Got a question: Do you think cows can tell when a big storm is coming?
The storm was being predicted by every meteorologist in the world. It was to be of epic proportions, one of the worst in recent history – be prepared! It was literally the calm before the storm as my daughter and I started milking the night of the storm.

The snow was just beginning to fall, as if in a scene from a cheesy Christmas movie.

While milking, we experienced an unusual number of milkers being kicked off and cows dancing around. Every time I turned around, my daughter was giving a cow a stern talking-to while putting a milker back on.

The whole night was absent of any normal milking rhythm – you know, the groove you get into because you can anticipate which cows will be done when? Am I speaking a foreign language, or do you know what I mean?

With the entire Midwest under blizzard warnings, I had to wonder if the cows knew what was about to come and if that was the reason they were so unsettled and difficult to get along with.

We were nearing the end of this wretched milking when boys decided to clean the gutters. So, with the gutter cleaner going around – without incident I might add – I stepped in beside a cow and slipped.

It’s bad enough to fall on cement when you’re fortysomething, but then to fall into the gutter cleaner when it’s going around behind one of the most sensitive cows in the barn … well, let’s just say I figured I would come out of it alive, but I would be scarred in one way or another.

Getting up as quickly as I fell, I spun around to get my bearings, only to see my daughter with her back turned, leaning over a pitchfork with her shoulders shaking. She was laughing her head off at me! I poured on some guilt and started ranting something about a foot caught in the gutter cleaner, a body being dragged down the full length of the barn, being dumped into the manure spreader – and how all she could do was laugh at me.

With the milking done, the calves fed and the cows comfortably munching on their hay, we were happy to shut the lights off and close the barn door for the night – but I still wonder if those cows can feel a storm coming.

 The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments directed toward Melissa Hart may write to her in care of this publication.