Solstice

I woke up this morning to do chores for Bill, to let him sleep in, and to watch the sky grow light. I crawled out of bed at 6:12 a.m., a half hour after the alarm went off, pulled on fleece and hood and socks and poop covered Muck boots. Milk pail in hand and dogs in tow, I stepped out the door to an eerily balmy morning. I could hear the cows ruminating in the dark, their jaws grinding thrice digested grasses like humans ponder reiterated good ideas. Over and over. The cats come pouring out of the barn when they hear the mudroom door pull open and MuShu, goopy eyed, club footed, tom cat, like ritual, comes halfway between house and barn and starts rolling from belly to back, from back to belly. Warm milk on his mind, stomach grumbling.

The barn on a dark morning is a sweet thing. First, I unplug the tick tick tick of the electric fence. It must be like the heartbeat of the barn to these animals. The constant dripping sink. I switch the radio button off so that VPR won't come on half way through chores. I can tell it's one of these mornings to maintain the quiet.

This summer we had ten cows on our farm. A mixture really of cows, heifers and bulls.

(Cow note: a cow is not technically considered a cow until after she's birthed her second calf. Young female cows are considered heifers. After their first calf, they are referred to as 'first calf heifers'. After the second calf, they've acheived 'cow' status. Bulls are just bulls. Through and through. I think if they're "nutted", they're called steers. I'm not totally sure.)

We now have two cows, four heifers, and one bull. Apple is the bull, the baby of the bunch, a deep shade of auburn and he loves to have this neck stroked. His eyelashes are long and gorgeous and he's like the baby brother of the bunch, taken care of by the pack of older sisters. Little do they know that by the end of spring, he'll be "bullying" them all out of grain and hay. He'll be mounting them with every 21 day heat.

There is a set of heifer twins just a bit older than Apple. They were born last spring on the organic dairy that Bill has worked at until very recently. Both Ella and I had yet to witness a bovine birth ( a freshening) and after the first girl came out, we were waiting to see the placenta birthed. Instead of the placenta, and to all our surprise, the second girl came out in the caul. Bill went into the stall and broke the bag open, her little nose lifted to the air, hooves milky white, all drenched in amniotic fluid. They look like dear, but a deeper shade of red. Dairy tradition is to name the calf a name that starts with the same first letter of it's mother's name. Ella named them Comet and Cupid.

Patience is our milk cow. She was the second cow to our farm four or five years ago and had her first calf here. Another auburn eyershire. We were eachother's firsts as far as milking goes and she was named aptly. Each of us needed a great deal of patience to get through that first winter. Eyershires tend to be nervous cows by nature, not as slow to react as other breeds. That first winter, it wasn't uncommon for her to spook at someone just standing up or just walking into the barn. To the slightest rattle of the milk pail handle. Oftentimes she would pull right out of her stantion, other times she would kick her left foot right into the pail. She had her second calf last winter, which I was alone to tend to for the first time, and she has settled gracefully into her second round of milking, motherhood and becoming the alpha of the barnyard. When she hears me walking out to the barn now, she starts her slow gaited ascent up the hill, past the apple tree, and to the barn gate. In the summer, when she's out to pasture, she waits at a standstill for me to loop the harness around her and walks sweetly beside me back to the barnyard.

It's rare that I'm not totally struck with wonder about having a relationship with an animal of this magnitude. Sometimes, when I'm sitting underneath her, cats rubbing alongside the pail, my fingers around her teets, squeezing in accordian rhythm, my head resting against her back thigh, I can feel the heat of her, hear her belly grumbling, digesting, and it just blows me away. I've spent the better part of two and a half years developing a trust between two species. An understanding.

I've also spent the better part of those two and a half years shoveling a ton of shit. There are mounds behind the barn, as long as a Ford F350 and 8' tall, growing taller still every year. A concotion of food scraps and poop. Leftover zucchinis sprouting out of the heap every summer and in the raw cold of winter, a plume of steam rising from it's mound.

But what comes of shit but compost. So, five gallon bucket after five gallon bucket, I guess it's worth it. I can live the metaphor.