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First Job of Bob - Dairy Farm - Part III - Milk Cooler; Kitchen Table; No Tubes or Smoking allowed
This entry was posted on 4/15/2010 2:15 AM and is filed under Jobs of Bob.
I have been in the mood lately to divert from my current spot in my job chronology and revisit my dairy farm days off and on. These days I work around a bunch of loud and monotone machines. Perhaps that is one reason I got to thinking about the milk house on the farm. It was not so loud in there, but it did have a large milk cooler. There was a monstrosity of an electric motor and a cooling system. At times the mechanism fired up and ran for a while. The fan blew off hot air and as you would walk past the cooler to get in to the barn; it would blow warm air at you from the open side. It always seemed to be appropriate on a 10 degree below zero night.
The milk house was a center point to the operation; the cap-stone. It was in the middle of the barn facing the house. It held the valuable milk waiting to be picked up each day. It was the epi-center of all the culmination of work done - back-breaking work and a hundred hours worth of work per week, not inventoried except to come to fruition in that tank. Once a month the milk man delivered the milk check and left it on the water heater in the...milk house.
I was surprised when we moved to New Glarus in 1994 and the farmers there milked three times a day. Dad had always done the twice a day ritual of early morning and evening milking. At the time of our move there I thought of my dad saying, "they are crazy people." Milking is an ordeal no matter how mechanized you have become. Three times a day is...crazy. To their credit though, Green county has held on to its dairy culture. The landscape looks much like what Rock County did in the 1950s and 1060s - a quilt of rotating crops. Rock County, my farm days area, has become Illinois-eque with its endless sea of corn and soy bean fields - fences and their wooded fencerows long gone.
The milk house had to be cleaner than the rest of the farm operation. A State inspector would come around once a month and inspect the milk for impurities. If every thing was fine, you stayed in the Grade-A milk pay category. If something was amiss, you might find yourself demoted for a bit to a lesser grade and lower pay. The lower grades were used for animal food and the such. Dad used to be proud of the fact that in 40 years of milking cows he always stayed at Grade-A.
Sometimes I would stop and warm up by the milk cooler fan. I still remember leaning on the tank and thinking about life as the warm air kicked up around me. At times we pulled cream off the top of the milk in the giant stainless steel tank. You have not lived until you have tasted "real" cream from the tank. It is great on sliced bananas or breakfast cereal. The crap in the grocery store is lame. We did not always pasteurize the milk we brought into the house for our own consumption. Mom had a pasteurizing machine on the kitchen counter. As the years went by, varying philosophies arose from time to time on the pros and cons of pasteurization. I always smile nowadays as the argument continues in lofty governmental halls.
The milk we took for our own consumption would end up in various capacities on our kitchen table. All the meals would be had there. There were a couple of good windows facing the south to look out as we ate. In the summer the sun came in and warmed the table. My dad always had a pile of newspapers stacked in his spot. He would take a glance at them off and on during the meal. It was a nuclear family. Mom would work the stove and fix'ns, Dad would read his papers and glance out the windows at the neighboring farms, sometimes my Mom's mother (Grandma) would sit opposite my dad. Mom and I always sat in the middle.
When I was real young, before television got too ubiquitous, Dad had a radio by the refrigerator. He loved to listen to the Milwaukee Braves and Green Bay Packers. Dad never allowed televisions, radios, or smoking in the barn. Many a barn burned down because of one of those three things. The smoking is obvious, but people forget, radios and televisions originally had tubes to make them work. Tubes often burned out - literally burned out. There was just too much dust and chaff in a barn to risk a spark. Dad was wise. Our barn stood the test of time and threat. Many others did not.
Note: This Blog "Jobs of Bob" Category does not list the jobs chronologically - I write about the experiences as they pop up in my memory and I often revisit an older job. Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Jobs of Bob Page for an ordered chronology.
Wisconsin Military Service Person Special Mention of the Week
(each week Cooldadiomedia mentions a Wisconsin service person killed in Iraq or Afghanistan
Army National Guard Sergeant Andrew Peter Wallace, 25, of Oshkosh, WI, died Monday, September 26, 2005 in Shaibah, Iraq during hostile enemy attack. He was one of two soldiers from the same Wisconsin unit killed in the incident. An improvised explosive device (roadside bomb) detonated near his vehicle during convoy operations. They were also attacked by enemy forces using small arms fire. Sergeant Wallace was assigned to the Wisconsin Army National Guard's Company C, 2nd Battalion, 127th Infantry Regiment, 32nd Infantry Brigade. Charlie Company is Fond du Lac, Wisconsin based. Part of the greater unit has Appleton connections. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel stated that Wallace taught physical education at Cook Elementary School in Oshkosh and at Oshkosh North High School; he was an assistant wrestling coach and, a part-time physical education teacher for cognitively disabled students. The Journal Sentinel went on to say the 2nd Battalion, 127th Infantry is based in Appleton and spent a couple of months training at Camp Shelby, Mississippi prior to deployment overseas. The unit began assignment in Kuwait in mid-August, 2005. Part of their mission was to be based in northern Kuwait and provide security to convoys traveling from Kuwait into Iraq. At the time of his death Andrew was survived by wife Angie. Sergeant Andrew Wallace was the 46th Wisconsin military service person to be killed in Iraq since the Spring of 2003.
As of this blog entry's posting date:
95,822 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
9,432 Iraqi Security Forces have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
4,393 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
1033 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
317 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
673 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
31,770 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
5,510 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
102 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
18 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
140 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
21 journalists (various nationalities) have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
Wisconsin military service person special mention of the week, military casualty, and journalist casualty information sources: Committee to Protect Journalists; cnn.com; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; washingtonpost.com; thehighground.org; Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs; iraqbodycount.org; and, icasualties.org.
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