Lightning strikes milker, lifts her over
. BYPATKAUFFMAN
ELKTON, Md. - Judy
Puckett says she owes her
life to a pair of sneakers. On
Father’s Day, June 15, she
was milking the last cow in
the herd of 100 Holsteins
when a bolt of lightning
struck her and lifted her
from her crouched position
next to the milker right over
the cow’s back.
Judy, interviewed by
phone from her hospital bed
in Union Hospital here, says
she never felt the bolt that
hit her. She only remembers
looking down from her
airborne position onto the
top of the cows’ backs and
the tops of the milking lines.
Judy said they’ve had a lot
of storms lately when the
m power was off and on this
Sunday evening
there had already been V<
inch of ram in a matter of a
few seconds during an
earlier downpour. When it
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was obvious to the family
from the looks of the sky that
a storm was fast ap
proaching, she and her
husband, Medford, their son
and her brother hurried to
finish the milking.
While milking the last cow,
Judy remembered a cow
that she had skipped because
of an udder injury the cow
had received earlier that
day. She sent her brother
back to the milkhouse for
another milker. It was then
that the bolt hit. She was
crouched down next to the
cow and remembers looking
up and seeing her brother
silhouetted m the doorway
with die milker in his hand.
Without any feeling, she
remembers being hurled
into the air and seeing blue
sparks all along the tops of
the stainless steel milk lines
and blue sparks shooting
from the staUcocks. When
she landed on the cement,
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her husband who had oeen
feeding calves in an adjacent
area came to help her and all
she felt was a heavy feeling
like a dead weight from the
waist down.
The milking bam has an
alumuiu.i if cm 4
and is a one story bam. The
bam is situated down in a
woods with tall trees all
around it. She says she
doesn’t understand why the
bolt hit the low bam and not
the trees.
But what particularly
puzzles her is why on that
one evening she wore shoes.
Judy said she is always
barefoot. But for some dumb
reason she threw her shoes
into the car when her
husband and she hurried for
This week’s column deals
with sayings and super
stitions.
Who’s got cold feet?
A young reader of Lan
caster Farming writes and
asks:
“Where did the saying ‘get
cold feet’ originate?”
John Zimmerman
R 1 Mount Joy
Once again I had to sit and
scratch my head for a couple
of minutes and wonder “who
thinks up these questions?”
Then, I kind of smiled and
thought that John Zim
merman must have been
told at sometime by someone
in his family, probably a
parent or brother or sister,
that he was getting or they
had cold feet about
something.
the barn And after
sanitizing the lines, she went
out to the car and put her
shoes on a pair of
sneakers.
The bolt apparently hit the
compressor for the cooler
which is situated on a
cement slab outside the
milkhouse. The current then
blew out a transformer and
followed either the pipes or
the milk in the lines back to
Judy.
Judy, 33, was raised on the
farm. Although she worked
for 8 years as a restaurant
manager and helped on
weekends and evenings at
her family farm, she came
back to the farm fulltime in
1976 when her dad died.
and her brother and
Brief answers
to short questions
Sheila's
Shorts
By Sheila Miller
If that sounds vague, get
ready for the answer to the
question.
Not being able to answer
the question of where the old
saying originated myself, I
called my local library.
Luckily I must have called
them on a not-so-busy day,
and they were willing to
research the question and
call me back.
Well, they told me that the
first record of that saying
being put down in print
occurred in 1896. It was part
of an old poem, actually.
But, as the librarian
quickly noted, the saying
probably was one of those
that was handed down from
one generation to the next,
with no definite origin.
He added, however, that
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Lancaster Famine, Saturday, My 5,19*0—AJ7
mother own portions of the
herd and were milking about
47 at the time of the accident.
She does custom work and
had just the week before
bought a new no-till bean
planter.
In addition to her custom
work, Judy fills about 340
additional acres in com,
beans, wheat and alfalfa.
She says she got her love of
dairy from working with the
herd when she was younger.
Seems she sunburned too
easily for field work, so she
was put to work in the bam.
It’s evident by the sound of
her voice that she’s par
ticularly worried about her
almost 50 calves. She said
she hasn’t lost a calf in
the Old English Dictionary
defines the word cold in
terms of being afraid, or
showing fear.
Where the feet came in
may have been because
someone who is so afraid of
something generally tries to
run away from it but the fear
seems to paralyze them.
Hence, cold feet would make
more sense than cold nose.
But, this is just guess
work. The only real hard
facts are that someone
finally decided to write down
the old saying in 1896.
Full moon, cat bay?
The next question made me
take a step back too, but not
in time.
The reader asks:
When is a good time of die
month to cut hay for baling?
Is it true daring the fall
moon the weather is
generally clear? I know Dad
would say the end of the
month and the first of die
month the weather changes.
Roland G. Kamoda
RlMonongahela
I must confess, Mr. Kamoda,
I don’t pay particular at
tention to die moon or the
day of the month for my
weather forecasting.
Being a child of the
technological era, I have
come to rely on the voice
coming out of a box that tells
me every hour on the hour
just what to expect in the
weather.
Sometimes, I admit, this
source is probably as
reliable as watching the
COWS
years. “I just notice things
right away,” she said.
She said her right side
feels as though the muscles
have been fused together.
Doctors expect her to be in
the hospital for some time
yet and say it could be a year
before she reaches
something near a complete
recovery.
She longs to be home for at
least a short while to see her
animals and smell the corn
growing, a smell she says
reminds her of watermelon.
But she’s glad to be alive
and appreciates the cards
she receives. While she
works hard at her recovery,
she has only these words of
advice for milking in a
storm. Keep your shoes on.
planets.
As far as when to cut hay, I
think more than weather,
your first concern should be
for the hay’s quality. When
the optimum time comes as
far as proteui and vitamins
are concerned, then listen
for the forecast, and gamble,
A handy reference to have
around is the Agronomy
Guide, put out by Penn State
and generally avaiblable at
the county offices of the
Cooperative Extension
Service.
This publication provides
a wealth of information on
the various hay crops, how to
establish, harvest, and
maintain them.
Alfalfa, for example, is
recommended to be har
vested for first cutting at full
bud to very early bloom.
Red clover by itself, they
say, should be cut by August
1, before full bloom, the year
it was seeded. An
established stand should be
harvested at 0.25 to 050
bloom.
If you’re cutting grasses,
like orcbardgrass, timothy,
or smooth bromegrass, for
hay, Penn State recom
mends making the first
cutting when heads emerge
from the boot, with later
cuttings following in 6 to 7
weeks.
These recommendations
don’t guarantee the hay you
mow down won’t get rained
on, but it does assure that it
will be the best quality hay if
everything goes your way.