Country Living – Teats in a tangle

I’ve been kicking around with dairy farmers for quite some time now, and up until now had managed to avoid the milking. However, this is a story that needs to be told so in order to do so, I mentally cancelled my non-existent Saturday night social life in favour of daggy pyjamas, Netflix and a 3am alarm bell. In the dark, I zoomed off to my old mate Brian Mason’s farm in Tomarata, as keen as biscuits to get the Full Monty milking experience.

We jumped in the RTV and set about getting the first herd of 350 cows in the milking shed. My initial train of thought transported me back a few years to when I was a working mum on the daily expressing milk grind. I wasn’t at all surprised that the cows quite happily walked down to the shed. Us women would be bolting down that race for that long-awaited morning pressure release. We got the shed all sparked up, and it was game on. Brian was ever so politely trying to pass on a lifetime of knowledge as I was busy mucking up his whole system. Honestly, everything happens so fast in the milking shed, but I still managed to squeeze in some jealous thoughts of my days, long gone, glued to the couch after work with those old leaky manual breast pumps and aching wrists.

These cows are on to something here. I was very surprised at how heavy the cups are and the intrinsic process of pressing the suction button while wrestling with udders, trying to line them up and not getting tangled up. My lack of skill in this area could now possibly explain my historical D-grade lactation skills. At one stage, I was so busy fidgeting around with udders and cups, the young lass was halfway around the rotary and I hadn’t even got a drop of milk out.

Never fear, by 5am the lovely Mr James Makaea-Tavalu rocks in, bright as a button, ready to take over the reins, so Brian can go and get the second herd of 350 in. James is a south Auckland lad who came to work for Brian six years ago. He was quite shocked to find a strange woman in his shed that morning, and I have to say he had the most wonderfully demure bedside manner as he gently helped me learn the ropes. He explained that there were many more jobs to do on the dairy farm, but his favourite part was milking his “girls”, and he knows every one of the 700 that he milks. I asked James if he had a favourite and with a smile he singled out number 225, even though she was his temperamental one. Apparently, number 225 gives an occasional kickback. ‘Oh,’ I thought, ‘don’t worry Missy 225, most of us chicks could be guilty of the occasional kickback if our ‘lady lumps’ were getting messed around with at 4am’. Chatting to James, I became aware that he was extremely proud of his job and his genuine love for his girls shone out as a guiding light against the reality of repetitive monotony.

As the morning sun rose, Brian and I gently walked these working girls back to their paddocks, where a choice of breakfast options awaited. The work is early, long and relentless and trust me when I say, the meek do not inherit these sheds in the bitter, cold winter. This mob has got backbone and grunt, but it’s more than that, isn’t it? I feel comfort and privilege knowing these strong men and women are out there with their herds through feast or famine, feeding our families. So let’s put down the Champagne, and  raise our blue cheese, knowing that while the end result of their toil may well eventually land on our waistline, we wouldn’t have it any
other way.

Julie Cotton
admin@oceanique.co.nz