Well, I made it to county Laois on the Newtown farm, and I have now experienced milking cows up close and personal. Since I will be doing such tasks for the next two weeks, and there is a lot of cow manure everywhere, I will be calling the stuff goo. I could call it crap, but that doesn’t seem strong enough, and I could call it shit, but I don’t want to offend anyone, so goo it is. Anyway, there is goo everywhere when you milk cows. My time here began with Peter picking me up at the bus stop and taking me to the store to buy a few groceries before running off to milk the cows. I will be cooking for myself mainly, so the food consisted of cereal, frozen pizzas, and donuts, none of which I picked out. Once we dropped the food off at the house, Peter and I drove up to the milking area where I put goo covered clothes on since I would continue to get covered in goo. I also wore a bright red hat to cover my hair. It was quite the getup, and I’m under the impression it’s one I’ll be sporting for every day I do the milking around here. We went down the rows, and before we put the units on the udders of the cows, the cows have to be sprayed with an anti-fungi spray, and that was my job. They’re sprayed before and after they’re milked. I didn’t get hit by any goo, but I was very near a cow when a whole lot of goo came out. That was not pleasant; there is a lot of goo. Yuck! After all the cows were done being milked, we sprayed the place down and came back to the farm house. I got to ride Turbo the horse, which is the horse Peter bought especially for people who stay and work at the farm. He is 18 and very gentle. I enjoyed getting to know him. For dinner I shared a frozen pizza with Peter and got to know him before I went to bed. Living here is going to be an adjustment, but I’m excited for the challenge and am looking forward to learning a lot and coming home with some great stories (hopefully not too many that involve goo!).
No comments:
Post a Comment