The Milking Hour

Dawn sunlight flickered through the laced curtain of the downstairs living room, door opening out to the farmyard.   Martin peered at the small figurines on his breakfast bowl, a blue willow pattern, of wind swept willows and Chinese peasants – he thought, one day, he would like to go to this place – while a clang of creamery cans from the dairy and the spill of slithering byre chains broke his dreaming.

“Auntie, auntie, may I leave the table? It’s time to fetch the cows for milking.”

Aunt Martha came across from the warm stove to the breakfast table “You finished your cereal?” Martin’s nod and her approving wink set him free.

He spilled across the red and black-chequered floor, stuffed his feet into a pair of plimsoles, and rattled the metal grating on the doorstep, into the cutting fresh Derry air of the farmyard, scattering a clutch of inquisitorial hens and marauding, stiff necked geese.

Martin raced past the burn as it burbled from its peat moss home in the mountain, across the headland and clifftops, towards the sea.  He stopped at the first field up the lane and climbed the aluminium, four-barred gate, hooking his legs and feet on the upper two bars and sat down.

“ Sukey, sukey, sukey, come on, come on “ he shouted from his cupped hands.  His echo reverberated across the open pastures.  Semi – dormant cows sat impassively on a bed of cushioned grass; some chewing , cud entranced. Some stood coughing huskily in digestion.

They all rose and, like great galleons on a chartered sea, answered his call, sauntering now in single file, past the muddied gate, homing in on the byre and food.

He counted them as they filed past – some had names. Some were his favourites.  The Jerseys. The Charolais.  The slap and plop of their droppings murdered the farmyard. Chained now in their stalls and feed buckets rattling. The daily ritual of milking had begun.

Photo: Twins Mervyn (L) and David on the back of the tractor in the tractor shed.