‘The Milk Man’ by Shane Brown

“Billy Ray will work hard and his farm will make a living for him, and he will be happy, and his life will be fulfilled, and he will know a great peace in his soul such as few men have ever known. God will smile down upon him, and his efforts, and the farm will hum like a well-oiled machine. There will be dogs, and life will be good.”

This is a short paragraph in Dad’s book called Billy Ray’s Farm. It’s my favorite passage in the whole entire book. I love this book and the stories in there but these few words say so much. I reread this novella the other night and instantly put a picture of Dad and Billy Ray on Facebook with this quote as soon as I read it. It caught so much of my attention! How did he know this? I guess it was the confidence he could see in Billy Ray: his work ethic and the determination that he would be a cattle farmer and struggles that he experienced happens on every farm. He also trusted Billy Ray and believed in him. He knew that he had raised a good young man and that hard work was easy for him.

Billy Ray does indeed work hard! When I visit back home he is the person I get to spend the least amount of time with because of daily duties of being a farmer. The farm is different now than the farm Dad knew. Dad only knew of a couple of places he leased out with maybe fifty cows grazing them and the farm we grew up on. Beef cattle, besides a dog or two, were the only animals that were on the pastures Billy Ray oversaw. Billy Ray still lives there with Paula, his wife, and they raise their children there. Billy Ray’s farm has grown tremendously and has lost and gained more types of animals. He leases over fifteen hundred acres of land now. There are more beef cattle. He has one-hundred and fifty “mama” cows that nurture baby calves who play in his fields. Fifty hogs roam and root the grounds that lay behind his back yard in the middle of the pasture. Twenty-five Jersey dairy cows stroll his side pasture waiting for their next meal or for a child to scratch their forehead. There is also a horse and a couple of rabbits to pet. And yes, there are dogs. A lot of fun loving dogs my nieces and nephew call their own. His farm does make him a living and Billy Ray is happy!

About five years ago, Billy Ray and Paula were grocery shopping at Wal-Mart. Of course he was standing around talking to whoever he saw and letting Paula do the chore of searching each aisle. As time went by, he noticed several different people walking over to a certain section in the dairy department. Curiosity struck him, so he walked over to see what had everyone putting this item in their shopping cart. He reached over on the shelf and picked up a bottle of milk. It was organic milk from Colorado. Billy Ray was reading the bottle when a worker carrying more bottles walked over to him to restock the shelves. He asked the man if they sold a lot of the bottles and the man replied with a resounding yes! He told Billy Ray that he couldn’t keep enough on the shelf. Those words sparked a light and a fire in Billy Ray and he instantly began learning the possibilities of producing local fresh milk. He wanted to find out if a dairy farm would go over well in Oxford.

Over the next few days calls were made to friends and family members. He wanted to know what their opinion would be, whether they thought that it could go over well in Oxford. He asked me and I told him that I figured Oxford would be a great place for it. I also told him that if he owned a dairy farm that he would have to get up and milk twice a day every day of the year. I told him if it was Christmas morning and he had the flu and a broken foot that he would still have to get up and go milk. I don’t think those words ever scared him. That’s the type of worker he is. That’s the type of girl he is married to.

After researching the dairy business with other farmers and Mississippi State University, Billy Ray and Paula decided to start purchasing equipment and building Brown’s Family Dairy. He also made the decision of quitting his secure job he had at the City of Oxford. Paula was already at home taking care of babies and getting them through school. She had planned to return to teaching with her master’s in Special Education she received with a 4.0 GPA! So regardless of what they had thought about their regular jobs and what was planned, things changed quickly.

Concrete was poured and equipment was stored. Friends and family were eager to lend a hand and be part of the building process. The dairy barn was built about forty yards from their house. It looks over five acres of fenced grass that Billy Ray grows for his light brown colored Jersey cows and a cotton field, across the county road, that stretches out with tall trees that hide the Yocona River underneath.

He chose to purchase Jersey cows because of the quality of milk they produce. The Holstein breed produces more, but Billy Ray insisted that he wanted what’s best for his customer over quantity! I think his decision on the Jersey selection was a wise choice. I think the success in his weekly sales speak for itself. The milk is pumped by suction-made hoses that Paula and Billy Ray attach to each dairy cow, and each has been given a name from their three children.

They have a part-time worker that comes and works the night shift Monday-Friday. He is a good worker and they appreciate his help and his kindness. The cows are brought in twice a day to feed, so this is when the process of milking begins. Only four Jersey cows were bought out of concern for the new start up, but local support and demand has brought the process of milking the cattle longer with twenty-five cows to run through the barn. The milk goes into the next room to a holding tank from steel pipes connected from the hosed suction devices. These pipes run through the walls of three rooms under the barns roof. The milk stays in this tank and it’s kept cool while waiting on the milk in the next room to heat up and then cool down to bottle up.

The last room is where Paula spends most of her time. She spends a lot of time in the milking part too! I love watching Paula work. She works as hard as a man would, harder than I could. I have never seen such a small woman work her small weight and figure around eight-hundred pound cows. She does it calmly and steadily. It’s natural to her and she has to do it at times because of Billy Ray being gone with other farming business. But the bottling room is her room. She spends hours out there bottling up the milk. The milk is brought into the last room with the steel pipes connected to the holding tank. A valve opens a pipe and the milk is rushed into a thirty gallon pasteurizer where it is heated up to one-hundred and forty degrees for thirty-five minutes. It’s then cooled down to 40 degrees for two hours and then bottled and capped. The half of a gallon bottles are dated and then sit in the commercial sized refrigerator that is housed in this room too until it is purchased or delivered to local farmer markets or businesses by Billy Ray. He even loads hundreds of bottles in iced coolers into his truck at four o’clock on Saturday mornings, right before he milks his cows and makes the hour trip north for the day in Hernando to sell at their local farmers market on the town’s square.

They never saw this business coming. Of course, they made decisions and plans, but only because of dreams and beliefs they had. Those things were powerful from the heart, and made from love.

I could have turned this story into a book if I told you more about the really important things that go on, especially on the reasons it got its name “Brown’s Family Dairy.” It’s really hard work that is time consuming, help that is needed by all of them. I didn’t tell you about the cleaning that goes on. It’s a much sanitized place that welcomes anyone with arms wide open to come over and watch. My nieces and nephew, at young ages, have many daily chores they better do!

There are feed to buy, hay to cut and bail, hogs to feed, cows to feed, and fences that need to be checked on. The dogs have to be fed and the rabbits do too. The horse usually eats the field’s grass but is often fed some range cubes. They take care of the animals with love and time and work. The animals that get sick are cared for by Billy Ray and Paula as well as the children.

Elementary kids show up for field trips and are given a free tour of the farm. Bottles are washed constantly and maintenance on all tractors, trucks, and equipment are kept up. Farrowing houses for hogs are checked making sure the little piglets are not being squished to death by their moms. Chainsaws run wide open over wild bushes and trees that cover fence lines that need clearing. Cattle are checked to see if the new heifer or young bull has arrived. Its presence is dated and kept sealed in a record book. There is homework to do and baths to be given to kids.

All this is routine. All of this happens daily, for most parts! Things that normal people wouldn’t dare think about doing every single day of their life. But it’s what Billy Ray does. It’s that part in the passage that Dad knew and wrote about, already before it eventually happened. It’s the part where Billy Ray sits on his front porch every night before he goes to bed, overlooking his land and listening to his family sleep and his farm calm the day to its end.

It’s the great peace he has in his soul such as few men have ever known!

Shane Brown is a HottyToddy.com contributor and the son of noted author Larry Brown. Shane is an Oxford native with Yocona and Tula roots. Shane is a graduate of Mississippi State University and works as a salesman for Best Chance. He has two children — Maddux, age 9, and Rilee, age 7 — and makes his home at “A Place Called Tula.” He can be reached at msushanebrown@yahoo.com.

Copyright Shane Brown, 2015.