would also shuck it and dump the corn directly into the wagon.

You might ask why six-fingered gloves? Since the process of picking corn put a lot of pressure on the thumb of your right hand, the right thumb would wear out long before the left thumb wore out. Since each glove had two thumb “holes,” all you had to do was put the gloves on the opposite hands and you had a brand new pair of gloves!

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