Luann and Nellibelle

My friend Luann says that every person should milk a cow just once in their lifetime. Perhaps, this is sage advice with a deeper meaning than just the obvious. I'm in total agreement. Coming from an extended family that operated a dairy for many years, I was one of the lucky ones to actually milk many cows.

Our family had a dairy in Turtle Lake, Wisconsin. The special Holstien was Nellibelle, and her stanchion was the fifth on the right side of the aisle toward the barn entrance. She was very tame, and therefore, we could climb all over her, pet her and not get butted in the belly, and we could actually milk her without getting kicked.

When it was summertime and the cows were turned out into the pasture, the barn was empty during the daytime hours. As crazy as it sounds, it smelled so good in that barn. A pungent, fragrant mixture of hay, grain, bovine, manure, milk, floor lime and silage. The little calves were not turned out, so you were never REALLY alone. The barn cats hung around waiting for a handout of some sort. There were these huge metal bins/containers on three wheels that would be filled with a kind of sweet feed and pellets that smelled like alfalfa and molasses. All of us cousins would push this bin in front of the stanchions and put a heaping scoop of this feed in each cow's feeding space. For obvious reasons, Nellibelle ALWAYS got extra.

Our dairy was very humane in contrast to today's standards. We milked twice a day. When it was dreadfully hot in the summertime, the cows stayed in the cool barn, due to the fact that most of the structure was underground. They were never turned out in the winter for any lengthy period of time. In the cold months, there was plenty of straw bedding beneath them as they slumbered and chewed their cud. Each cow was given a name, and a nameplate above her stanchion, which she never forgot belonged to her. They were given regular and good veterinary care, and were sprayed with repellents for bugs and other pests in the summertime. They were brushed and groomed and their hair was shaved when it was hot.

What I find so upsetting is now this seems to be forgotten, and all due to the almighty dollar. Nowadays, dairy corporations milk the cows in three 8-hour shifts. They are in a feedlot arrangement and never get turned out into a rolling, oak tree filled pasture in the summertime where tanned and barefooted little kids get to climb all over the tame ones, as they would a big friendly dog. There's no more grazing on third crop alfalfa. The days of WCCO on the AM radio in the barn for morning milking are long gone. Yellow straw bedding and children helping with every aspect of feeding, milking, and scraping down the aisle are nothing more than a fond memory. I doubt anyone has a tame favourite named Nellibelle.

Most likely, today's "Nellibelle" is a number, followed by statistics of her milk production.