In the spring of my junior year, my dreams came true: I learned how to milk a cow. Since I was a small child, cows have always been my favorite animal. 也许是一个奇怪的选择, one that my friends and family often questioned, 但是其中一个, 尽管如此, 我坚持了下来. There was something about these big, lumbering animals that I adored. So when I came to Putney I relished the day that I would get to work with these creatures. Instead of dreading it, like some of my peers, I couldn’t wait for my turn in the barn. I knew I wanted the one job that students either relish or absolutely despise: the job of milking the cows.

A barn crew is usually comprised of about seven students as well as one student barn head.  Five of the normal crew workers do the jobs of mucking out stalls, 喂牛和小牛, 清理排水沟, and taking care of the animals in the small animal barn. The other two members are the milkers. On our training day when our crew boss asked who wanted to be a milker, my hand shot up without any hesitation.

I remember my first day, as I and my fellow milking partner were shown the ropes. We arrived earlier than the rest of the crew to set up the milk room: this included setting up the mechanical milkers (the  machines used to milk the cows), washing out and sanitizing the tank (where all the milk goes after it comes from the cows), and hooking up the pipeline to the tank (so that the milk can flow from the machines to the tank). Once these tasks were done, we learned how to milk. We learned how to clean off the cow’s teats with warm, soapy water (a process that both cleaned them of any grime as well as let the milk down from their udders), how to check for mastitis by milking a couple squirts, 用手, into a cup and then checking for lumps, and finally how to hook up the machine to the pipeline and then to the cow and watch the milk flow out before removing the machine and dipping their teats in an iodine solution.  All the steps got jumbled in my head and I was most certainly slow moving, 但已经, 用我笨拙的双手, I felt as though I was in my element and I was determined to get better. Each day I looked forward to my time in the barn, each day I learned a bit more and became a bit more skilled.

I felt at home among these big, 臭 creatures that could potentially crush me at any moment. I enjoyed the repetition of the task at hand, the soft fur of the cows and their big blinking eyes. Of course, every day was not perfect and every cow was not perfect. Sometimes the cows kicked or a milking machine wasn’t working right. 一次, my fellow milker and I forgot to put the cap on the milk tank after washing it and got through milking more than a third of the cows, before being notified of our mistake. This lost us gallons of milk and cost me a bucket’s worth of tears, but like I work to perfect my trigonometry skills in math class or my clarity in my essay writing, I worked through each bump I faced in my short career as a milker, determined to do as good of a job as I possibly could.

当所有的奶牛都挤完奶, we would clean up the milk room and set the milkers into their wash cycle, before turning off the light and leaving for the day. I would then exit the barn and walk to the locker room for a quick shower and a change of clothes. As I walked, I would often feel my body become filled with light. As I traversed the slightly damp soccer fields, 穿着我的谷仓衣服, which consisted of my student leader t-shirt, a bright pink crewneck sweatshirt for the chillier days, 和森林绿色的卡哈特, I would breathe in my hay- and cow-scented self amid the smell of the clean air and muddy grass. I would turn my face to the clear blue sky, 或是多云的天空, 还是对着下雨的天空微笑, 感觉整个宇宙拥抱着我. Once I made it back to the locker room I would be brought back to the reality of life. There would be the yelling of freshman boys and the squeaking of their sneakers as they played a game of pick-up basketball on the court, somewhere someone would be playing loud rap music as they ran on the treadmill, 在远方, there would be the screeching laughter of friends on the fieldhouse couches. I would walk into the girls’ locker room thankful to be alone and slip off my 臭 armor, double bagging it trash bags so as to conceal the 恶臭 before tossing it in my locker. I would then move into the shower where I washed off the cow poop, 恶臭, and that signature smell of sunshine, remembering the hour or so of refuge I found within the barn walls.  

挤奶不仅仅是一项简单的工作, not simply something to get through or a credit to fill, and it was not simply a dream come true either. 挤奶很困难, 臭, 奖励工作, but most importantly it was a job that made me leave the red and white, 弯弯曲曲的谷仓每天微笑, 说, “这是我注定要来的地方.”