Coop_ A Year of Poultry, Pigs, and Parenting - Michael Perry [19]
In the beginning we shipped our milk in cans. The cans stood about three feet tall and weighed 100 pounds when full. I remember the warmth of them full with fresh milk inside the tiny stand-alone milk house, then Dad lowering the cans neck-deep into a concrete tank of cool water hidden beneath a heavy wooden lid. When Dad refreshed the water, the overflow traveled through a pipe to the stock tank in the barnyard. The pipe ran about three feet above the ground and was polished smooth; we often used it for gymnastics and tightrope walking. Every other day Gene the milkman would pull up with his cavernous steel truck and, in a rattle-bang exchange, trade us empty cans for full. Gene was sinew-skinny, but he kneed those full cans aboard the elevated truck deck like they were packed with cotton.
In order to get a better rate for his milk, Dad eventually built a new milk house. This one was filled with fun doodads—a double stainless steel sink, liquid soap dispensers, a paper towel roller just like the one in public restrooms (it was required to make inspection; to save money, Dad never actually let us use any of the paper), a double-sided trapdoor in the wall to admit the hose that pumped the milk to the truck (we used the trapdoor to play mailman), a door that swung both ways between the barn and the milk house (it reminded us of the ones we saw in restaurants), and a shiny stainless-steel bulk tank the size of a hot tub. We loved to pull the tiny cymbal-like lids and watch the revolving paddle swirl the milk as it cooled, and on hot days we would go around the back of the tank and stick our hands elbow deep in the water reservoir to touch the cooling coils when they were fat and silky with ice.
During construction, while the walls had yet to be enclosed, my sister Suzy was playing farmer, and my brother Jed was her cow. In need of a stanchion, Suzy had Jed stick his head in the gap between two studs. Later we were all seated at the dinner table when Mom noticed Jed was missing. “Oh,” said Suzy nonchalantly, “he’s in the milk house.” And so we found him, on hands and knees with his head jammed between a pair of two-by-fours. Having pushed his way in, he couldn’t back out. Dad levered the studs apart and freed him. I was always confused when city kids asked us how we had fun without a television.
Dad ran two milking units with three buckets. We dumped the spare bucket while two more cows were being milked. He built the milk-house floor four feet lower than that of the barn, so when we stepped through the swinging door, we stood on a concrete landing with our feet at the same level as the bulk tank. Rather than having to lift and dump the milk, we just stepped across the gap, put one foot on the corner of the tank, and dumped from ankle height. The milk passed through a strainer, draining slowly away to leave a round cap of snow-white froth atop the disposable paper filter. Toward the end of milking the barn cats would start hanging around the door, waiting for the moment we tossed the filter in the gutter and they could lick it clean.
While Dad milked the final cow, I fed the calves. Originally Dad used a powdered milk replacer we mixed up in a bucket, but over time he took to putting air quotes around the word “replacer” and went back to the real stuff. The calf bottles were roughly the size of a milk carton and capped with a rubber nipple. The calves wriggled their tails and sucked with such frantic exuberance that if you didn’t hold the nipple tightly, it burst off and the milk hit the concrete in a big white splash. You also learned not to stand directly behind the bottle, as calves have an innate tendency to pause in their suckling in order to deliver a vicious head butt originally intended to get Ma to let her milk down. If you’re a little kid with a bottle in your solar plexus, the only thing let down is tears. If you