The Beginnings of Balla Machree Lamb
Old Homes Day parade float with my brothers in the 1970’s.
My fondest childhood memories always circle back to summers on Balla Machree Farm. We had 50 head of milking Holstein Friesian cows with almost as many calves and heifers. Summertime on the Farm was a mad dash to prepare for the next winter. We needed to make enough hay for winter feed with machinery that was constantly fighting to avoid the state of disrepair and in a climate where three continuous days of sunshine was rare. Corn crops had to be sown in fields that didn’t dry out until July, and fences always needed clearing and resetting. Of course, the cows needed twice daily milking too.
My father with siblings and friends circa 1950’s.
My older brother spent many summers as a “hired hand,” mostly helping in the hay fields. My younger brother had four cousins his age also summering on the Farm, and their daily circuit included playing in the fort they built out in an old milk room in one of the derelict barns on my grandfather’s property, scoring each other’s creative leaps off the dock into the pond, lunchtime PB & J’s with Kool-Aid on my grandfather’s porch, and playing lots of Kick the Can.
For me, summer was about the animals. Even though the demands of managing the Farm were considerable, Paul (Mr. Roy to me), never shooed me away when I would appear in the barn looking for something to do. I would stand in the center aisle and watch him kneel between two stanchions, leaning his head (always topped with his signature cap) against the flank of one of the Holsteins as he wiped and stripped her teats and applied the inflations that would pulsate rhythmically as milk squirted into the attached bucket. When the cow’s udder was emptied, in one fluid motion, Paul would pull off the inflations and hoist the bucket, swinging it out over the manure gutter where it landed just in front of the portable pumping tank that rolled down the center aisle. I loved to press the foot peddle that popped open the lid. Paul would empty the can and I’d watch the milk drain out as it was pumped into the bulk tank through a hose attached to hooks hanging from the ceiling. Occasionally, Paul would let me apply the post milking teat dip before he’d move onto the next udder in the line.
Milking time!
My favorite chore was feeding the calves. They were lined up in calf-sized stanchions according to age –smallest in the front and older, bigger ones in the back. The youngest had to be fed with a bottle, and the older ones got theirs in a bucket that they would slurp down in seconds.
Young Lucia with the Farm boys.
If I wasn’t visiting with the calves, there was a never-ending supply of kittens to play with. The barn cats kept the cycle of new kittens in constant supply, and back in the 1970’s, parents didn’t worry about rabies or toxoplasmosis. I don’t think my parents worried about much. I had the freedom to hop on my bike at any time of day and ride down to the barn, or even better, I could walk from our house through the pasture when the cows were out grazing and give someone a scratch. Holsteins are big, but extremely gentle animals.
Fast forward to 2004, my husband Matt and I carved off a 10-acre parcel from the Farm’s land for ourselves and built a home from which our young children could stockpile their own cache of memories. Unfortunately, the dairy herd was sold off in the 1980’s. The stanchions had long been dismantled and removed from the barn. The fences had been taken down, and weeds and multiflora rose bushes dotted the hillsides that were once lush with green forage. Two or three collective efforts to make hay was about all the activity that continued on the Farm, and there was not much our kids could contribute except unloading the wagons. This fell out of favor quickly!
Instead of eagerly anticipating the closing of school bringing a summer of adventure, our three kids would groan about the forthcoming days of boredom – no kids around to play with and nothing to do on the Farm — yet somehow the conditions bred creativity and freedom. I made a promise to myself that by the time I became a grandmother, the pastures and valley in and around Balla Machree Farm would provide the environment to develop a lively, agriculturally productive place once again. Now I’m in my 50’s, not yet a grandmother, and working on fulfilling that promise. I never thought shepherding was my calling, but since purchasing a starter flock of 10 young ewes in 2019, I’ve become more certain that this endeavor is a perfect fit, not just for me, but also for Matt, the best farming partner I could ever ask for.
Our bottle baby Peanut out helping with chores.
