Cow Pucky

When I was in primary (about 10 or 11 years old), we did not have the 3-hour block schedule for our Sunday church meetings yet. So, we had Primary on Wednesday during the week.

During the school year, we would walk from Holdaway Elementary to the church for Primary each Wednesday after school was out. (The elementary school was just down the street from the church building.) In the summer, my mom would take me (and my younger siblings) to Primary each Wednesday. We sometimes shared rides with one of the close-by neighbors (Larsons or Haderlies).

One summer day, Mom dropped me off at Sister Larson's house to go to Primary. I was wearing my Sunday shoes, nice pants, and a clean shirt. It was not quite yet time to go to Primary. My brothers and I were playing with the Larson boys. For some reason, we went into the cow barn (i.e., the barn where the cows were milked).

For those who have not been inside of a cow milking barn, the inside looks something similar to the picture below.

not the Larson's barn but quite similar

We were running around the barn playing a game of some kind. I was not paying attention at one point and stepped in the gutter. (In the picture, two gutters are displayed.) Each gutter runs the length of the barn as a "channel" in the barn floor. The gutter in the Larson’s barn was 12-15 inches wide and about 8 inches deep.

When the milk cows are in the barn, they go to the bathroom. The dairy farmer then uses a shovel to push the pee and/or poop into the gutter. So basically, the gutter was usually full of cow pee and cow poop. About once each week or so, the farmer would clean out the gutter.

Unfortunately for me, on the day in question for this story, the gutters had not recently been cleaned. Needless to say, I had one shoe, sock, and pant leg that was now covered with a soupy mix of cow pee and cow poop (aka, "cow pucky")!

I went outside the barn and washed my shoe and leg off in the water hydrant and went to Primary with a wet leg, shoe, sock, and pants.

MORAL OF THE STORY: If you play in the cow barn, you will get cow pucky on your shoes!