What is it about a dairy farm that no matter how much you plan ahead, everything breaks at 4 p.m. on Christmas Eve? I’ve got 15 5-gallon buckets of spare parts, extra motors, a good hammer and a brand new roll of airplane duct tape but don’t have the one dang piece I need to get the cows milked. Hunker down, my friend.

Moffett tim
Comedian
Tim’s Stand-up Comedy Special “MILK’N IT!!” is available on YouTube. Go to his website to find li...

Every part supplier and warehouse is closed until January 2.

I’m just glad the well pump didn’t quit. Good thing because right now I gotta run water over the receiver jar onto the milk pump to keep it pumping. Why? Apparently the “indestructible – you can never wear this thing out” Teflon gasket broke. Why don’t I have an extra gasket?

I have neighbors; enough said. We’ve all had the neighbor that never replaces borrowed items, but if you didn’t understand the milk pump part, you haven’t been milking cows long enough. In time, grasshopper. Just remember this technique and think of it as a little gift from me for Christmas future.

Christmas dinner was never the same for me after my brother put a red ball on the meatloaf and told me it was Rudolf. As a kid, all my Christmas presents came from the feed store. One year, I got a bag of birdseed. It took me a week to plant that 20-pound bag one seed at a time. Two months later, not one bird grew.

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We lived on a gravel road and Santa gave me a pair of roller skates. The next year, while sitting on his lap at the mall, I complained and stated my case. I think he forgot – because that year I unwrapped a pogo stick. I don’t think he understood. I still lived on that same dirt road, not to mention I was a chubby kid. I think “pogo stick” is German for “bounce once and look out for the rocks.”

Farmers are a lot like Santa; we only get out about once a year. Even then people have way too many expectations for us. I was asked to provide animals for the church live nativity scene. Apparently, they didn’t have Holstein bull calves back then. I explained they were camels. That’s why the basketballs were duct taped to their backs.

Two years ago for Christmas, a farmer friend of mine gave his mother-in-law a treadmill. The next day, he started walking with a limp – and still has a constant ringing in his ears. Last year, he wanted to get her something that went from zero to 200 in three seconds. He gave her a bathroom scale. I haven’t heard from him since.

If you have ever wondered what to get a dairy farmer for Christmas, “cow pattern” items are not acceptable. You would never give your accountant a shirt with numbers all over it. Besides, at my weight somebody might mistake me for a cow and send me away for a fat beef check.

Cologne is in the gray area as far as gifts go too. I haven’t met a farmer yet that enjoys wearing cologne. If we receive cologne, it will stay in the side-door pocket of the truck only to be used for those occasions that we have to go inside a public building straight from the farm. If you see a guy covered in cow manure that smells like a male model, he is a farmer.

I once received English Leather as a gift. I wormed my dog with it and found it to work wonderful as mosquito repellent. Honestly, I can’t tell you what all farmers want for Christmas, but I’m thinking something shiny and Chap Stick.

I’d like to wish you all a breakdown-free and very Merry Christmas on your farms. By the way, have any of you ever milked a reindeer? Do they really give eggnog? PD

Tim is a Florida dairy farmer and stand-up comedian; check him out at his website.