The Symphony of the Farm

Come with me, to a place where many forms of life begin and end.  A place of peace, hard work and sacrifice.  A place where sounds and smells rush past you in a flood, struggling to surface back to reality.  Sounds that dance across the open prairie at the peeking of dawn, blasting the rooster alarm “cock-a-doodle-doo”.  A place where flies buzz in your ear, telling of the morning pursuit, finding that next meal.  Choirs of anxious, hungry cows crowding the milking stalls, awaiting the freedom from an aching udder, under pressure.  Birds fluttering with the weathervane, scoping out the fresh seedlings dropped along by the wind. 

Off in the distance a faint whistle, can you hear it?  Here comes my grandpa, the dairy farmer, stepping out on the porch to pull on the mud encrusted boots, and headed down the well worn path towards me and the barn.  I’m seven years old, and anxious to follow my grandpa, as he starts his afternoon milking.  But first, I want to meet the new calves of the year.  It’s been a year since I was last here, and I remember naming all the new calves at that time, but can’t remember now what they were, though awaiting the routine.  I help swing a bucket, adapted with a rubber nipple, on the railing of the fence, so the calf can suckle and have its lunch.  This being a routine for my grandpa, he checks on all the new calves before he is stationed in the milking barn, for the next few hours.  Swinging open the sun-rotted, paint flaked doors of the barn, a gust of wind stirs up the floating dust in the warm summer air, causing it to bounce in and out of the sun beams, streaming down through the ceiling rafters.  “Oh what fun this will be.”  I think to myself.  My grandpa flicks a switch, and the shiny, sterile milk machine rumbles to life.  Hisses and whistles from the gauges and pressure sensors, assure a thorough check to maintain just the right temperature for the fresh milk it awaits to collect.

A few minutes later and I hear the familiar bell, ringing for the milking to begin.  The cows move anxiously in line, like the slow shuffle at the dmv, till finally they are hooked at the teets with suction cups and collection begins. While hooked to the machine, we feed the cows a coffee cans amount of grain, hearing the munch and crunch.  Before they are done, grandpa also give them a once over with the hose causing a mixture of smells floating like a cloud, filling the barn. 

Sweet, sour and atrocious smells, not a good mix together, but some are the kind where memories start.  Sweet smells like honeysuckle and sunflower, bobbing with the bees in the wind.  Another mix, wheat and corn surrounding the barn, long straws swaying back and forth, absorbing the flowers and fresh air, before swinging it off into the open.  Let’s not forget the famous, yet atrocious smell of the pastures.    Manure: the mix of urine, feces and mud, burning the senses with each breath, gagging to most, yet for some a common comfort when compared to the smog and exhaust from cars