Excerpt from the autobiography of Taft Rowberry WRATHALL
(1909 - 1985)
[Written approx. 1980 (age 71)]
Milk-Cows
During the winter months we had chores which always made me happy when spring came. Father [ James L. Wrathall (1860 -1932)] had about 10 milk-cows which in the summer time were turned out into the pasture where they would graze all day. In the late afternoon I would go to the pasture, round up the cows and drive them home. They would then be milked and housed in the corral or barn overnight. Early the next morning I would drive them back to the pasture. The pasture was about 1.5 miles away and I would either walk, ride a bicycle or a horse. With time I got progressively more suspicious of horses and finally concluded they were all possessed by demons. As time went on I rode my bicycle and walked more often. I will explain later how I learned about horses.
During the winter months the cows were kept In the barn and corral. As the water pipes would be frozen the cows would need to be taken out every day, at noon, for a drink of water. Our school was just across the street from the barns, and one of my chores was to drive these cows "down the lane" to the closest source of water. This water came from flowing-wells and therefore It didn't freeze. It was about the same distance to the watering hole as the pasture, so I had to move right along to take the cows there, let them leisurely drink and get them back again during my lunch hour. Usually the road was covered with snow and Ice, which turned to mud as the weather warmed up. During the winter months, while the cows were being milked (which was morning and night), they were put up in stalls In the "cow shed". A hay crib ran the length of the shed and along one side. To get at the hay, the cows would put their head through an opening between the hay crib and the shed itself. These openings were spaced about 8 feet apart and made in the shape of a Vee. As the cow's head went through the Vee, it was locked shut so the cow was unable to withdraw her head. The crib was then filled with hay and the critter would happily stand in one place eating hay while she was milked. I did not do much milking in the winter time, but during the summer, when there were so many other things to do, I sometimes milked the cows. I did enough to learn it was futile to challenge a farm boy to a game of Indian Wrestling, because with the grip they develop from milking cows they will devastate you. In some respects, milking during the summer months was more difficult. Being in the corral and having no restraint imposed on them, the cows were free to move whenever the notion struck them. When they did, they often kicked over the milk bucket or stepped on your foot.
Another aggravating habit they had was to continually swing their fly swatter. This came with each cow as standard equipment, and was made up of a clump of hair on the end of their tail. It was always whipping from side to side to keep off the flies. This was a menace, when milking, as the length of the cow's tail seemed to be just right to bring it against my face as I sat on the little milk stool in milking position. Being slapped by the cow's tail was made even worse because the tail nearly always seemed to get In the way when she went to the bathroom, so the clump of hair at tail's end often was soggy. Horses had this same built-in defense against flies as the cow, but it was more deadly. Whereas the cow's swatter was like a clump of hair on the end of a rope, the horse's was like a bundle of small flexible wires. Horse-flies were delegated by nature to pester horses. These beastly creatures were 1/2 to 3/4 inch long and should have had horns and a forked tail, because they would bite like the devil. I couldn't blame the horses for swishing hard and often when these flies were around, but when I caught this wire whip full-force across my face, it made me feel like taking the rest of the day off. This would happen even when there were no flies around, like right after a rainstorm. Now I was too big to look like a horse-fly, but I would still get it flush on the face, which just reinforces my opinion that horses are reincarnated demons.
As the cows were lined up In their stalls contentedly eating, the hay would gradually work itself through the cow and come out the other end. Just back of the cows was a trough about a foot wide and a foot deep. One of my chores was to keep this empty. Using a scoop shovel, I would transfer this material to a pile just outside the door. This pile would grow daily until, by spring, when the cows started living outside again, it would be several feet higher than my head. When it had to be shoveled so high I had to be very careful that It didn't come back down on me, and about the worst thing that could happen was to let the shovel hit the side of the door in the middle of a swing. When this happened, things would go every which way. In the spring the pile was transferred to a "manure spreader" for distributing over the hay fields, and thus the cycle would start again.