So then this morning I was in bed, thinking about things as I often do, I was thinking about why I hate rats so much, and my memories went back to high school time.
When I was 12, our parents decided to get a milk cow. This had a huge impact on the next six years for everyone in our family. Each of us had to participate regularly in the milking and maintenance of the cow. Of course there were probably more positive moments than negative, but my main memories are of the disgusting things that happened.
While the cow was in milking mode (which is most of the year after she has a calf), she had to be milked twice a day, without exception. We had a milking schedule: a rotation of the six of us. For most of those years, two of us would work together but later on I think it went down to one person alone (by then I was away at college, having escaped the cow duties).
In brief: we had to bring a clean bucket out to the cow shed, we had to get the sweet grain that would keep the cow occupied, get the cow out of the stall and put her in the stanchion. If we were unlucky, she had spent the night or day lying down in her poop. If we were lucky, she was relatively clean. After we got her installed in the stanchion, we would pull up a stool or a cinderblock and use a warm bucket of soapy water to clean off her udder. This could be a small job or a big, nasty job depending on how much wet or dry and crispy cow manure was on her udder. This was often a direct result of how well someone had cleaned her stall, but not always. The warm water encouraged her to let her milk down, so we had to massage her udder anyway.
Milking the cow meant putting your head right against her flank so you could lean in to get a strong hold on the teats. We were warned about getting ringworm if we put our bare head against the cow, so we sometimes remembered to wear a hat, but certainly not always. Other people who milked cows would laugh at our family because we did it with one of us on each side. Most people milk a whole cow by themselves, but we split the job. So we put our hands as high on the udder as we could and we milked her until she was dry.
I am forgetting to talk about the gross parts, but they were a part of our daily experience: sometimes the cow was in a mood and she would smack us with her tail while we milked, and sometimes her tail was covered with wet manure, so we would duck our heads down as low as we could but on occasion our faces would be whipped with stripes of green-brown poop. Sometimes she would be ornery and she would purposely stamp her foot and put it into the milk bucket and we would have to throw out the milk. And always there was the stall cleaning afterwards -- not necessarily gross, but a part of animal care that never goes away. Cows can produce a voluminous amount of urine and manure, and the smells are forever imbedded in our memories.
When the cow had recently had a calf, she could produce two gallons of milk twice a day. Later in the year, she might be down to just a couple of quarts. Either way it was a chore to deal with the milk. We took it into the house and poured it through a fine cheesecloth, catching whatever yucky things might have fallen in. We marked the jug with a piece of tape that said "15-1," for example -- the first number was the date and the second number told whether it was the first or second milking of the day. Our refrigerator was always full of milk and we used it in order of age. Sour milk went to the chickens. All of us shook milk jugs vigorously, to mix in the cream, even years after when we did not have a cow anymore.
But what has this got to do with rats? They are deeply associated with milking in my memories. When we went out in the dark for the night milking, we turned the light on and just expected to experience the rustling and squeaking and movements in the sudden shadows. And once I remember a rat running directly over my foot. I scream for mice and I definitely scream if a rat comes toward me. I hate rats more than any other varmint.
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