“I’ll introduce you to Russ before we get started. He’s in the calf barn...” Mr. Ward said Mr. Barnes had no experience at all. Rick was used to hired help with at least a little experience. He was going to have to start from scratch. “Did Mr. Ward show you all around when you came out here the other day?”
“Umm...” watching the ruts. “He showed me the barn where the...milkers?...are, and he showed me the garage with the heavy equipment. But I didn’t see all the barns.”
“Well, I think I’ll have you spread the manure first.” Rick led Dan into a small barn. “By the end of the day, you’ll see everything.” There was no artificial light inside the barn, only the natural light that came through the open doors. Russ was crouched on the floor, filling several small pails with milk from a larger one. Behind him a pen of calves waited.
“Russ, this is Dan. Dan, Russ.”
“Hi.” Russ looked up but didn’t stand. He looked like Mr. Ward, his grandfather. He was about twenty. The floor around him was strewn with shredded paper, and right inside the door stood several bales of it. Next to the pen of small calves was a pen of larger calves. Across from them, behind Rick and Dan, half the barn had been partitioned into stalls holding even bigger calves. Dan looked all around, taking everything in while Rick talked to Russ.
“I’m going to get Dan started spreading the manure. Got that hay to get into the barn.”
“I called the breeder about #133. He’ll be out this afternoon.” Three kittens hovered near Russ and his pails.
“Well, come on Dan.” Rick headed back outside. “Interested in learning to operate a skid loader?” Dan didn’t have the slightest idea what a skid loader was.
“I’ve been dying to learn my whole life.” He said and Rick laughed. He began to lose the fear that had accumulated since being told he’d have to share the schoolhouse. At least this guy had a sense of humor.
Russ put the small pails into the pen with the smallest calves. They drank it all then licked the residue off each other’s muzzles.
The skid loader turned out to be a tiny bulldozer, at least that’s what it looked like
to Dan. Rick explained the controls to him. “And this is very important - this is the brake.
I don’t want you to go slamming into any barn walls. Not too many anyway.” He tugged
his gloves out of his pockets and pulled them on. “There’s the manure...” he indicated the
swell of half liquid manure between the barns. “...there’s the manure spreader. When you
get it filled up, come on over and get me, and I’ll show you how to drive it. I’ll just be
over here -” He indicated another barn over shoulder “ - stacking hay. If you have any
questions you can ask me, or Russ. Don’t hesitate.”
“Sure thing. This is the brake right?” Dan asked, indicating the accelerator. Then he laughed at the uneasy look on Rick’s face as he turned away.
Rick told himself he trusted Mr. Ward’s decision in hiring a city kid full time.
Truth was though, Dan was the only guy who applied for job who still wanted it after
seeing the farm and hearing the wage. It was a poor farm, and a poor wage. As he tossed
bales of hay off the back of the truck into the barn, Rick kept an eye and a half on Dan
and the skid loader .
Dan was having a ball spinning that machine back and forth, scraping up manure,
making a 180 degree turn to dump it into the manure spreader, and back again for another
scrape. “This beats the pants off office work.” He said out loud, but he could hardly even
hear himself over the sound of the engine. So, since no one could hear him, he sang
“Rocky Mountain High” as he worked.
When Dan had the manure scraped up to his satisfaction - which was as completely
as humanly possible - he parked the skid loader by the side of the barn and walked the
short distance to the next barn. The day and the wind didn’t seem that cold, but Dan was
shivering. Rick was still on the back of the truck, pitching off bales of hay.
“I’m done shoveling.” He called up to Rick as he approached.
“Good...umm, why don’t you give me a hand here before I show you how to work the manure spreader.”
“Sure.”
Rick tossed the rest of the bales down and the two of them stacked the hay inside the barn. Beside the hay, the barn contained pitchforks, fifty pound bags of milk replacer for the calves and half a dozen pigeons flying in and out of a broken window at the peak. They worked in silence for the most part - Rick because that was what he was used to, Dan because he couldn’t think of what to say. Finally something came to mind.
“Would you like some chocolate?” He took a candy bar out of his jacket pocket, the kind that school kids sell outside of supermarkets. “My Dad may me bring this ‘Just in case’”.
“Sure, thanks.” Rick took the half that Dan offered. “So, what do your parents think about you taking a job on a dairy farm?”
“Oh, they think I’m crazy. I ain’t what you’d call an outdoors person. But I don’t much like being stuck in an office all day either. I been on this one job lately, up on the eighteenth floor. Too high up to have windows that open, y’know? No fresh air. Worked in a little padded cubicle. Couldn’t never see anybody unless they walked past the gap between the walls...I wanted to try something different.”
Rick shook his head. “This is definitely different.” They ate their chocolate, taking a brief break from the hay. Rick didn’t say anything else, so Dan tried again.
“So...you always worked here?” he asked Rick.
“Not here, but I grew up on a farm in Ohio.”
“You never had no other job?” Dan had in his history more than half a dozen.
Rick quickly finished his chocolate and got back to work. “I worked in a factory nearly a year, and I was a - a - clerk in a store awhile. Working a dairy farm is all I ever wanted to do.” Dan gathered that he had stumbled onto a sore spot and didn’t pursue it. He wrapped up his chocolate and tucked it back into his pocket and helped Rick finish with the hay.
A little after two, Rick told Dan it was time to head down to the house for lunch.
Rick led the way back up the stairs to the side porch. Just inside the door, Rick stopped to
take his boots off, Dan did the same. They both hung their jackets on nails in the porch
wall. Dan didn’t feel as out of place as he was expecting, but he was taking everything
pretty much minute by minute.
Rick led the way into the house. Dan was thrilled to be inside where it was warm. The kitchen was decorated with every kind of cow paraphernalia that was appropriate: butter dish, cookie jar, welcome mat, napkin holder, pot holders, and what wasn’t a cow was black and white. The table was set for three and an older woman was at the microwave taking out a bowl of green beans.
“Hi Aunt Marie.” Rick said as he went to the sink to wash his hands. “Have you met Dan?”
“We met the other day when Andrew interviewed you. How are you doing Dan? How do you like dairy farming so far?”
“So far, so good.” He washed his hands after Rick. In the corner of the windowsill over the sink stood a tiny plastic statue of the Sacred Heart.
“Do you think it will take long to get settled at the schoolhouse?” Aunt Marie asked.
“Naah, except I still got stuff in storage in Buffalo, if you could call it storage. It’s a friend of mine’s garage.” They ate as they talked; sandwiches, leftover chili, and the green beans. Dan made himself a cheese sandwich with lettuce and tomato. They were all out of milk. Dan thought that was funny - a dairy farm with no milk to drink.
Rick made a pitcher of lemonade. “Isn’t Russ going to eat ?” He asked.
“He already ate, about a half hour ago. Dan? Wouldn’t you like some green beans?”
“Oh no thank you Mrs. Ward. I haven’t eaten green beans since I was fifteen. I knew a kid who ate a bad can of green beans and got food poisoning. I have been avoiding them ever since.”
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