MOO!

Just came back from a week of dairy cow placement... and that was a great time of being out in the beautiful country by myself and just enjoying the serenity :)

I took a 6hr bus ride there with my backpack for company and arrived about 9pm at night.



They then showed me to my living quarters.... a caravan!! I've never stayed in one before and had this one all to myself :D

The view from the caravan was really pretty... as were the views from the rest of the farm...

A typical day would include:

5am-830am: wake up and milk the cows and feed the calves

830am-9am: breakfast

9am-2pm: "drying" cows, swimming, running errands with the family, looking after the kids, relaxing, sleeping

230-530pm: milk cows for the 2nd time and feed the calves again

6pm: dinner

7pm onwards: watch dvds/tv, relax

9pm or 10pm: sleep

By the first day, my overalls were covered in poo, and since this was gonna be repeated for 5 days I decided not to wash them till the very last day. The result? I smelt of warm milk+poo for 5 days. yuck yuck. And probably got splatters of poo in my hair too. And one night there wasn't water cos the pump wasn't working... so I slept with poo in my hair smelling not very nice indeed. The water was also bore water so it tasted salty+metallic every time I brushed my teeth... but after what happened to genchin from her drinking tap water there I made sure I didn't consume any of that bore water.

I also made friends along the way with Amber the shetland

George the 17 month old bulldozer (he destroys everything in his path)

and Bradley the one-who-isn't-good-to-tease (whose back you see in the caravan picture)

I acquired plenty of knowledge about how to milk cows, how to feed and rear calves, how to make cows move from one place to another... and that's about it really, which was a bit of a pity, cos I was hoping for more, but then that seemed to be the only thing they did.

I also got myself a HUGE bruise from slipping on cow poo and banging my leg on the concrete underneath... see the wonderful discolouration! It's my badge of honour... the pen marks were kindly done by rob

(yesterday)

(today)

All in all, I had an enjoyable time there. But a bit too monotonous for my liking. But it has opened my eyes to the life of a farmer and how much the drought does affect people out in the country. It wasn't as bad as cracked, dry earth, but more like lack of feed for the animals etc...

So I shall leave you a picture of the sunset there... it was a pity cos by the time I finished the first milking, the sun had already risen, and when I'd finished dinner etc, the sun had set.