City Slickers on the Farm

By Authors:
Linda Brady Traynham & Kristen Hall

 

Other rancher friends and I were discussing the proposition that the future of the youth of America will be found in the country fifteen years hence following the destruction of suburbia and turning modern cities into razed ground and/or “small, walkable towns.” This causes us to go off into what would be impolite guffaws of laughter if said to the proponents of such things.

 

There are just a few problems with recreating the USA of 1810, as much as I would enjoy seeing it done:

 

1. There are just too danged many people!

2. It is not possible to provide even the bare minimum of services in those “small, walkable cities.”

3. Picturesque villages cannot support even a dry cleaners, a pharmacy, a WalMart, a hardware store, a feed store, a health spa/gym, a library, numerous fast food places, and the myriad goods and services most city dwellers subsume under “necessities.” In general, it requires a population of five thousand and more to sustain even most of those. Otherwise, you drive twenty-five miles to the nearest big town.

4. Very few of us want to walk anywhere.

5. When city folk descend upon small towns they overstress the infrastructure, have nothing to add (if the home folks wanted a tattoo parlor or a bowling alley there would already be one there), and do not know anything useful. As I noted long since on W&G, small towns are already in perfect balance. Don’t go unless you can support yourself some way, because there aren’t any jobs other than at 7-11 or restaurants.

6. When city folks export their suburbs to rural areas they cause innumerable problems and import habits and businesses which drive local enterprises under. What used to go to the Coates family (Coates Gro., in tiny Gause, Texas) will be turned into corporate profits for Brookshire Brothers or Albertson’s if the population increases. In time I will tell you of the disaster having a giant, growing housing area (now in its 28th phase) snugged up to our North and East boundaries is. Traffic hazards, residents cutting our fences to use our woods for recreational and hunting purposes, packs of dogs chasing our livestock, sirens, “security” lights, idiots walking our roads as though this were a recreational area, not a working cattle ranch…It will only get worse. Five houses started construction this week on the road that runs in front of the Rafter TS, just beyond our E border. That means a minimum–supposing both adults work–of twenty extra cars each work day. Yes, they have a right to buy land and build, but that doesn’t mean I have to like their noise, their lack of understanding of how we behave in the country, and their trespassing. My lakes are mine to fish in. “My” deer are fair game if they wander off the property during deer season, but it is illegal to hunt on my land–and without even asking permission!

 

We have to start somewhere on this mess, so here is an exchange between our dear Kristen and I.

 

LBT: The problem is…city kids don’t know anything useful!

 

KH: Amen to that. Nor do they usually want to.

 

LBT: Farm and ranch work does not appear to be obvious to the meanest intelligence. I’m going to regale you with some tales of our experiences based upon hiring men with military backgrounds in need of stable, happy, long-term employment who try very hard. They’re darlings, but some of the mistakes they make would never be duplicated by a six-year-old reared in a bucolic environment.

 

City-slickers don’t know anything about either the work involved or the time constraints of farm and ranch work. Here is a simple example: based upon your experiences with kittens, puppies, and human babies…how frequently do you suppose calves want to nurse?

 

KH: Humm, let’s see..the colicky cocker spaniel girl-baby I was up all night with last night wants to be fed about every 2 hours since she’s a week old. In a few days it will be every 3 hours, then breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack, the breakfast & lunch. Her mother, whose nickname is “Hoover” would like to eat 24/7!

 

LBT: Chuckle…and baby goat girls want to eat every six hours at a minimum for several weeks, being bottle fed by humans.

 

This isn’t rocket science, and once you consider the matter I’m certain all of you will come up with “At least more than once.” Yes, indeed. At least more than once. Boa Constrictors can eat once a month, or something like that. Angelfish can make do with shrimp flakes once a day and devouring the occasional neon tetra, but mammals like to ingest nourishment more frequently. Yes, Roy, the cow has to be milked a minimum of twice a day; we take half the milk and leave the other half because Gertrude, the Gurnsey, is feeding both her calf and an orphan she doesn’t want. In order to let “Hoot,” because he is one, the black and white stranger, nurse, we have to tie Gertrude up. Hoot and Gertrude’s calf are the same age and think they are brothers, but Mama doesn’t agree.

 

When Gertrude arrived about two weeks ago the first milking was the sort of thing that makes oldtimers bury our heads in our hands lest we laugh until we have the hiccups. It is also a lesson in why people are expected to follow orders; it doesn’t matter whether or not you understand why you were told to carry out a task a certain way, and you may ask for explanations later, but for now, just do what you were told as you were instructed to do it. That is not a work ethic that today’s young people have mastered.

 

The instructions were very simple: bring the cow into the yard (since the barn is otherwise occupied at present), tie her in the corner, feed her, and milk the front two teats out so we can let the calves have the other half of the milk. I can’t lose: is that clear to you, or not? If not, you’re a city slicker! (Kristen has goats and knows.)

 

The new hand tied the cow outside the fence and was surrounded promptly by eight or nine amazed Dexter mamas milling around conveying, “So that is how a girl gets patted and fed sweet feed! Looks like great fun! Me next, me next!” Michelle, Ma Belle Obama, the miniature donkey, drifted up to see if the new girl in town wanted to be friends, Buck, MDC’s horse, tried to steal her feed, there were chickens all over the place, and eventually somebody spilt a gallon of milk on the ground while Roy, buried in fortunately sweet, gentle animals, shouted, “Dad Rat it! This is my first time to try to milk a cow!”

 

KH: ROTFLMBO!!!!! But where were the dogs???

 

LBT: Hank had taken it into his head that one of the steers needed herding away from the proceedings and was dashing at it and nipping it. Babe was barking her opinion of big strange cows near the yard…note to new readers: MDC stands for “My darling Charles,” that being how I normally refer to him in my writings.

 

Back to basics. Bring the cow in the yard, safely within the chain link fence away from everything except assorted fowl the cow is accustomed to. Tie her in the corner and give her a bucket of feed. Milk the cow the same way you milk the goat, which he was taught to do, not forgetting to lean your head into her flank to keep her from moving. We point out again that the cow cares which side you milk her from. Our quaint Texas rules are to mount horses from the left, milk cows on their right. We sort that out. No, you don’t stick your hand between her hind legs.

 

Instead of getting something to sit on, Roy is kneeling on the ground, supporting himself on one hand, while he tries to get one squirt, in rotation, out of each teat! From time to time, he changes hands, putting the hand with damp soil from all the rain on the cow’s udder, which he has not washed off. (How fortunate that all livestock loves milk.)

 

KH: Poor Roy! Poor Gertrude! She must have been beside herself with disgust! Laughter.

 

LBT: Yes. Funniest thing I have seen since my first attempt to milk a goat, when Sister turned and said in sweet surprise, “Maaah? That’s not how Daaaah does it!” I had gone my whole life without attempting to milk an animal and still stay as far as possible away from that pastime because I have am more likely to be found typing and playing the piano.

 

Milking is a two-handed operation, and we trap-and-squeeze, we don’t pull. (I am perhaps the least effective milker in the world. My hands are too small. Go to www.fiascofarms.com for complete, very funny milking lessons. No, I didn’t write them, but we all adore and vary, “Don’t make it rocket science; just milk the damn’ goat!”) Roy comes over with about a pint of milk. We tell him to go try some more. Gertrude is a Gurnsey, and milked twice a day she will produce somewhere between three and five gallons daily. Supposing she is fed and watered frequently. City folk appear to have trouble looking automatically every time they pass a water trough or dog bowl to be certain there is ample water.

 

KH: Oh yes, city people and teenagers…

 

LBT: We may have to go to all automatic waterers!

 

Eventually dark falls, and we give up and go put up maybe a quart of milk, after filtering out things that shouldn’t be in it. Dawn comes, and Gertrude is outside the house bawling, “I want to be milked now! Where is my baby? Where are people?” Roy gets another quart of milk, the calves nurse, and the bigger black and white orphan is getting so much milk he has the “scours,” which is sort of like chronic diarrhea. Mother Nature may be wonderful but she requires a great deal of human supervision to work efficiently.

 

Comes dusk, and Roy and Asia are off moving fuel tanks, something that should have been far earlier in the day if not the month ago when I told them to. Up come two experienced cow hands who work for a tenant whose lease is about up, and I ask them to catch Mathilda, the Jersey, and pen her up. Mathilda was supposed to be the family milk cow a couple of weeks ago, but our hands let her get away and haven’t been able to catch her, which is why we gave up and bought Gertrude. What ensued was roughly like the Keystone Kops. My two hands–whom I am very fond of, and they are learning, although very slowly–were so much in the way that it took at least 20 minutes to do something Stanley and Mikey could have done with ease by themselves in about two. They have worked cows for forty and twenty years, father and son, and Mathilda still had her halter on.

 

At this point Gertrude is outside the fence howling, “I want to be milked. And my baby is hungry!” so I call Roy up from the field and want to know what he did with the rope he used this morning because it is nowhere to be found. (Rule One: “Don’t put things down, put them UP.”) I point out gently that the cow needs milking, and that this will be a great deal easier while there is still light. Disconcerted look. “Oh? She needs to be milked twice a day?” Yes, at least. Charles may end up having to milk Gertrude before well-meaning Roy ruins her.

 

Roy gets Gertrude, who moos sweetly, “Thank you! I really need this,” and I point out that he needs something to sit on. “Oh!” He remembered which side to do it on, but was still milking one-handed and forgetting to lean his head into her flank to keep her still. This time Gertrude was annoyed and expressed it as cows do by putting her foot in the bucket. Empty the bucket, start over. Eventually he comes back with about a quart of milk, and, since the sun is setting, we agreed the calves could have the rest.

 

No, you don’t let the calves out of the small pasture adjacent to the house, you take Gertrude in and tie her up or the black calf can’t nurse. I’ll bet you a pretty that if I get up and go look, Gertrude is still tied up instead of having been moved thirty minutes later as he was told. City fellers seem to have minds like sieves. They don’t understand that we aren’t a bunch of hayseeds and there are experience, knowledge, and methods that work guiding what we tell him to do. If Gertrude isn’t set loose she can’t graze, and if she is left accessible to the calves all night there will be no milk tomorrow morning. If Brutus, the bull, has access to her he will get her in the family way again far sooner than we want.

 

KH: And hence the reason our family rarely vacations…and when we leave for overnight, an experienced family member comes here to do animal care and Mama tries not to worry about it — too much. We have found that a checklist, printed out in large type in a plastic sleeve, on a clipboard with an eraseable marker on a string is an invaluable tool.

 

LBT: More laughter. Yes, indeed! How fortunate that we don’t want to go anywhere much. “But Miss Linda, he’s only with her during the day.” Roy, cows and bulls have no problem mating in the day time. They really don’t insist on candle light, roses, and no audience.

 

In the meantime, Thunder, the big registered French Alpine buck, didn’t get put into the enclosure where Faith and Jelly Bean, who are ready to be bred, are. This is simple. Thunder is a big, sweet, smelly, lonely baby (who stands over six feet on his hind legs) who wants to go play with the girls. It would be about three minutes’ work to scoop up Waffle (who adores people) and Snickers and put them in a different pen because they are too young to be mothers. I’ve been waiting for a week for one of them to do it.

 

Yes, things like this are funny…right up to the point when the food on your table depends upon them. We’re talking about a couple of men who were quite competent in their former professions but who have to be lead by the hand like toddlers. They can’t remember to shut gates. When I say “Reinforce that fence now because a calf got out,” they get sidetracked. When we say we want fresh-cut brush delivered to the goats daily we mean just that; they aren’t supposed to graze and eat grain all the time and they can’t go into the woods because residents in the horrible sprawling subdivision that has been built up to our North boundary have cut our fences (literally a hanging offense in Texas not all that long ago) in four places to expand their recreational possibilities and poach deer, which is also frowned on. “Gather the eggs every day and put them in cartons you mark with the date” means just that. If you don’t, eventually you will have to spend time sorting out the ones that float (which are spoiled) from the ones that don’t, and feed the good ones to the hogs, who aren’t picky.

 

We don’t have any silly rules. All of them are designed to protect people or property. A moment’s carelessness and a goat gets into the greenhouses and destroys $250 worth of young citrus trees with small fruit, blossoms, and mature fruit. Those trees cannot be replaced until next spring at the earliest, by which time there may not be any. Leave an animal without water and it dies. Disobey orders–which have been explained clearly–and feed a calf the wrong thing and he dies, too.

 

Every profession requires knowledge and experience. Ancient wisdom is that it takes ten years to become an adequate farmer and it takes at least that long to learn to be a rancher. This isn’t something any warm body can do. If you think you might have to be working in Riesel, Texas, population negligible, a decade from now, start reading and thinking now. Otherwise, when you apply for a job you’ll be lucky if the farmer or rancher doesn’t run you off the place with a shotgun. He isn’t going to need any more useless mouths to feed. In particular, he isn’t going to have any use for those who don’t know the rules, cannot follow instructions, are not reliable and responsible, and do not know how to behave around animals.

 

KH: In which case we’d better hope that young people all find something else to do, since I don’t think even 5% of our current population is emotionally and temperamentally suited to farm life or even general animal care. No patience, no “feel” for the animals…

 

LBT: Amen. You and I love our animals, which the feed lots certainly don’t, and we also understand we are dependent upon them for food on our table. In a world where the big trucks didn’t roll millions would die. We’re all trying to see that we aren’t among them and that we will have extra to barter. We understand what “Every day in the Navy is like Sunday on the farm” means. We are never off duty, but we don’t punch time clocks, either. We do routine chores, work on projects, handle emergencies, and the rest of the time is ours. We don’t need “vacations” because our lives are constant vacations. But only when we follow the rules and act responsibly.

 

When Gertrude got here Roy was told to tie her up after unloading her. Instead he chose to pen up her calf and turn mama loose, thinking she wouldn’t go far. (Don’t think when you start, just do as you are told.) Brutus, our big bull, wandered up, said, “Wow! Lookit th’ legs on that Sweetie,” and sidled up to her. Gertrude took in all that bovine pulchritude, and, perhaps, remembering that the father of her current calf is a Dexter, took off with Brutus and her calf that had gotten out because the fence corner had not been reinforced yet. The two headed off into the sunset, Brutus saying, “Hey, Gorgeous Mama, all this is mine and I will be your mate forever except when the squatty little brunette babes need my attention.”

 

Round ‘em back up, since we went through this a couple of weeks ago with Mathilde, the Jersey with her first calf. She needed to be taught she was a milk cow, but, as you know, just got captured–and escaped the next morning, not to be seen near the Home Pasture again. Aargh! If your milk for the next 300 days depended upon people doing simple things like not letting the livestock wander off and milking them properly, would you hire just anyone who applied? You think about a world in which the grocery store you use has no milk, no cream, no cheese, no butter, and no sour cream, a world in which if you don’t produce dairy products you flat do without once the evaporated canned milk has been used. At that point…do you take a chance on a friend, a relative, or a stranger who is intimidated by horses, afraid of cows, terrified of snakes, shattered by the thought of fierce wild hogs, can’t shoot, plow, or garden, and can’t be relied upon to put dishes in the dishwasher? Who has no idea of thrift, conserving, or that what we have may be all we ever have to live on? When the true cost will be what they eat and what they destroy? I think not.

 

One final story, this one not funny. In order to capture Gertrude yesterday, Roy had the brilliant idea of picking up her calf and carrying it off.

 

KH: OMG!!! THAT is not inexperience, that is just plain dumb. I know you love Roy and I know he has a lot of experience elsewhere, but where is his BRAIN??? Use your HEAD, Soldier!!!

 

LBT: Yes. It’s like having to tell people that wild deer are not Bambi. They can be extremely dangerous. Wild hogs kill people occasionally…and eat what’s left.

 

He is strong, and he is very fortunate that it worked. Dexter cows are exceptionally sweet-natured, but larger cows are not, usually. We stared, aghast, because most other breeds object if their calves are handled and Gertie has very big horns and weighs at least a thousand pounds. Brutus, who weighs at least 1200 pounds was trying to impress the new female who smells delicious to him. If we had shouted “PUT THAT CALF DOWN!” we might well have precipitated a tragedy. We just prayed. The hands do not have health insurance (not a customary perq), and in years to come there may well be a shortage of medical care if we are right about exactly how much doom and gloom is coming. NO experienced hand would have tried to do it that way. He would have shut the big gate between the pastures, gotten a rope and a bucket of feed, and enticed the cow. For the record, even if you find a cow or horse wearing a halter, as ours do, don’t try to grab the strap on the side and lead the animal around. You may find yourself tossed aside like a kitten. You may find yourself bitten, stomped, are dying of gangrene.

 

It is ten days later, now, and the milking is still the high point of the day. Yesterday Roy got about two teaspoons out, looked confused, and asked, “Do you suppose she doesn’t have any milk because I milked her late this morning?” Groan. No, we suppose she is refusing to let you have it because…because she’s a cow, and she wants it to go to her calves, and she knows she can buffalo you. The day before he asked naively, “Miss Linda…we’ve got an awful lot of milk in the refrigerators, so is it okay if I don’t milk Gertrude because we don’t need any more?” What do you say? I said, “No, Roy, it is not all right because she won’t keep giving milk if we don’t milk her.” “Oh!” Roy…Gertrude is a COW, not a dairy case at Kroger’s. Today he also pulled Gertrude away from Brutus, and the only thing that kept him from discovering this isn’t smart is that Hank herded the bull away. Roy never even noticed.

 

KH: My husband works for an 84 yr old retired doctor from California who runs cattle on his wife’s homeplace here in VA. This man knows less about cattle than one of my least brilliant poodles. I do not know where he would be without Cliff. “George” (the owner) thinks cows need to be “programmed”, and has never been able to get them to do anything.

 

LBT: Riotous, hysterical laughter! Roy “explains” things to the animals!

 

KH: My husband goes over to the farm, gets out a bucket of grain, stands at the gates and calls “OOOOOO-COWS!!!” maybe twice.

 

LBT: Our signal is five honks of the truck horn and “Hooooo, cows.”

 

KH: Then listen and you will hear the sound of pounding hooves from somewhere in the distance on the 200+ acre farm. Within 15 minutes (depending on how far away they were), every girl and her babies will be at the gate, waiting for Pa to feed her. They are not pettable — we don’t make pets out of Charlois/Angus crosses — but they have been well-handled and well-cared for and it shows. You almost hate to send them to market, since you’ve spent all this time getting them to trust you.

 

LBT: We don’t make nice with things that are going to be on the table, but all of the cows will eat out of our hands at least when there is a fence between them and us and Maggie, the Head Cow, doesn’t shove them away.

 

KH: If the days come when people need farm help, they need a man like my husband, Cliff. Unfortunately, while more common here than some places, they are still few & far between.

 

LBT: Yes, and the day will come that they won’t work, as they do now, for five to eight dollars an hour, even in adjusted currency. They are going to be important again because they have knowledge and experience few do.

 

Thinking any human can do farm and ranch work is like thinking anyone can be a plumber, a carpenter, a hairdresser, or a traffic engineer without training and experience. We aren’t a bunch of hayseeds with fewer skills than a new hire teen at a burger joint. Our food supply–and yours–depends upon large investments, constant physical and financial risk, and finding personnel capable of protecting our investments. Having had a pot of herbs from the grocery store on your windowsill for a few weeks does not qualify you to be a farmer, and feeding your dog occasionally doesn’t teach you to ranch. The animals know neophytes from their behavior and have quite a sense of humor when it comes to expressing themselves. You really can’t keep a goat out of a bucket of feed you set down by saying gently, “No, Sinatra, that isn’t your feed, it is Gertrude’s.” It is first come, first served, in their minds, and only force or forethought deter them. Gertrude used the slack in her rope to dissuade Sinatra; she outweighs him by a factor of twenty to one. Roy is still confused because he told Sinatra to leave it alone. An old hand would have chased Sinatra out of the yard and not gotten the feed until he was ready to milk the cow.

 

The moral here is that if you expect to need employment in the country in the future, start learning now. Read books, and buy at least a gerbil.

 

Cordially,

 

Linda Brady Traynham and Kristen Hall

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