bloody udders

Hey guys, it's been awhile! It's been awhile. So I told my mother-in-law a story the other day and she told me that it needed to go on my blog. I am a people pleaser, as you all know. I also love telling stories. So here we go.

Every year we have a massive family reunion. I'm talking my grandpa's siblings and all their kids and all their kids kids. Needless to say we come from all walks of life, one branch of the Howlett family lives in Delta, UT and are all out country people! They do rodeo, they farm, they wear cowboy hats, they do it all. Since it is hard for them to leave the farm, we all go to them. Every year we rent out a huge facility for "mancamp". Its great.

So this year, in an attempt to culture all us "city folk" it was proposed that we all go and learn how to milk a cow. We loaded into our SUV's and I brought my 5 year old cousin with me (who is a huge milk drinker- Vitamin D I might add). On the way there I was talking the experience up to her saying things like "You know how you love drinking milk?! We are going to go see where it comes from! We are going to go see how we get milk! Are you so excited?!" So I got her pretty pumped up about this "milking a cow" thing.  First mistake.

We get there and there is my whole family gathered around this cow. The cow was in a clam-like cage that held her in place so you can get milk safely, I've seen these before. It was very clear when we got there that the cow was not used to this. See, this cow had been borrowed from a neighboring dairy farm where they are milked by machines, usually with one or less people around. Now here was this cow surrounded by about 50 people reaching their hands out to its utters and staring into its eyes. To make things worse, on its way over from the dairy farm the cow had leaped over a fence and scraped a few of its udders. Which were now bleeding! The cow was salivating so heavily that there was a pool of spit in the dirt in front of it. The cow was clearly having a freaking panic attack!

Regardless, we continued with our lesson. At the start, one family member went a little to close to the cow and it went to its knees and flung saliva all over our band of spectators.  My cousins who touched the udders walked away with cow blood on their palms, a badge that they had actually done it haha! I was standing in the back observing this scene thinking about how long it would be before I could drink milk again. Then I see my uncle shoot milk from the udder of the cow, straight into my brothers wide open mouth! I almost puked! I heard my 5 year old cousin say "I don't like this!" and I instantly felt terrible for ruining her image of milk for the rest of her life.

Coming away from this experience I have learned some things. I belong in the city. I don't want to know where half of my food comes from. My family should never milk another cow. And finally, the phrase I have added to my daily vocabulary "Oh my bloody udders".

As far as my milk drinking goes, its been awhile!