When I was a kid, my Uncle Howard had on his farm a herd of milk cows. (His definition of a herd was probably no more than seven or eight!) He was an avid woodworker as well, and I was always impressed by the name plates he had mounted in the stall for each of the cows, and a little befuddled by the fancy crate that contained his milking machine, which I'm sure he never used.
Uncle Howard also gave us the opportunity to try our hand at milking the cows, something few Canadian kids have experienced. Michelle Ruby writes in the Monday, April 5 edition of the Brantford Expositor about a Brant County farmer, Chris Vandenburg, who is participating in a one-year "Dairy Diary" project coordinated by the University of Waterloo, where the milking activities of selected Holsteins are followed on Twitter through a 'tweet' triggered by a robotic milker.
Social networking with your favourite bovine is intended to educate us about the sources of our food and help transform our perception of farming - more than 80% of Canadians are urbanites and will never set foot on a farm. I'm not sure how successful Uncle Howard was as a farmer, but he certainly succeeded in giving me an education and appreciation of the value of the family farm.
(And if Uncle Howard had ever owned a computer, I'm sure it would be stored in a finely crafted crate!)
