Squirt
Boy, does this shot bring back memories! When I was a boy we often visited our paternal grandparents on their farm near Iola, Kansas. The big evening event for us Ayers kids was going out with Grandfather Ayers to bring in the cows for milking, I think about a dozen, and watch him milk those patient bovines, one by one.
He used a little one-legged milking stool like the one in the picture, and he regularly squirted milk in the barnyard cat’s open mouth for our high entertainment. Occasionally he would “miss” and hit a little boy in the face.
Each pail was dumped into a tall milk can, and after the milking was over, the milk cans were trundled into the milk-house to cool in a tank with circulating well water. Some of the milk went into the separator, and after the next morning’s milking the cans went out to the road near the mail box for the dairy truck to pick up. This same routine ensued every day, 7 days a week, 364 days a year else the cows complained.
A regular fall event at Kansas State Agricultural College (as it was called then) was a co-ed cow milking contest. I gave it a try, but was hopelessly out-squeezed by those farm boys and girls with their powerful grips.
I am counting on Bros Don and Tom to jump in and corroborate all this.
Dave, which he actually didn’t die by drinking raw, un-pasteurized milk.
You are correct! “Grandfather” was it! As for the milk squirting I remember (or at least I think I remember) that I would try and sneak up to the double barn door and just as my head surfaced above the bottom door to peak in, I got it right in the mouth. And he never even turned around! He also filled the cat dishes along the wall with a squirt now and then….at least that is the story I have been telling all my life.
The cat dishes I think maybe, if I try very hard, I remember too. Like the guy in the photo, GF’s aim was uncanny, but I guess if you milked 12 cows twice every day for many years you ought to get pretty good at it. The mind boggles at being tied to the farm with little chance to get away for years on end.
I agree that this is a great blog….brings back a lot of memories for me also. Grandfather was, as you both have so aptly said, was incredibly accurate. One of the things I remember was how gleeful he looked when he scored a hit and took us by surprise. That is one of the few times I would describe a look of his as gleeful.
Gleeful? Grandfather Ayers? (Sir!) I guess you had to be young and innocent to get a gleeful look from him. I sure don’t remember ever getting one. But then, I’m the only one who got to drive the truck pulling a trailer full of wheat to the grain elevator. All by myself. (I still break out in cold sweat when I think of that one. If one sweats in heaven, I’m sure Dad does too.)