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The Cows are Out!
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Family dairy farms are disappearing in Maine and with them, a way of life. Trudy Chambers Price has captured the daily joys and struggles of the family farm in a way that ensures this Maine way of life will not be forgotten.
Price and her husband raised two sons and hundreds of cows on Craneland Farm in Central Maine. The work was never-ending and exhausting, but also exhilarating and rewarding. In this bittersweet memoir of two decades of dairy farming, Chambers writes of the daily trials of haying, cow breeding and milking against a backdrop of gentle and entertaining rural life. She introduces kind neighbors, eccentric neighbors, visiting city folk and loveable pets. The Cows Are Out! is a tribute to hard-working family farmers and to an important part of Maine’s historical and cultural heritage.
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About the Author Trudy Chambers Price was born in Island Falls, Maine, and grew up in the Aroostook County town of Caribou. Her family has lived in The County for more than five generations. She was one of three children and like most County youths, earned money picking potatoes, starting at age ten and working for twenty-five cents a barrel. Trudy graduated from Caribou High School in 1958 and from the University of Maine at Orono in 1962. She married Ron Price the day she graduated from college. In 1966, she and Ron purchased a 150-acre dairy farm in Knox, Maine (about fifteen miles from Belfast), where they worked together for the next twenty-three years while also raising their children, Kyle and Travis. During her time at Craneland Farm, she also spent two years teaching third grade at Mt. View Elementary School in Thorndike to help pay the farm bills. She also began to write about her experiences as a dairy farmer. The Cows Are Out! is the result of that effort, begun on a typewriter in her old farmhouse on Knox Ridge. |
Excerpt from The Cows are Out!
I wasn’t always a morning person. And only former night people can
understand how difficult it is to change. Although, if anything can change
a night person into a morning person, it’s dairy farming.
Ideally, cows should be milked every twelve hours. When we bought our farm, Ron continued the existing routine – milking at four in the morning and three in the afternoon. (Ron’s timing varied only slightly depending on the season.) This schedule allowed time for daily work, such as gardening, haying, spreading manure and repairing equipment. It also left time for supper and evening activities. Other farmers have their own schedules. We knew one old-timer who milked his cows at noon and midnight. He was a night person for sure.
I was born into a night family. We stayed up late – reading, studying, watching TV, knitting, sewing or playing cards. Ron was always a morning person and doesn’t understand night people, so we had to make many adjustments over the years. In winter, when he arose at three o’clock (as opposed to three-thirty during the summer) to milk the cows, he was happy and often hummed, anticipating the day’s activities. Right from the start, I discouraged the humming, as well as turning on the light at that hour. I considered three o’clock the middle of the night, not morning. At 5:00 a.m., I arose grudgingly to feed calves, sweep cribs and wash milking equipment. I didn’t speak to anyone for at least an hour, and that was a good thing.
When I agreed to become a farmer, no one mentioned feeding calves at that hour of the morning. I wondered why calves must be fed exactly at five-thirty. It soon became obvious: completing the morning barn chores as soon as possible left more time during the day for additional work.
Physically, it didn’t take many weeks of this routine to change me into a morning person. I simply had to go to bed early.
I also discovered that starting the day early had its advantages. Soon, I felt cheated if I didn’t see the sunrise. It’s the most peaceful time of day. The phone has yet to ring, traffic is at a minimum, and the air is usually fresh, cool, and clear. I actually started to converse with the other workers. Rising early kept my bodily functions in sync, toned my muscles and enhanced my appetite. By the time I had worked three or four hours in the barn, I looked forward to breakfast. When I was a night person, I never had an appetite in the morning.
I napped every chance I got, even if it was for only fifteen minutes. I used to think that any nap of less than two hours wasn’t worth it. Forget that.