The day it all fell apart

I went out yesterday morning to milk and discovered that things were not going to be as easy as I had imagined.  Daisy was in a fury because I was sharing her baby.  She roared into the barn,  heaving herself about. Rolling her eyes at me and startling as the chickens woke and fell-flew from their perches.  Her feet suddenly seemed enormous and filled the space with their shuffle.  Stomping in place as I washed her. 

Minty began  bleating  at the barn door. The peacock was screeching back.  I stood up to grab the dry cloth, Daisy  lurched and my sunglasses which were stupidly perched on top of my head as usual, fell to the barn floor and flew into too many pieces to pick up. Daisy seeing her opportunity flicked the tip of her filthy tail  straight through my eye.  It felt like a blade of razor sharp grass dragged across my eyeball but full of muck. Minty increased her volume to a piercing level and the calf began to low. 

Daisy’s  afterbirth still had not come away and was dragging. The cups would not stay on.  I set the calf next to Daisy and put my finger in its mouth to keep it still and worked one handed. Soon we righted ourselves and talking gently got everything around the right way,  the milk flowed and flowed and my eye throbbed.  Daisy strained at her leash and refused to eat.  Her body knocking against me and her calf. 

Once we were all untangled Daisy stormed out of the barn and spent most of the day marching up and down the North side of her field.  Until I  listened to the soft spoken Hairy MacLairy and put them back together.   All day I crashed from one job to the next thinking hard, what was I forgetting. Did everyone have water. Why was there no washing on the clothesline. That bed needed weeding.  I picked and chopped the cabbages  and brocolli plants for the pigs, then lost the garden knife.

I paused to watch Stinky the Second get a moment at the water bowl before the big chickens shoved them out of the way.  The day would not flow. I was in a state of flux as we reshuffled the day. I jerked from one thing to the next.  I kept losing my camera then finding it in ridiculous places. Bruising myself bumping into things  and my brain kept stalling trying to think what I should be doing next.  Why did I walk over here.  What was I doing. I got the tractor stuck.  It got hot then it got hotter. I squinted in the glare and wished for even a part of my sunglasses to wear.  I could not find the sprinkler or the hoe.  I cleaned and cleaned in the barn trying to eliminate some of the dust and failing. My eye hurt. I glanced into the cardinal’s nest to find that it had been shredded and the bird and her eggs were gone.  Just gone.  I could have sat on the step and bawled. 

Where had my balance gone.  I have taken on too much I thought. I am not going to be able to do this. The pigs needed hosing, they were panting in the heat and the lambs needed water, and the hoses were all the way on the wrong side of the property.  The bread needed to go to the second rise. Vegetables needed picking for dinner and soon I would have to milk again. I was not looking forward to that.

Then my teenager came and began to scoop out the pigs pen.  What is wrong with your eye, she said.  Cows tail, I said. She screwed up her face. Its all red. Damn, I thought.

I went inside to look in the mirror for the first time that day. Red. Half the white of my eye is a glaring red.  I watched the teenager’s little head bob past the window as she dragged the hoses around the side of the house, then heard the squeal of delighted Plonkers getting sprayed off on her way past.

Without warning the wind shifted. I could smell honeysuckle. The bees hovered around the tap. The bread started to rise. The cake came out of the oven and the red wine and thyme stew in the crockpot started to fill the house with the scent of dinner.

I took a big breath, filled my buckets with water and went out to milk Daisy.  Hairy stood quietly under the tree and watched as Daisy walked into the milking parlour and stood in exactly the right spot. She ate and we talked as I washed her teats,  gently pulling a little milk from each.  She turned only her head to watch me as I attached the cups the right way round, the suction held and the pump began its click, then we both paused to follow the milk streaming into the bucket.

When there was only a trickle left. I shut off the button and the extensions dropped off her udder easily and were hung on their handy nail hook. She finished up her barley and alfalfa while I washed and dried her chapped legs, once again lifting each leg for me, then I dipped each teat in iodine and unhitched her.

That’ll do boss I said and slapped her on her rump. She turned her vast body in that small space and two gallons lighter, headed out into the late afternoon.

There. I said to myself and set about pouring her milk into bottles for her calf and cleaning my equipment.  The barn was empty and quiet. All I could hear was the occassional chuckle from the shush sisters as they tried to entice another chicken into their run, then it became so quiet I fancied I could hear  the long-eyelashed slow blink of the new bobbys eyes as he watched me.

On my way back to the house,  there was this little fat pig, trying to fit its little fat body onto a saucer of water. His teenager leaning on the barn door watching.

See you tomorrow, she called.  Don’t forget you have that wedding to go to.  Crap, I thought.

Good morning.

Today will be better. Promise! Except I have to fit in a 3.30 wedding,  between chores. I am going to need to find my big French Hang Over sunglasses.

celi