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My sister sent this photo to me as part of an e-mail that had a series of really beautifully composed pictures of animals that were all very endearing. But this one!!

Well, let's just say, if there was a big fresh cowpie behind any of those cows, and the floor of that barn was made of wood: this was MY (our) LIFE when we were children. There are so many erie similarities:

#1 He is sitting on a single leg milking stool. We had those. They were "manufactured" by our dad who'd take two pieces of a 2 x 4 and hammer them into a "T" shape, and voila---milking stool. The milkmaid just balanced on top of this item, using her two feet as the other "legs" of the three legged stool. Somewhat comfy, completely practical, cheap, and easy to snatch up as you leapt up to get out of range of a flying soggy tail or flailing hoof.

#2 He's milking a Guernsey cow.

#3 Check out the old Surge milker on that background cow---hooked to a vacuum line, milk pulsing out of the cow into the bucket fastened below the titcups. You carried it from cow to cow.

#4 Squirting milk into the kitties' mouths.

#5 Wearing the knee-high rubber boots.

#6 The straw hat: our dad ALWAYS wore a straw cowboy hat for work.

#7 The sun streaming through the open door and also the actual walls of the barn. We, too, had "natural" air conditioning in our barn. Too bad it was below freezing so often when we were out there...

Anyway, it is a total trip back in time to look at this photo, and we wanted to share it with you.