Reflections on the Eighth Week of Summer – Warm, Creamy, and Janetesque

Janet Milking Chip 1

Walking with Spence into the goat tent at the Cochranton Community Fair Tuesday evening, I squeezed the strap on my camera bag to calm my nerves. Last year, a half hour before the Kid’s Goat Milking Competition [See “Country Scenes Blue Ribbon Dreams” August 13, 2018], giggling children with radiant faces clogged grassy aisles between a maze of goat pens. This year, a half hour before the Adult Goat Milking Competition, one family stood in the ten foot square open space formed by pens lining the sides and back of the tent.

The two women clutched their elbows and glanced over their shoulders at the goats.

The chubby elementary school youngster tossed a pebble from hand to hand.

His dad bent to the boy’s height and said, “I’m gonna milk a goat. You’re not.”

The youngster dropped the pebble and punched his dad in the stomach.

The dad raised his arms, flexed his biceps, and growled.

Laughing the boy ran behind the women. The dad chased after the boy, who circled the women again and again.

Sheesh. I’d be competing with a guy the size of Bluto in the Popeye comics. Don’t get me wrong―I didn’t plan to win. I’d challenged myself to try something different at the fair. Besides, I could gather data for reviving an old goat story that had curdled.

I bit a fingernail. What if, like some children, I balked at touching the engorged teat?

The children eventually grabbed a teat. You will too.

What if thirty seconds isn’t enough to learn?

The handlers let children try till they squirted milk. Then they started the timer.

What if I miss the container? I’ll look foolish.

You’ll look like a beginner.

To quiet the what-ifs and my internal voice, I studied the goats―Nubian goats with long ears, Lamancha goats with stubby ears, and Nigerian Dwarf goats so adorable I had to suppress the urge to pick them up and hug them to my chest. Two does, with full utters, nibbled hay in a corner pen. I tapped Spence’s arm and pointed. “We’ll probably milk those does in the competition.”

Spence nodded. “If you say so.”

I checked the time on my cell phone. “We have twenty-five minutes before the competition.” I needed a distraction. “Let’s check the cows.”

Spence stretched his arm toward the front of the goat tent. “I’m following you, babe.” He followed me across the lane and down the middle of the cow tent.

Owners groomed cows with combs and electric shavers. Cows munched hay or lay on it. Tails swished. Faint moos and whiffs of manure floated through the air.

We exited the cow tent onto a dirt road passing the arena. Inside, two draft horses pulled a pile of concrete slabs on a sled, called a boat and weighing over eight thousand pounds according to the announcer. The first team pulled the boat more than twenty feet. The next strained, and the judge instantly blew a whistle.

Chip

Back in the goat tent fifteen minutes before the adult competition, no one listed names of contestants. No one carried milking stands to the front. And no Bluto character strutted in front of the pens. Only a young man with a stroller paused by the Nigerian Dwarfs. “Look, Chloe. See the goats?”

The toddler leaned over the edge of the stroller and stared at blades of grass.

In a back corner of the tent, a preteen sat on a wooden milking stand and pulled the teats of one of the does I’d pointed out to Spence earlier.

The man pushed the stroller with the toddler out of the tent.

Spence petted a doe that stuck her head close to his hand.

I walked nearer to the preteen and her behind-the-pens audience―a man, a women, and two girls. The youngest had the same blond hair, round face, and brown eyes as the milker. Her younger sister? The other girl, grinning so wide her dimples merged with her lips, sidestepped back and forth next to the milking stand. “Hazel’s my friend. She let me milk her goat.” She giggled. “But I squirted milk on my shoe.”

The tan doe, head secured in the frame over a tray of grain, kicked her back leg. The hoof missed Hazel’s face by inches.

Hazel’s friend halted her side-stepping. “Yikes! I wouldn’t put my head that close to the back of a goat.” With arms arched over her head, the girl tiptoed in a circle. “Did a goat ever kick you when you were milking?”

Hazel pulled on the teats. “No.” Milk squirted into a gallon bucket under the udder. “But the first time I milked a goat, she pooped on me.”

Great. I could get a black eye or be speckled with goat shit. Milking a goat presented more danger than I’d thought, yet Hazel made the task look easy.

Milk squirted swish, swish into the bucket. Hazel gave a final tug, slid the board up to free the doe’s head, and led her on a leash to the corner pen. When Hazel opened its gate, a black and white doe scrambled out and scooted around the side.

“It’s okay.” Hazel shoved the tan goat into the pen and bolted the gate. “She knows where to go.”

The black and white goat jumped onto the milking stand, and the woman secured the doe’s head in the frame as if she’d done the task a million times. Maybe she had.

If Hazel milked the second doe, would there be a doe left for the contest?

“Excuse me,” I said. “When will the milking competition start?”

Hazel turned to me. “The competition isn’t until Thursday.”

“I’m asking about the adult competition not the children’s. The fair book said the adult milking competition was tonight at eight.”

Hazel looked to the man. “I didn’t know anything about an adult competition.”

Shoulders bent forward giving his back a slight hump, he said, “I’ll go ask Regis. He’s out in the camper.” The man turned.

“No, Grandpa.” She pouted and wrinkled her forehead. “Don’t ask. It’s up to me to decide who milks my goat.”

Her grandpa hesitated―one foot ahead of the other.

“I don’t need to be in a competition.” I looked from Hazel to her grandpa. “I just wanted to try milking a goat.”

“Don’t go, Grandpa.” Hazel put her hands on her hips. “I’ll let her milk Chip.”

“Chip?” Chip sounded like a name for a buck.

Chip

“Her full name is Chocolate Chip. She’s a three-year-old Alpine.” Hazel led me to the milking stand. “Sit here.”

Handing the camera bag to Spence, I sat and stared at the two engorged teats. “What do I do?”

Reaching under Chip, Hazel encircled the top of a teat with her thumb and index finger. “Grab here. Wrap your other fingers around.” She wrapped her fingers. “And squeeze.” Milk squirted into the quarter-filled bucket. “Try this one first. It’s easier.”

Following Hazel’s instructions, I grabbed the teat. I’d expected it to feel rubbery. It didn’t. It felt warm and soft. I opened my fingers and squinted. Tiny hairs, like those on my arm, covered the teat. I grabbed again and squeezed. A stream of blueish-white milk, not as forceful as Hazel’s, squirted into the bucket. Foam covered the surface of the goat milk. I squeezed again. Another stream squirted into the bucket.

“You can try the other one if you want.” Hazel pointed to the other teat which was larger than the first. “It has a crack so it leaks. You’ll get milk on your hand.”

I reached for the other teat and squeezed. Milk squirted into the bucket and leaked onto my hand. “It’s sticky.”

Hazel nodded.

Spence circled me and the group to get an angle for photos.

I took a teat in each hand and squeezed one after the other. Rhythmic squirts of milk swished into the bucket.”

Chip knocked the food tray off the milking stand and stamped her hoof.

“Is Chip upset?” I asked.

“No.” Hazel picked up the tray and set it aside. “She’s just done.”

Done as in finished with the milking routine? Tentatively, I squeezed a teat.

Chip stood still.

After many more than thirty seconds, I said, “Do you pasteurize the milk?”

Sitting on a bale of hay, the woman said, “We filter it before we drink it.”

“Yeah.” Hazel patted Chip’s neck. “To get the straw out.”

The woman pointed to the bucket under Chip. “Some people use a chilled bucket to cool the milk right away. And some drink it warm right out of the bucket.” She stood. “Would you like to try? I have a cup around her somewhere.”

Taking my hands off Chip, I said, “I’d love a sip.”

The woman rummaged in a knapsack, pulled out a Styrofoam cup, and handed it to me.

I held the cup in one hand, squeezed a teat with the other, and milk squirted into the cup without splashing my shoes. I lifted the cup and sipped. Warm. Creamy. “Ooh. I like it. Thank you.”

The woman smiled as if agreeing with my evaluation and took the empty cup.

Spence balanced my wallet, camera, and extra lens atop the open camera bag. “You’ll have to pack the bag. I don’t know how to put this stuff back in.”

Standing and holding my arms out with elbows at right angles, like television doctors waiting for a nurse to put surgical gloves on their scrubbed hands, I said, “I need to wash first.”

The woman stuffed the cup into a garbage bag. “There’s a wash stand by the cow exhibit.”

Hazel slipped onto the milking stand and grabbed Chip’s teats.

Still holding my hands in the air, I said, “Thank you,” and walked to the wash station with Spence.

Pushing the foot pedal to get water, I rubbed off sticky milk and glanced over at Spence still juggling the unpacked camera bag. “Did you want to try milking a goat?” I wiped my hands on a paper towel and tossed it into a bin.

“No. Milking a goat is Janetesque.” He stretched his arms toward me.

Janetesque?

Fitting the camera, lens, and wallet into the bag, I didn’t ask what he meant. Instead, I ran my tongue over my teeth and wondered how goat milk ice cream would taste.

Janet Milking Chip 2