The Gate Latch Gladys Learned
A Holstein named Gladys figured out my parlor gate latch and began calling the whole herd to milking at three in the morning.
Gladys was a Holstein with a high forehead and a lot of time on her hands. I should have known she was trouble the first week she stood at the holding pen gate and watched me work the latch. She did not chew. She did not blink. She watched like a woman learning to knit.
For months nothing happened. Then one night in October, a little after three, I woke to a sound I can only describe as a hundred and forty cows trying to be quiet. Hooves on concrete. Soft, patient breathing. I put on my boots over my pajamas and walked out to find the entire herd lined up in the parlor, every stall full, tails swishing, eyes on me like I was a minute late for church.
Gladys stood at the front. She had worked the pen latch with her nose, flipped the second gate with her shoulder and, I presume, delivered a speech. I have run a dairy near Stephenville for thirty-one years and I have never seen a better-organized morning. I milked them. What else do you do at three a.m. when a hundred and forty cows ask nicely?
The next night I put a chain on the gate. The night after that, a padlock. By Friday Gladys had learned to push the pin out with her tongue, and I started sleeping in my work clothes. I finally took the whole matter to a neighbor, who suggested a better latch, and I looked over some of the farm safety pages to see if there was a gate design the experts liked. There was. It took Gladys eleven days to beat that one too.
We settled it the only way we could. I moved milking time up by one hour and she moved her wake-up call back by thirty minutes, and we have been at a standoff ever since. I tell this one at every field day, and it always gets a bigger laugh in the barn than in the book. If you want more like it, I keep a shelf of them at farm.FM, but Gladys is the headline.
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