Christmas gifts were different this year. But the animals still came first. Seventy-five or 80 years ago, when I got up, I knew that Santa had been here because the milk and homemade cookies were gone and the second-cut hay that we left outside for the reindeer was almost all gone too. I wasn’t allowed to check my stocking before Dad and Grandpa came in from milking. Milk was passed through a big funnel-shaped strainer with a new strainer cloth every milking. The milk was put into eight-gallon cans and cooled in a deep water trough that was filled with cold well water with a hand pump. After breakfast, the milk (in eight-gallon cans) was taken by horse drawn sleigh to Lee’s dairy.
Because it was Christmas, milking was a little early and the cows got the soft green second-cut hay. Dad had already cleaned out the gutters with a square shovel and the old litter carrier that hung on a track and was pushed around the barn by hand. When it was full, it was pushed out the small door that led to the outside manure pile. Dad then shook fresh loose straw under all the cows and extra for the baby calves to jump in. While Grandpa milked with the old gas-powered milker, Dad cleaned out and watered the horses by hand and fed them their oats. The horse stable didn’t have water bowls, so all the dry cows, bulls, and horses had to be watered with a pail. Any cow that was calving had to be looked after first before any other chores. That cow was milked by hand and the warm colostrum fed to the new calf as soon as the mama cow licked it clean with her rough tongue. That rough tongue not only cleaned the calf, but it stimulated blood flow in that new calf. As soon as the milking was done, Grandpa fed milk to all the young calves that didn’t get colostrum. Then a little calf grower (with molasses) was given to each calf. Dad would fork down corn silage from the old wooden upright corn silo and feed it after breakfast and gift opening.
Mom and Grandma always had hot homemade porridge ready for the men when they came in. I still make Grandma’s homemade porridge with a fine chopped apple, some Red River cereal, some vita-B cereal and lots of rolled oats. Raisins, cinnamon, and nutmeg is mixed in after the porridge is cooked. We put brown sugar and fresh milk on before eating it. We never bought cream because cream rises to the top of the milk bottle with un-pasteurized milk, fresh from the barn.
Grandpa always wore felt boots in the winter and rubber galoshes over the felt-boots to keep them dry. He got a new pair of felt boots every Christmas.
This year (2025) farming is a little different. Christmas morning, the cows have to be fed so corn, silage, haylage, and a little chopped dry hay is weighed and loaded into the mixer truck with a pay-loader. Ground corn and concentrate (with soybean, mineral, salt, other supplements) are weighed into the mixer truck with the roughages. The mixer truck is driven through the barn and the TMR is distributed into the mangers in front of the cattle. Each pen of cows gets a different mix blended according to the average amount of milk each cow gives, and condition of the cow. Dry cows get a very different ration with less energy, so they don’t get too fat.
The cows’ beds are covered with rubber-crumb mattresses and a light layer of dry shavings which is changed every two days. The milking barn is sloped 2.5 per cent and flush-cleaned with water several times per day. When a cow is very close to having her calf, she is put in a hospital pen which has lots of bedding and a sand bottom. The rest of the barn has one inch rubber covering the cement floor to make it softer on the cattle’s feet and legs.
Grandma and Grampa used to milk 24 cows by hand and now one person (often a grandchild) can milk one hundred and sixty cows if a helper helps change groups of cows and tidies up the cow stalls when those cows are being milked. Milk is weighed as it is given by each cow and recorded on the computer which the cows electronic ear tag tells which cow gives it. Milk is no longer cooled in a can in a water trough. Now it is chilled as it passes through a stainless-steel plate cooler with cold well water. The warm milk warms the water on the other side of the plate cooler and that warmed water goes back to the water troughs in the barn for the milk cows. The chilled milk goes into a refrigerated bulk tank and is cooled to three degrees Celsius. All milk temperatures are recorded constantly by an electronic recorder and that recorder stores the data which can be inspected by milk inspectors whenever they might show up.
The laneway and yard has to be accessible for the tanker truck at all times. Cattle still take priority over farmers. This Christmas, even though 18 of our family sat down for Christmas supper, Jenn had to miss it and stay home to watch the pregnant cows who were close to calving. A calf today is worth $2,000 or more but to a farmer, a cow or a calf is a living soul who deserves to be looked after just as a person in a hospital.
Happy new year to all!
P.S.: Oakum was used to plug cracks in old barns and stables in the winter. Dad learned about it when he worked in the logging camps where they plugged cracks in the sleep camps with Oakum. It is made from shredded old pieces of rope, binder twine, and string mixed with tar.
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that has been in his family for generations
