Friday 7 September 2012

memoir chapter one-continued

At some point during the time we lived in that farm house in Redmondville,my father either bought some chicks from the hatchery,or some of the hens in the barn hatched some.I really don't know which,because,as I said,I never went in the barn.But my father erected a sort of a pen at the end of the driveway,and I can recall feeding the peeping little yellow things some worms through the wire fence.They would strut around and make an incredible amount of noise for such small creatures.They ate worms hungrily,as well as any bugs that would venture into the pen,and I could stand for hours watching them,though the sound of them I did not like.the hens still strolled about in the driveway too,but it never occurred to me at all that these tiny creatures had even the slightest thing in common with the hens,or with the rooster,which seemed to be the boss of all the chickens.My father seemed not to like the rooster as he kept telling it he was going to cut its head off with the axe.I asked if I could watch,having not the slightest clue what this entailed.For all I know,he might well have done just that at some point,though I never witnessed it.

Along with the chicks,a couple of cows came to our place as well.I'm not sure where my father found them,but he brought them into our driveway for a time.I don't recall that he ever kept them in the barn.In fact,as far as I can recall they were kept at the Mormons farm down the road,though to say that they did not visit from time to time would be wrong.There must not have been any fence at all between our farm and theirs,as the two cows would wander right up and start munching grass on our front lawn.The little brown one ate some flowers my mother had planted inside an old tire too.That little brown cow was,I think a Jersey,a most gentle beast for a creature so much bigger than me.One time,as I recall she lay right down on her side in front of our front steps and went to sleep.My father said that it was strange for cows to do that,at least during the day,but he couldn't swear that they would never lay down at night in the pasture.But I remember her laying down that one time,because I walked over and lay down on her side,and she didn't mind in the least.I believe I went to sleep right there as her ribs rose ans fell to her breathing,and we both napped together on the front lawn.

The cows were milked too,by hand in the Mormons barn,usually by one of the boys.There were other cows there too and it took some time to milk them all even with several boys hard at work milking.when milking time came,that little brown cow would take off on a trot from wherever she was for the barn.A few times I got to watch the milking procedure.One time,at least I think it was then,and not later,one of the boys doing the milking told me something that he seemed to think was funny,but that I didn't understand at the time.
"Do you know why a cow has four of these"asked the boy,obviously referring to the teats he held in his hands.I had no idea.but they were the biggest things I'd ever seen and I was amazed at them.I though the cow was peeing,but I couldn't understand why she peed milk.At least it looked like milk,and not pee,and my father always said that the milk was the whole reason for having a cow.

"You see,said the Mormon boy.one is for milk,and one is for buttermilk,one is for cream,and one is for chocolate milk."And then he was laughing with all his might.I guess it was the first time anyone had ever told me a joke.Maybe he should have tried it on someone else though,as It was totally wasted on me.I was far too young to understand jokes.Not only that,but as much as he squeezed that cow,I never saw chocolate milk come from any of her teats.The little brat had obviously lied to me,or so I thought.Years later though,I got the joke.I wasn't certain if it was funny or not.

No comments:

Post a Comment