Well, an eleven year old on farm chores this afternoon set a high bar in terms of really solid farm puns. Here’s the story:
It being a summer weekend, a subsection of the farm crew usually take on morning and afternoon chores solo, without the help of campers. This afternoon, however, four campers working toward their Junior or Master Farmer certification showed up to assist with chores. We happily integrated them right in, three tromping off to help with egg collecting and chicken tending, and one sticking with me to move the cows, sheep, and horse on pasture and, ultimately, to milk.
My camper was willing and excited to be helpful: at one point, facing five minutes of downtime while I cleaned Halo’s udder, he asked, “Is there something productive I could do with this time?” What an excellent question that is.
We settled in on either side of the cow, sitting on upturned milk crates and chatting. Mostly, he made statements that ended in a question as a means of confirming things that he has already heard me say this year or last: “It probably relieves pressure in her udder when we milk her, right? We put iodine on her teats to kill any bacteria there, right?”
With Halo, we always save her front right teat to milk last because of a long-term infection there that we’re trying to keep confined to that one quarter of the udder. We had mostly finished milking the other three when I asked the camper to start in on the infected teat: “You can just milk it onto the ground. There won’t be much milk there, just a squirt or two.”
He squirted a single steady stream onto the cement floor and, trying again, found the teat already empty.
“It’s a milk dud!” he exclaimed with a grin that I could hear from the other side of the cow. We finished our milking in a state of giggles.
