Dairy Queens

After I wrote to you yesterday I pulled on my farm clothes and toddled out to let the cows into their milking antechamber.  They are always there before me. Looking all solemn and disinterested.  The Dairy Queens.Though the moment I open the doors they flow in like a squabbling theater crowd decked out in pearls and their grandmothers furs.   I let them in early so they can think about milking,  then I go off and fill three buckets with hot water while gulping down hot coffee made by Axel one of the Frenchmen – he makes the best coffee.

After Sam and I shuffle back and forth carrying the buckets of the water  aand the milk pails for the  milk and clean rags for the udders and the babies bottle  for the baby by then everyone is good and ready. I like milking – I always have – when  milking a cow it is important to do everything in the same order at the same time accompanied by the same chitter chatter in the same tone.  Neither of the cows seem to mind the people being changed in and out as long as they all do the same thing.

Sam is the latest favourite handmaiden.

Lady Astor simply must have a handmaiden to keep her bowl filled with greens and grain, she does not like it all at once preferring it to be swept a little at a time towards her mouth with a hand brush. (We blame John for training her this way.) Aunty Del scorns the greens and prefers hay. She has no interest in being pandered to preferring to keep the handmaiden close by in case she should need something scratched. She stands quite still at milking time – not even a little shuffle.  Aunty still hates to leave the milking shed – and has to be coaxed out  the door by both the Milk-Maid and the Hand-Maiden. These terms are quite generic. My current HandMaiden is Sam the French Man.
I hide Talia around the corner so her mother cannot see her, though even when she does see her she is only mildly interested.

Talia does not mind –

She has plenty of attention.

I let her out into the barn racetrack when we are not milking so she can run about in and out of the empty pens, which she does. She is a tough character – very determined and growing like a weed.

Speaking of weeds I had better get the crew onto weeding the gardens. Today is Friday TiDay. Everything must be tidied back to the place it belongs. Everything has a home and back to its home it must go. Each job finished. The gardens in order. Stacked, scrubbed, returned,  recycled, swept, mowed and trimmed. We work hard on Friday but it makes such a difference to the following week if we start off tidy and in order.

I hope you have a good day!

Love celi