MY UNCLE WAS ALWAYS GOOD at teaching us interesting things he thought we ought to know, and entertained us when things got a little slow, or when he needed a short rest from all the hard farm work. Probably it was also a good way to keep us occupied and out of his hair. I would hang out around the cow barn, or occasionally pass through on the way to find a favorite cat, and he would ask me a question that would stop me in my tracks. That day he knew I had just been given a jackknife by my grandmother, and he asked me if I knew how to make a willow whistle. No, I didn’t, and he sent me off behind the barn by the pond to cut a branch from the big weeping willow tree.

I was usually barefoot in those days, which was a good thing because it was a wet, muddy area. He said it should be about 1” thick and be straight and free of knots. That kept me looking for a while. I wasn’t that tall that year and had to stand on tip toe and pull down a thin branch to cut it at a thicker part.

I came back with quite big branch and was cautioned not to drag it through the barn and scare the cows while they were being milked. Relaxed cows were more inclined to give up their milk and less inclined to kick off the milking machines. Read more…

Young Holstein. Photo by Nancy Jane Kern

MY FATHER WAS A DAIRY FARMER as far back as I could remember starting in the late 1940s. All the local farmers had a cow for milk, butter and possibly cheese, which was mostly for family needs and not the main source of income. Our Town of Austerlitz had been a big sheep and wool area, probably because of demand and possibly because it was hilly and rocky with clay soil suited for these animals. Sheep could graze almost anywhere and eat almost anything.

When demand for wool diminished my father decided the better paying dairy cattle farming was the way to go. He was recently married and needed to prepare for supporting a family. I remember seeing the skull of our farm’s last big Merino ram down in the corner of a pasture below the barn. It had huge, curled horns. My father said he was mean, and you couldn’t turn your back on him, or he would butt you flat on your face.

My father seemed happy to say goodbye to the sheep and start on a new career with cattle. We had a few mixed heritage cows and a big red and white Ayrshire bull, and then, when he could afford it, he bought a few registered Holsteins (the black and white cows). My mother didn’t like potentially dangerous bulls around, so when the new artificial insemination service became available there were no more bulls. Artificial insemination also gave us access to some of the top Holstein bulls in the country via their frozen semen. We used nothing but the best until we had a small, but high-quality herd of registered Holsteins with great milk production. Read more…

THE RICH GOLDEN SUN MELTS the winter snow and starts our beautiful spring season of flowers. Our first yellow flowers were the tiny aconite in the beds behind the house and they are often accompanied by white snow drops. It is so nice to see growing things again and yellow is the color of joy and happiness.

We traditionally force forsythia to bloom and brought in a few branches and placed them in water. The warmth of the kitchen tricked the buds and leaves into coming out and was the first spring bouquet to cheer me up. The daffodils are finally out of the ground on our cool hilltop. My mother always planted daffodils each fall and added more varieties to her large collection. It was so nice to take a container and knife outside and just keep cutting them. Her only rule was always leaving a few in each clump so they would still look pretty outside.

I often took bunches of daffodils to work, and we all enjoyed them. She loved to walk around the house and farm to greet and admire each clump, as if she were checking up on how her “other children” were doing. The pond in the meadow below the barn was another of her favorite spots for daffodils, and they had to be placed so hungry cattle would leave them alone and not trample them. This problem was solved by planting the daffodils on the steepest banks away from the shallow spot where the cows liked to drink. Read more…