Hilarious Catastrophy #1

Hilarious Catastrophe #1

Where do I start? It seems like life on the farm was one catastrophe after another – not always hilarious but mostly so. I know only of the ones that occurred during the long school holidays which was the only time I was at home and naturally some are more memorable than others.

Most of the hilarity centres around the thunderbox or the cows, either dead or alive. I have spoken before about the time my father was trapped within the ribcage of a beast he was preparing to dissect for family consumption, but this story concerns one of the milkers – Stumpy by name. My father used to name all our milking cows according to some physical attribute they had – eg Curly Horn (self-explanatory), Crooked Tail (broken when she was a calf), Square Udder, Lumpy Leg, One Eye etc. Well Stumpy had had a run in with one of the farm dogs as a calf and had lost the end of her tail so that when she grew there was no soft swishy bit on the end, just a hard bony protuberance.

Think cow yard, manure, heat of Queensland summer, flies and you have the situation setting. Stumpy, one of the last few left to be milked, was in the bail suitably restrained with leg rope to prevent the regular kicks she dealt out and with a chain behind to prevent her running backwards out of the bail – another of her tricks. An old stationary engine ran the milking machines and separator and all was proceeding calmly until my father sat down to check the progress of Stumpy’s production. Stumpy swung what was, to her, a built in flyswat to get rid of some of the pests and the end caught my unprepared father just on the tender spot under his nose – for about the fourth time that day – twice; once on the upswing and again on the down. It made his eyes water but he said not a word. He just got up and walked off outside. He came back in with the axe in his hand, took a firm hold on the offending weapon Stumpy had whacked him with just one time too often, held it against the post and swung the axe quite decisively. The last six inches of the tail landed on the floor at about the same time the bail disintegrated under the might of one startled and angry cow.

Unfortunately milking machines and leg rope were still attached to said cow. With the heavy chain preventing a rear exit there was only one way out and the flimsy bail door did not stand a chance. It flew to pieces, along with the framework that had stood the test of time for over 50 years. The machines were ripped from their moorings and from Stumpy’s appendages and landed in the mud outside. The leg rope was ripped from its moorings also, but not before it dislodged the railing between the

uprights at each end of the bail almost collapsing the whole setup. The noise and chaos frightened the cows in the bails on either side and complete pandemonium ensued. Cows went hell west and crooked through and over the fences, excited dogs did not help nipping at all the heels they could find. Normally gentle Baxter, sensing a threat to his ‘girls’ got into fight mode and charged everything that moved including my father who surprised me with his agility in getting up onto a corner post out of reach.

When my mother and brothers ran into the dairy to see what had happened, my father quietly tucked the piece of tail into his pocket and told them “Old Stumpy got a bit upset. She’ll be right tomorrow.”

With fences and four of the six bails demolished, the rest of the milkers escaped their evening duty and my father and brothers worked into the night shoring up what was left of the sagging construction so morning milking could proceed as normal.

Where was I when all this was happening? I was in a tree growing just outside the yard, clinging to a branch and trying desperately hard not to be caught laughing.

The incident was never referred to again but Stumpy was on the next truck to the saleyards as she flatly refused to ever go into the bail again.