An Old Cow Bell Rings Memories

The other day I was rummaging in the wellhouse and came across an old cowbell hanging on a rusty nail. The bell was in good shape as if Dad had just taken it off the lead cow. Maybe he planned on putting a new bell on Silver or maybe the strap needed mending and the bell was hung and forgotten. Dad had almost as many bells as he had chores, so my find wasn’t unusual. 

When my parents sold their last cow, a swarm of relatives descended on the barn and wellhouse. In the late1970s nobody farmed anymore, but everybody was anxious to grab a piece of nostalgia from our farm. Milk cans, the milk separator, curry combs, pitchforks, hay wagons, and heavy machinery were all fair game. It didn’t matter how small or large the loot because it was free for the taking. It meant family history was scattered among my many cousins.    

As a kid, I didn’t spend much time at the barn so my memories of farm chores are limited to feeding the pigs, gathering eggs, and filling the cows’ chop boxes. My sister, Jude, would have wonderful memories to tell about life on the farm because she spent as much time at the barn as she did in the house. I was just the opposite. I was the housecat.  Like Gram, I loved to read. So when I awoke on lazy summer mornings, I reached for a book instead of my barn clothes. Seeing that old bell reminded me of summer mornings when Jude helped Dad or Gram call the cows in from pasture.

If my bedroom window was open, I could hear the clang of the bell as the cows got closer to the barn for their first milking. There was something comforting about that sound. It meant the animals had spent another peaceful night beneath the stars. It meant Jude was helping Dad with the chores, Gram was supervising, Mom was in the kitchen, my brother was sleeping, and all was well.

The sounds drifting through the window screen were familiar ones. I might hear a dog bark as he chased a cat up a tree, or maybe the cry of a barn swallow warning someone not to get too close to its nest. When the milking was done and the cows put out to pasture, the rat-a-tat-tat of Dad’s tractor joined the early morning sounds of farm life. Shortly after the milk cans were filled and hoisted into the water tank, the milk truck from a nearby town took them away to the dairy.   

If I looked out the south window, I could see the dew on the ground as the fog lifted. I could also see the cows as they fed on the grass or made their way to the shelter of the woods. Often I played in the woods when the cows were in another pasture. Sometimes I liked to sample their salt block and, of course, it was great fun to feel the squish of a fresh cow pie between my bare toes as I ran through the field.  

Our cows got the same good treatment as our pigs. No animal around our place ever felt the sharp jab of a pitchfork or the flimsy tap of a tag alder switch. We were a tenderhearted family. The saddest days were when Dunbar’s truck came to the farm because that meant something was going to auction. I didn’t realize what that meant. I was simply told the animals were going to someone else’s barn.

Looking back, my parents protected me from many harsh realities of farm life. As the second daughter, Mom didn’t want another tomboy. While Jude helped Dad with chores and drove the tractor during summer haying, I played with my dolls and read books like Honey Bunch. My sister passed away in March of 2014. She was a marvelous storyteller, but alas, all her wonderful farm stories went with her.       

Every now and then I come across something from my childhood that jolts the past to the present. It might be Dad’s tattered and torn barn jacket hanging on a nail, or one of Mom’s fancy aprons tucked in a drawer. It could be the little stool Gram sat on while she milked the cows, or a dozen gunny sacks tied together by a piece of binder twine. It might be a picture of Jude feeding one of the workhorses. I don’t remember them, but I treasure that photograph. Jude was about five years old. Her back is to the camera and she’s handing hay to the horse as if he were a true and trusted friend.    

Well anyway, enough reminiscing. I left the cowbell on the nail and continued rummaging. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, just trying to straighten up the wellhouse. Some folks refer to it as a pump house, but it was more than that to me because the second room was my playhouse. Many happy hours of my youth were spent in that room with books and dolls and dress-up clothes.   

Although the days of awaking to the familiar sound of a cowbell are gone, the old sideroad is still home to a few farm animals. Sometimes I hear the bray of the neighbor’s donkeys. Like the clang of Silver’s bell, it’s a pleasant sound reassuring me another peaceful night has passed and all is well.