Patience and Cows

I forgot to write a blog post last night. Which is not a surprise considering forgetting is one of the simplest things to do in life. And as it is very difficult to remember something forgotten it is not a surprise I haven't written my blog post til now.

Thanks for your patience.

Learning to milk a cow results in an awful lot of fumbling that myself and the cows don't find all that pleasant. The easiest part is washing and dipping (a little dip into what I'm sure is a cold-feeling solution). It's everything that follows that makes the cow's and my time together awkward. Stripping, the little bit of hand milking that checks for infection, is strangely difficult. In theory, it sounds easy enough: squeeze from the index finger down to produce milk. But a lot of things sound easy in theory that are not in practice. I sometimes feel as though I'm doing the reverse of milking, squeezing the milk up instead of out because my hand wants to squeeze pinky to index instead. Once that is done, the actual milking comes next. The milking machine, composed of a vacuum, a bucket, and the milking octopus claw, also had a steep learning curve. The weight and manner of attaching the machine to the cow makes all but the fastest milkers (Ashlee) look at least somewhat incompetent. The four milkers dangle down and have to be attached rapidly before any suction is lost. If the cow would stand still with her back right leg extended back, this alone would be sufficiently challenging. But instead, the cows sway back and forth, position their back right leg directly in your way, and employ some kind of super power to prevent the machine from effectively attaching. It's at this point when I can feel the cow judging me. "What do you think you're doing? You aren't good at this. Where's Ashlee? You should just bring me grass."

However, after repeating this at least 30 something times, I've reached the point where the fumbling is becoming less and less every time and is finally severely reduced. I've reached that point where the cows are down to thinking "Where's Ashlee? You should bring me grass." Which is good, because if there was no improvement I would have to be considering other career options like teacher and caregiver which would be good for no one.