In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • The Sparrow and the Robot
  • Ryan Dennis (bio)

Rögni dreamed of sheep. He had the dream every fall, and it told him about the coming winter. If they were brown sheep, the snow would be mild, but if they were white, there would be a harsh season ahead. When he told me this at his kitchen table, it was November and he hadn't had the dream yet.

Rögni left for the barn at 5:30 a.m. to set the milkers washing. His wife, Systa, and their daughter Þörunn had a bowl of porridge before following him out. The barn boots were left in the milk house, so Þörunn gave me a pair of rubber slippers to wear across the driveway. I trailed behind Systa and Þörunn into the Arctic darkness, the slippers gliding soundlessly over the ice. The early morning in Iceland was singular in its silence and vastness. When the sun came up on a farm on the northern coasts, for the little it did that deep into winter, it was set against stone and snow. The rhythms of farming, echoing against the mountains around them, marked an act of defiance.

Rögni was a small man who moved quickly. He had a mustache, and his eyes were bright and intense. Because he could speak little English, he often showed me what he wanted me to do by saying "Like this" and modeling it first. Their dairy farm, Flugumyrar Hvammur, was a 30-cow stanchion barn—a kind disappearing in Iceland and extinct in other countries. It was kept immaculately clean, with manure grates scrubbed to the bare metal and the stalls swept free of debris. Everything in the milk house and the shed had an order and a place, in stacks and rows, and the path between the bale mixer and the feed alleys didn't have a stalk of forage left on it. It became apparent that Rögni was a man who liked the process of farming, in all its small and repetitive details. [End Page 115]

After the milkers had been sanitized, they were rolled along a tract built into the ceiling. Rögni, Systa, and Þörunn started the milking together. Systa and Þörunn had collapsible stools strapped behind them to make putting the milker on more comfortable, but Rögni knelt below each cow. They allowed me to milk as well, and because I grew up on a farm, I knew this to be an offer of respect. In some ways, milking a cow is just that—as long as you don't milk one treated with antibiotics or bend its teat over in the inflation, no damage has been done. However, in completing the same act twice a day for his whole life, the farmer has developed a pattern and rapport with his animals that is hard to allow foreign hands to stumble with. There's something at stake when you put the milker on another person's cow, and everyone in the barn knows it.

I squatted below the first cow. Taking a cue from Rögni, I had declined the use of a stool. Then I stripped each teat, gently pulling and kneading them to send spurts of milk onto the concrete, as is general practice to stimulate milk letdown. I could feel the family watching me, hoping they wouldn't have to step in with any corrections, if only to sidestep some awkwardness. As for me, I had told them that I was a farmer's son, but it was now up to my hands to show them. I cupped my fingers over each inflation in turn and guided them onto the teats. Then I adjusted the hoses to make sure the milker hung squarely. I think everyone was relieved when the milk started flowing.

Halfway through the milking, Systa left to feed calves. Meanwhile, the pulsation of the milkers kept a steady beat hovering over the cattle. Sometimes I found myself watching Rögni and Þörunn at the other end of the barn. They moved quickly and efficiently from cow to cow, passing each other to the bucket of washrags in the middle. They slid...

pdf