It was -6 degrees on the thermometer this morning while walking over to mom's. Ruth and I walked one round then Ruth went in to brush mom's hair while I drove Mark in to work. 3 loads of wood were brought inside for the wood burner but it warmed up to 23 degrees outside. Warm enough to work outside without a hat or gloves at least for a while. Today I am remembering my Jersey cow Daisy. She was my first milk cow and I bought her when we were really poor. To get to the story of Daisy I first have to tell how I was able to buy her. The business had gone through an embezzlement which left us thousands of dollars in debt and this was back when interest was 21% . Mark was not able to take a paycheck for months and we were scraping by on odd jobs. At that time they had free movies at Glen Oak park on Monday nights and one Monday we went. A very strange thing happened, the man that was going to run the projector opened it up and there was a male long haired hamster in the projector. He didn't know what to do with the hamster and I immediately offered to take him. Someone else had given us a female hamster not much before that night. I started going to garage sales, buying hamster equipment for $1.00, bred those 2 hamsters and every 18 days the female would have another litter. When each baby was weaned I would put it in a hamster cage and sell the set for $10.00. I also saw an ad in the Thrifty Nickel for a free female rabbit so I started breeding Rabbits and sold those for $4.00 each. The cash was put away and soon I had $600.00 saved up. I saw the ad for Daisy and didn't have the asking price but called anyway and offered the owner the $600.00. When she said yes I was pretty thrilled.
Daisy was dry but bred and was going to freshen in less than a month. She had a bull calf and I had to learn to milk. She had been bred to a Holstein bull so the calf was a mix between Jersey and Holstein.
This first calf of Daisy's was left with her in the beginning and for a month I was milking her while still letting the calf nurse but soon had to wean him. He was castrated as I didn't want a bull on the property. My mom was my teacher and since a cow needs to be milked twice a day I learned very fast. After a few weeks I was able to milk her out in about 10 minutes. She was giving us about 2 and a half gallons of very rich milk a day. Each day I had to skim the cream, put it in a jar and shake it to make butter. Evie Stoller gave me her old Daisy butterchurn and that made life a lot easier. Because Daisy was giving us more milk than our family of 7 could drink each day I found someone on Savage Drive selling pigs, called him up to see if they had any runts they would sell and they sold a couple to me for $5.00 each. The pigs loved the extra milk and grew quickly. I was also making butter each day and selling that word of mouth. When it came time to butcher the pigs they were around 200 pounds and we only had a work van to transport them. Everyone in the family had to help get the pigs into the van but Mark had most of the work. The pigs were screaming loud enough for the entire neighborhood to believe someone was getting killed. By the time we had them in the van Mark was exhausted and so were the pigs. We ended up getting pigs every year after that but found a better way to transport them. The calf wasn't butchered until the next year. Daisy was bred again to a Holstein bull and had another bull calf that was spotted black and white.
In order to save vet bills I bought my own elastrator castrating pliers and the bands to go with it. I had watched my dad band bulls and figured it couldn't be that hard so gave it a try. Well I didn't find out for about 6 months that I hadn't done the job properly. The calf got out and went over to the cemetery (our neighbors) one of the workers came over to tell me my bull was out. I took a look at the calf and sure enough he WAS a bull! One of the testicles had slipped back up inside during the banding so he looked like a steer but acted like a bull. He was still very friendly but the older he got the harder he was to control. When it came time to haul him to be butchered he was still leading but was very strong and weighed probably around 1200 pounds. My brother Spark was helping me lead him to the trailer, I had given Amy a bucket of grain and told her to walk in front. The bull saw that bucket took off dragging Spark and I, Amy dumped the bucket and ran. I don't remember how we got him in the trailer but remember we were all huffing and puffing. We looked at each other and burst out laughing. From that time on any time I asked Amy if she wanted to help she was suspicious about why and for what. I was thankful the next couple calves of Daisy's were heifers. Well by that time Cathie Trent had come to Bridlewood and we had a thriving boarding business. Back then Cathie would take cats to the vet. We could hardly believe that someone would pay a vet to look at a cat, after-all, cats were free. During this time our old mare Twinkle went down and was no longer responsive. We knew she was dying so I called the rendering plant to see if they would pick her up but they wouldn't unless she was dead. I called my brother John to shoot her. Then not long after that after Daisy went down with milk fever and I called the vet. The cost back then was $40.00. The next day she went down again and I called the vet again. Cathie came into the kitchen and asked, "just exactly what does this cow mean to you?" Well Twinkle was almost 30 years old had lived a long good life and there was nothing that would have brought her back where as the cow Daisy was how I fed the family. Any farmer would have done the same. When the kids started growing up and we were no longer so poor I sold all the cows and took the kids to Disney World in Florida. It was nice not to have to milk twice a day but I sure do miss my cows. With the political situation now in our country who knows cows may be back in my future.
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