Most of our dairy farmers are familiar with the painting of true type dairy cows (Holstein, Ayrshire, Jersey, Brown Swiss and milking Shorthorn) with the caption below reading “mothers of the human race,” because for thousands of years cows provided milk to nourish children for the first couple years of their lives.
It’s time we acknowledged the contributions of our fairer sex beyond bearing and raising our children, preparing meals and doing housework. In these days of woman’s rights, pay equity, a drive to have equal numbers of woman and men in our legislatures and around the board tables of the nation, let’s just remember the super women who have risen to the top with no help but their own leadership skills.
Lady teachers, principals, nurses and doctors have touched our lives in a truly positive way. Some of our counties first wineries were started by ladies with more guts and vision than many men did.
We all can name lady secretaries, director generals, councillors, and mayors of our municipalities. Lady county wardens, both provincial and federal members of governments. Women leaders of political parties and first ladies of presidents who were known to have a better grasp on the true needs of their country and even the world than their husband who was the president. Queens of the Roman and British empires have been far superior to men who came before or after them.
I feel much more comfortable commenting about farm than world affairs. My grandmother milked half a barn full of cows night and morning before being in charge of cleaning the glass milk bottles and bottling the milk for my grandfather to deliver the next day in town with the horse and milk wagon. My grandfather always said that she picked the easy milkers but it didn’t take grandma long to pick them out.
Our farm, just like many other dairy farms, gave a nod to lady employees to feed calves, milk cows and do health checks on the animals because they had that motherly skill and could sense a health problem before it became noticeable to many men. The ladies took that extra few minutes or hours to treat the animal during that crucial time before the animal got really sick and hence shortened the recovery time and decreased animal mortalities.
When ladies have a say in selecting sires for the herd and are allowed to cull the mean, aggressive animals the herd soon becomes much more pleasant to work with and safer for children and everyone else to be around. Veterinarians like working in herds where the ladies regularly work with the animals and do selection.
During my lifetime as a farmer, I have visited hundreds of farms and most of the very successful farms have had knowledgeable ladies either managing the farm or almost invisible in the background but evidence of their presence was very noticeable.
This month we lost one of our finest ladies who was instrumental in the success of their large dairy farm as well as raising a successful family and being an inspiration to her community. She could recite poetry and stories that went on for an hour and could make our smartest English teacher envious. RIP Marjorie (Webb) Smith.
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon
on land that has been in his family for generations.
gladcrest@gmail.com
