It took about and hour and half to milk the 2-dozen-odd cows. We'd dump the milk into 5-galllon pails after each cow, these larger buckets in a holding pattern, waiting for the milking to be done, after which the milk would be run through the separator.
After the milking, we'd pour some milk into a shallow container for the cats. Barn cats. Not spayed. Not neutered. Not fed anything other than milk. They were expected to live on rats and mice and anything else they could catch. They did alright in that regard, never saw a skinny barn cat.
The brothers had just finished milking, and Dad was just finishing his last cow. He came striding up the walkway behind the cows, his last pail of milk in hand. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed one of the cats up on its hind legs, drinking milk out of one of the 5-gallon buckets. Not an unusual occurrence, we frequently had to shoo the cats away from the buckets.
It seems Dad was in no mood for shooing that day. Without breaking stride, he lofted that cat into the air with his foot. The cat screamed, "ROWR!" It flew five feet through the air in a perfect arc - and landed, dead center, in another full 5-gallon pail of milk. Cat grenade! Milk explosion! Cat's in the bucket, panicked. Rowr! Rowr! Rowr! Clawing at the sides of the bucket, trying to escape, milk flying everywhere - and we 3 brothers laughing so hard we could barely remain standing.
After a couple failed attempts, Dad managed to grab the cat by the scruff of the neck and set it aside without getting too badly scratched. The cat took off like greased lightning, not to be seen again that day, and never to be seen drinking out of a bucket again. Dad finally saw the humor in it, chuckled, "Pretty good shot, huh?"
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