Excuses, excuses:

He never gets down to the barn, at least until I'm almost completely done with the milking and chores. Quite often he doesn't show up at all. But of course that's not what he leads everyone to believe. Over the years he's had many excuses for it.

Baling hay is one. In reality neither morning nor night chore time is the right time of day to bale good quality hay. Besides, when I used to do most of the haying (all alone) AND do the milking (all alone), it was never at chore time. I couldn't do both at the same time (all alone).

Many times the cold weather excuse was that his van wouldn't start (he lives only 100 yards from the barn, but still must drive between the buildings on the farm). One of those times I asked him why he didn't just walk to the barn that morning. He said he had the dog already loaded in the van and he didn't want the dog to walk down to the barn in the cold and...........

Another often-used wintertime excuse, his van is stuck in the snow.

Or he has a meeting.

Or any number of other things that need to be done right at chore time, that isn't chores.

The cat got into his cupboards and knocked all the stuff down. It had to be cleaned up, right at chore time.

Or somehow the cat got locked in his van and tore open a bag of dog food. It had to be cleaned up right at chore time.

Or he had to do some housekeeping, right at chore time.

Or he had to do some bookwork, right at chore time.

Or he had any number of visitors.

Or important phone calls.

Or had to run to town for more pipe tobacco.

This morning he got there just as I'm leaving after finishing everything. He started to tell me about how he had made some cornbread last night and let it rise overnight in the pan. It rose so much that it ran out of the pan and down the side of the counter. I said that's the hell of it, so much shit happens right at chore time. He then stopped himself in mid excuse and said he didn't take time to clean it up and just left it before coming down to the barn. I replied that's all I can ever do when stuff happens to me near chore time.

After all, somebody has to go down to the barn at chore time.

Over the last several months, Mrs. Reverend has been coming down to the barn with me during night chores. She worries about me being down there alone all the time. If the first cow I milked happened to kick me in the head, I'd lay there for at least two hours before anybody might notice I was missing. The phone in the barn hasn't worked for years, even if I was able to get to it to call for help.

I'm still alone every morning.

The worst part of the whole deal is not the fact that I make far less than minimum wage, no benefits whatsoever, have never been offered a raise in pay, was yelled at and totally shot down the one time I did ask for a raise many years ago, and it's not even that bad that I work alone all the time. I never know when he will be down, or if at all. If I'm having a problem, I don't know when to wait for help to come, or when I should try to summon help. The worst part is never knowing - it's the complete unreliability.

A big fat woman once wondered why I don't quit if I'm so unhappy. Well, I guess I have quit - all the fieldwork, haying, harvesting - I've quit everything except the cows. I like the cows, or I wouldn't do it, but someday soon I will most likely quit that too. I'm not unhappy with it all. I'm unhappy with just one thing: him.