We had a big old Holstein we called Patsy. My dad bought her for five dollars from our neighbor, who had tried to dehorn her and let her get away from him after he sawed one horn off. She was runnin loose on about seven hundred acres and nobody could catch her, and that's why my dad could buy her so cheap. We finally pushed her up into a fence corner and got a rope on her. I never saw a wilder cow than that nor a bigger one, and never expect to.

We dallied her up to the spare tire on the old Essex and with my brother drivin got her through several gates and down about a quarter mile of county road and home. She had a calf at her side and that could have been part of the reason she was so independent minded. My brother was about fourteen then and he got the job of milkin her. We was milkin two other cows then, one a jersey we called Katie and another a little guernsey that we called E.J.'s heifer, ecause she belonged to my sister E.J., both first heifers, which the dairies used to sell cheap during the hard years of the Depression.

Most cows kick to knock the bucket out from between your knees and spill the milk. Nothing malicious about it. It's just a game. Or maybe they're gettin fly-bit. They don't mean no harm, just when you get a couple of gallons bang! clang! and then they kind of twist their head around in the stanchion and look at you with those big brown limpid eyes and they actually smile. If a look could express itself in words the word would be JERK!

With Patsy, kicking had nothing to do with games. She had every intention of maiming you when she kicked. The way you milk a cow that won't stand still is you make sure you got a stool that is high enough to put your head up against her flank, so your head is sort of a wedge between her leg and her belly. That way, when she kicks she kicks herslf in the belly, even though it's by way of your head. If that doesn't solve the problem, you hobble the cow, and that's when, if they try to get to rambunctious, they tend to tip over.

Well, what happened was that when brother Jack got to milkin he neglected to make sure that the hobbles were secure and pretty soon old Patsy snatched her foot out and was strikin out in all directions with it. Jack was clearly on the defensive, tryin to save what milk he had and gettin tangled up with the milkin stool and then, everything was just for a second lined up and clear and POW!!! I'll bet you'll never guess where she kicked him. If you ever want to hear a fourteen year old boy scream and cuss that's the way to do it.

There was a three tine pitch fork leanin against the stanchion and being that was the first thing that came to hand he swung it down on her shoulders, and then, realizin what he had a hold of, he buried it in her belly.

There was a whole lot of confusion and yellin goin on with Jack howlin in pain and me cheerin everything on. (We always had our separate ways of seein things, bein that he was eight years older.) My mother heard the commotion and came running out from the kitchen to the corral. She got the pitchfork away from Jack and out of Patsy's belly and she must have given me a couple of wacks for havin such a good time about it. She also decided, in that instant, that I could do ALL the milkin from that time on.

Anyway, to finish gettin the hobbles off Patsy we had to sorta bulldog her and put her on the ground, and get a rope around her hind feet so she was stretched out and couldn't kick.

That's called tippin a cow.... or cow tippin..whichever.

Spud

(This is a true story.)