5 o’clock in the parlour

Top: The modern dairy parlour features a range of technology and advanced processes.
Above: Ashley readies bottles to feed calves.

The sign along Greer Road reads: ‘Simpson Farms, Since 1947’. I stop to ask permission to scavenge lumber bits from a nearby burnpile. I figure the bits to be ideal to build a tree house for my son. I’m directed to the hired hand.

I follow through a complex of outbuildings toward a concrete structure around back. I knock on a door, and I’m greeted by Ashley Crawford. Ashley is definitely not in the image of the hired hand. She is a petite 20 year old with a warming smile and wearing coveralls, toque and ‘wellies’. She’s also busy setting up for the night schedule of milking cows. “Yes,” she says. I am welcome to observe.

“I grew up across the road and my dad worked here part-time,” Ashley begins. “When we were young we used to come to see the calves and play with the cats. I was about 14 when I asked if I could work here.” I follow her beyond a door that leads to the milking parlour; down a few steps and into the milking pit. “Just like our ‘little helpers’ Brady and Hunter do now, I would come here after school. Although I didn’t grow up on the farm, I learned as I went.”

The profile of farm operators in Canada is shifting. Today over half are 55 and older. A small percentage is under 30 and a quarter of operators are female. Universities and colleges are appealing to youth—new arrivals, women and city dwellers—to enter the field. The ‘field’ is both a lifestyle and career choice. For Ashley it is the natural thing to do.

Down in the milking pit, she is focused on an organized chaos of milking equipment. “I took a couple of years off after high school in Picton,” she tells me. “I wasn’t sure in terms of advanced education and began working here full-time. I decided I really liked the work and so as of September I will be studying at the Ontario Agricultural College in Kemptville.”

The rhythm of the parlour is not unlike a square dance: Doors slide open, doors slide closed. Cows step forward; milked without sound; now Allemande Left and a full turn around. “Night milking begins at 3:30 p.m. with a wash and a sanitize cycle of the pipeline,” Ashley explains as she works. “We get the towels out for cleaning teats. Then we head to the dairy barn bring the cows to the holding pen and go back and scrape the stalls clean,” she comments.

“Right now we average about 4,600 litres every other day. The milk is cooled then pumped through these pipes up into the refrigerated tank in the room where you came in,” she tells me. “It’s then trucked to the dairy.” Ashley’s helper this shift is 13-year-old Brady McConkey. He moves ably under her careful eye.

The Dutch began to mechanize the dairy industry in the same era that Simpson Farms started. The design of the milking pit allows the operator to be at ‘udder height’ using apparatus built for ease and efficiency. A circus of pipes and tubes and pumps whirr and hiss and bump in the cleansed world of the pit; the tang of cattle is rich; the light of 5 o’clock slides through western windows as the place takes on new meaning.

The stuff of life—hay, corn, barley—springs from nearby soil as does the water from limestone caches; all of it nurturing cattle, the generations that come and go. The circle complete: human nature within the grandest nature; the milking parlour-come-temple to daily life.

“In total with the young heifers, we have about 200 cows on the farm,” Ashley describes. “We milk 80 of them, 22 at a time twice a day. In the morning there’s a hired hand, Jeff who comes in at 5 a.m. and starts the chores,” she continues. “He milks the cows with Scott the owner and his girlfriend, Jan. They’re done around 7a.m. when I come in I start the feeding.”

Brady mounts three steps, presses a button and a door slides open. He heads to the holding pen where cows stand idle; coaxes 11 of them into a narrow corridor. The milking stalls are at an angle, in order that the udders are closest to the worker. The balance of cows parked on each side of the pit completes a herringbone pattern.

“First we dip the udders in an antiseptic and then wipe it off,” Ashley illustrates. “We put the milkers on and when they’re done, the udders get dipped again before we let the cows out. We let another row in as we alternate sides.”

The milking claw piece has four teat cups. A pulsator simulates a calf’s sucking, which prompts the release of milk. “When they’re milked a sensor shuts the vacuum off, the teat cups let go and this string pulls it out of the way.” I notice her hands. “Do you wear nail polish every day?” I ask. “Yes,” she smiles.

“The cows are all numbered and that green thing on their collar is a transponder,” Ashley tells me. “Every time they come into the parlour, a scanner reads their number, and you can get all their information on the monitors…how much they produce and their history.”

And then there’s intuition. “I have a photographic memory,” Ashley says as she sets a milker on # 786. “Even if they didn’t have a number, I can tell who is who just by facial recognition. Every cow has a different shaped udder and leg markings. Some are more friendly, some standoffish…some are laid back and not interactive—and there are some like this one here,” she says pointing. “She is very nosy and then this one, # 816 is like a big pet. She’s always in the way and stubborn.”

Bridget Sprigings, a co-worker, comes by after finishing chores. “Ashley seems to read them better than anyone,” she adds. “Certain cows will recognize who’s who. You can tell by the look in their eyes. Some will kick at her at milking and I’ll go in and they’ll be fine and vice versa,” she asserts. “They know who you are and they can tell as soon as you walk in the barn or when there’s someone different. They have a really good sense of smell and recognize someone new.”

“We have one cow we call Smiley that is 17 years old,” Ashley continues. “Their age and how they produce or calf factors into how long we can keep them. It is a farming business…and sometimes they can get sick. Anything can happen,” she pauses. “From doing it for so long I just about have the 80 cows we milk memorized. Personality wise I can tell who they are.” Like a cow whisperer?” I say. She laughs: “Scott teases me about that!”

The list of chores for the hired hand is as long as a phonebook. “It’s labour intensive,” Ashley says while nudging a row of cows to leave. “The young calves are handfed by bottle. There are the regular feedings and barn cleaning, mixing of the feed. We seed the fields and take off the crops,” she continues. “We use heavy machinery, which needs regular maintenance. We do the oil changes and greasing. We’ve also been doing a lot of renovations. We stop for lunch and then begin night chores. One of us will usually go home when the ‘little helpers’ come in. We each work one weekend a month.”

I mention that their appearance is far from the clichéd idea of the hired hand: “We try to look good, these are our good workclothes,” Bridget responds. “We’re lucky to go out on Saturday with our best clothes on. You do your makeup and nails every day to go to work,” she adds. “When you do a job like this everyday, you want to look half-decent. Sometimes the nail polish just hides the grease you can’t get at under your fingernails,” they chuckle.

“I hardly have to think about it,” Ashley contemplates. “The work seems to flow. Being outside, learning something new every day.” She prepares the new round for milking:

“I’ve only really ever worked on this farm and not sure what else is out there so I’m hoping when I go to school…when I learn about crops and stuff maybe I’ll specialize in something.” Ashley pauses for a moment. “A lot of people only know milk as it’s found in the store and are not aware of how much work goes into producing it. It’s a 24/7 year-round affair, but I love the life.”

The waking fields, loud with geese, bristle like a hog’s back. The hedge rows run like manes of wild ponies: All of it is an unkempt bed in the beginning light of spring. I take the long way home from Simpson Farms; truck window down; I catch the scent of evening earth and thoughts drift back to the tree house: “Why not build it big enough for me as well…?” I say to no one.