for the last month i've been preoccupied with the idea of a book about Ireland.. my Ireland..
Edna O’Brien was a country girl too. I didn’t know that when I was growing up but when a friend gave me three of her books because he thought I’d like her “..the ground was speckled with little wild flowers. Little drizzles of blue and white and violet- little white songs spilling out of the earth” I couldn’t believe my luck. I saw the paddock!
The land that lay beside and behind the bowling green across the road from 55 was almost a secret. The paddock belonged to the Shire of Morwell but apart from us nobody seemed to know it was there. Did Dad pay rent for it? I don’t think so. The L-shaped block could have been our own private property for all the world cared. It was a small empty country with different types of grass, a string of tracks, a hidden creek, brown snakes and magpies. For more than ten years it was the place where we kept a cow. Clara, Gina, Velvet and Mammy. Each one came with her own looks and particular ways though there were some things about keeping a cow that were the same no matter what. Once I started milking, my fingers smelled sour all the time as if a trace of the pale liquid was going to stay with me forever to remind me that underneath everything I was a cow girl..
We milked morning and afternoon every day of the year regardless of the weather. My eldest brother and sister started off with Clara and for a few weeks the novelty made it seem like an adventure I couldn’t wait to be part of. Then I saw the truth. The cow never went away. Each morning before school someone had to go over to the paddock and find her, walk her back past the Bowling Green past Budge’s on the opposite side of the road and into the shed where the wooden bail clicked her in. Her thick hairy tail was caught on a nail on the side post and a small leg rope attached to the wall made sure the bucket was safe from a sudden stray kick. The cow needed hay to chew on and water to drink and only then was someone ready to milk her. When the milking was done whoever had brought her over had to take her back. The whole business was a two person-two times a day job.
In the very beginning the milking was done out in the open air. By the side of the bowling green in the top corner of the paddock and in full view of anyone walking or driving to work at the SEC, my sister and brother took turns milking. . It was a few weeks before Dad made a bail in the shed with a concrete slab to stand on and a wooden plank to lock in beside the cow’s head. There were gaps beneath the walls and for a long time no gate to close the shed in. On windy days it was cold, hard work..
