Udder Questions

“Just hold out the grass on the palm of your hand,” Mom said, demonstrating the open palm to Iain.

Timidly he did it, taking baby steps forward until the heifer snuffled her warm wet snout onto his hand, licking the grass off. He laughed at the sensation: the smooth snout, the strong rough tongue.

“I grew up next to a dairy farm,” Mom said. “It’s where that housing development is now.”

“You were so lucky,” Iain said. “Why do we have to live in a city?”

“Your father has a good job there,” his mother replied.

“Are they [tipping his head toward the heifers] really where we get our milk?” he asked.

“Yup,” she replied.

“But I don’t see the thing they squeeze to get the milk out,” he said.

“These are heifers,” she explained, “young cows that haven’t had their own calf yet. They don’t have full udders until after they calve.”

He puzzled on it and bent his head sideways to try to look underneath. Sure enough, there were teats but no udder.

“Where’s the dad?” he asked. “We learned at school about babies. It takes a mom and a dad, right?”

“Bulls are dangerous,” she explained. “They use AI.”

“ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE?!?” he said incredulously. “Like aliens??”

She laughed. “No! Artificial insemination.”

“What’s that?” he asked. “How does it work?”

She gulped and reddened. “A picture would be easier,” she said.

Back home, she looked up the following picture on her computer.

“Ewwww!” he said.

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This is my submission for the Unicorn Challenge. Just write no more than 250 words based on the photo prompt.

Several years ago, I wrote a poem about growing up next to a dairy farm and the experience we had when our pet heifer wandered over. Here’s the poem:

When my parents bought the farm
(literally)
Pa Jackson was over the hill
(euphemistically and literally)

He milked the cows by hand
While the barn cats tumbled in the hay
(euphemistically and literally)
I watched with wide eyes
(the milking, not the euphemistic tumbling)

The Jacksons had a bull
To do the job of the artificial inseminator
And when our pet heifer,
Sock-it-to-me-Sunshine,
Wandered over
To get to know the Jacksons’ cows
(literally)
The bull also got to know her
(euphemistically)

Then, our heifer
Was in the family way
(euphemistically)
She was loaded on a truck
And sent to a home
For unwed cows

The next summer
The Jackson’s cows
Were also loaded onto trucks
And sent to auction
Because Pa Jackson was
Extremely
Over the hill
(euphemistically)

A few years later
We read in the newspaper
That he had bought the farm.
(euphemistically)

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And here’s the pet heifer with one of my brothers.