Fred milking cows on the farm at Ponoka

5/7/2017

I took this photo of my blind father milking cows when I was 15 (1965). My job was to go out in the bush or pasture and bring them in. I could locate them in the bush by the bell one wore. We had all of three milk cows at the time. The chickens would sit up on the stanchions, and sleep there at night. In the photo, Dad is milking the little Jersey, whose milk was about half cream. The Holstein behind itproduced a lot more milk, but less cream, and the Hereford less of each, but more meat to eat. The pail hanging from the hook has a lot of dents in it. Those were from the cow kicking forward when Dad was milking and happened to hurt the teat a bit. The rope tied to the leg in the bottom of the photo prevents that. The bucket is probably full of milk and it is hanging because Dad was blind and if he were to just set it on the ground he would kick it himself.

After the milking, I would separate the cream from the milk in a centrifugal separator in the basement. I always enjoyed that heavy whirl of it. It was an amazing piece of technology that demonstrated to me, a simple farm kid, the power of reason to solve problems, and so planted the seed in my mind of a future totally changed by science and technology. Soon science fiction supplanted the separator, and then science supplanted science fiction.

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Gord McCaw Great photo. At first I thought it was a painting...
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· Reply · 1
· 18 June 2016 at 22:31

Stan Burfield Yeah, I like that look too. I'm glad you saw it. The soft lighting and his face at that angle under that hat reminds me of how they used to paint peasants in Europe, like before the impressionists.
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· Reply · 18 June 2016 at 22:42

Al Broudy I remember the separator.
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· Reply · 18 June 2016 at 23:00

Gord McCaw Do they use separators in Quebec???
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· Reply · 18 June 2016 at 23:01

Stan Burfield Ha ha. You can still see them at antique stores.
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· Reply · 18 June 2016 at 23:01

Al Broudy Not any more.
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· Reply · 18 June 2016 at 23:02

Gord McCaw Some of the fondest memories I have are of spending summers at my maternal grandparents' farm near Carrot River. I well remember the heavy cream that came from that separator that went on the freshly picked strawberries from my old Romanian grandmother's garden. It doesn't get any better than that...
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· Reply · 18 June 2016 at 23:05

Larry Burfield I bought a small cream separator at a yard sale here in Kelowna to keep the memory alive, and I learned the separator turned at 6500 rpm... no wonder it was tough to get it up to speed!
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· Reply · 18 June 2016 at 23:09

Stan Burfield Yes, an amazing experience for a kid.
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· Reply · 18 June 2016 at 23:10

Stan Burfield Wow, yeah! The real thing. I slept over at a friend's farm a couple times, in my pup tent. They were a traditional German family. For breakfast we had those big Shredded Wheats in very fresh, still-warm, milk! I could hardly get it down, thinking of where it had been just minutes before.

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Fred Burfield

Fred was born Nov. 20th, 1906. When he was three, in 1910, his family moved to the Alberta prairie from a very comfortable upper-middle class home in Hastings. (His father had inherited a brewery, which apparently his grandfather had mismanaged and driven into serious debt, no doubt worsened by the rapidly growing temperance movement of the time.) Fred and his family lived as homesteaders, at first in a sod house in the Drumheller area, then, during the dust bowl years, in log houses in Northern Alberta. Fred became blind as a young man but nevertheless farmed and raised a family. Upon retireing to Calgary, he wrote a memoir of his life.

Stan Burfield

I am Fred's son, 67 at present, living in London, Ontario with my wife Linda. . I am in possession of Fred's lengthy type-written memoires, also his short stories and poems, and many photos of his family and homesteading days. I plan on posting summaries and excerpts here as I get to them. Find titles and links in sidebar called "Memoir". Also I will post memories of my own and photos albums: see sidebar called "Other".