Back Home by Chris Hardie
The sea of fog and mist spread out before me, enveloping the farm valley and extending into the hills across the creek.
Foggy mornings in August are commonplace in the Driftless Area, as the cooler overnight temperatures match the dew point, creating liquid water droplets suspended in the air.
I stopped next to the old dairy barn and was transported back 50 years to when the barn was in use. I saw myself walking down the lane to the night pasture across the creek, softly calling “Come boss, come boss,” to gather the herd for the morning milking.
Sometimes the cows would come, slowly gathering in the cowyard. With a two-man morning milking shift, one person would push the cart around the barn dispensing feed while the other prepared the milking machines and then fetched the cows. The cowyard door was opened and 65 Holsteins would enter, finding their assigned stall.
Once the cows were locked into place, the cart with the udder cleaning solution was pulled into the barn and the safety switch which turned on the vacuum pump was thrown. The early-morning silence was interrupted by the deep hum and chugging of the pump.
It’s been 25 years since cows were milked on the farm, but vestiges of what once was still remain in the barn.
On the east side of the barn sits the newer vacuum pump that powered the farm’s last milking system, a six-unit pipeline system that my late father installed in 1986. But if you look on the west side of the barn, you can really step back in time and view the remnants of an even older vacuum pump that was once used to operate the Surge buckets that I grew up using.
Today’s large and modern dairy farms can include computerized robotic arms that sterilize the teats and attach the milking cups with laser precision. It’s the latest in a series of innovations that transformed the dairy industry over the past 150 years.
While we’ve come a long way from milking cows by hand, the invention of the vacuum pump was the first step in dairy innovation. L.O. Colvin in 1860 invented the first vacuum pump that was used with hand-operated pumps and metal teat cups. It was followed by Anna Baldwin’s patented Hygienic Glove Milker with a hand pump that fit over the entire udder. But the 1870 invention was hard to clean and operate.
The biggest problem with both of these inventions was that they used continuous vacuum, which caused blood to pool in the cow’s teats, which was painful and caused congestion.
The next breakthrough was in 1898 when the Thistle Machine – a Scottish invention – introduced pulsation to break the vacuum and mimic the sucking of a calf. That concept was advanced by New Zealand dairy farmer Norman Daysh when he invented the vacuum-pump milking machine that was marketed by DeLaval in 1917.
Another innovation was in 1922 when Herbert McCornack of N.J. invented the Surge Bucket Milker, using a large roasting pan from his family kitchen as his base design. Unlike previous machines that sat on the floor, this milker was suspended below the cow on a steel spring rod that was attached to a leather surcingle strap over the cows back. The new milker had a natural surging action as the milker moved back and forward while milking, so it was named the Surge Milker. The tug-and-pull movement was similar to that of a sucking calf.
Pipeline systems entered the picture in the 1950s, followed by milking parlors and the automatic milking systems. While I helped Dad milk many times after he installed the pipeline, I remember the Surge milking buckets the most. Along with the sound of the vacuum pump, I can still hear the rhythmic sound of the two-phase cycle of the pulsator slide valves moving back and forth.
While the stainless steel pipes are gone, the glass receiving jar and the bulk tank are still in the milkhouse. I remember as a young lad being fascinated as I watched the jar fill with milk from the days when we had a Step-Saver – a stainless steel cart wrapped in hose that was wheeled down the center of the barn aisle.
A foot pedal opened the lid and the milk was dumped into the cart, sucked through the hose and fed into the bulk tank through the glass receiver jar in the milkhouse.
Those are sights and sounds that have vanished from our valley and in thousands of other former dairy farms across the country.
They are gone, just like the morning fog that was lifting as the sun broke through the mist.
Yes gone, but to this old farm kid, certainly not forgotten.
