Jan. 4, 2012

33 Degrees Below Zero

We recently had a spell of cold weather this winter when the temperature outside were 10 degrees below zero and Clair reported toward the end of the spell that Duchesne had finally gotten above zero during the day. It reminded me of one year in my youth when it got below zero for several days and I still had the assignment to milk the cows and do the chores. I started doing chores around the barn when about eight years old. I would go to the stack yard and pull some hay down into the manger for the cows and then return to the barn to milk the cows. I became the main one to milk the cows though later in my teen years when the last son (Lynn) prior to me left for his mission. It was during one of those years when the temperature had dropped to well below zero for several days and one of them was at minus 33 degrees and Dad and I were the ones left to do the chores. They were not real hard but I never really considered them to be real pleasant either. However when the temperatures dropped during that winter they were even far less pleasant. I felt sorry for myself having to go milk the cows in such cold weather but felt even more sorry for the cows that had to eat, sleep and be milked in such weather. Cows are not really very particular where they leave their piles of processed hay and grass (manure) and even less particular about where they sleep either and the two places are often the same. It was always a joy to have to press your head in front of their hind leg to prevent them from kicking while you were milking them but the fact that they had been laying in manure made it even worse. That also meant though that their bags were also many times also laying in manure and so we would have to take rags soaked in warm water and wash their teats and bags before starting to milk them. It was more than one time during these cold winter days that the rag would still be frozen while hanging on the wall in the barn and putting it into the warm water was necessary not only to get it wet but to thaw it out from the previous session of milking. Those cows probably enjoyed the warmth of the water and the warmth of our hands as we milked them but I often worried how it felt as they were released from the barn back into the cold air outside of the barn. Maybe that’s why they would then go lay down in another warm pile of processed hay (manure) that would then be there to wash off the next time we milked.