Farmer Boot Camp

Remember all those wonderful virtues of country life enumerated in the last post? Well, my idealistic vision of country life was put to the test in the second week of our life in Missouri which I affectionately refer to as 'Farmer Boot Camp'.

Some friends live nearby on a beautiful farm with cows, horses, chickens, sheep, cats, dogs, and even fish! They had not been on a vacation in a very long time and decided to get away from their farm life for 10 whole days...but the chores don't stop even for vacation. That's the reality of farm life! I don't think they have kennels for dairy cows or daycare for sheep, so they found several willing friends to help with the chores while they were gone.

When my sister-in-law asked if we would be willing to help, we jumped at the chance. The first three days were training and then we were paired with another couple on our assigned days to do the milking and morning chores.

It was surreal: two weeks prior we were in our apartment in Texas in a sea of cardboard and now we were in a dairy parlor in Missouri learning the fine arts of milking a cow.

During the training days the milking cows were already in the corral next to the parlor; however, on the first day on our own, we arrived and realized WE had to bring the cows up to the parlor. Well, there is no time like the present to learn how to sort and herd cows. Unfortunately, most of our exposure to cattle work came from television, so all we could do was whoop and holler and wave our hands hoping the cows responded the same way they did on TV. We managed to make it work, but I just have to say...cows are dumb. Of course, in all fairness, the cows probably had the same opinion of their surrogate farmers.

We had several opportunities to 'problem solve' on the fly; most of the time it was a cow moving in the wrong direction or in the wrong place or not moving to the right place. I learned cows don't have a reverse gear. The first time we sorted the milking cows from the rest of the herd, the bull just turned away like he knew not to come. "That was easy! Ok...I can do this." The next day, the bull had other plans. Despite my whoopin' and hollerin' and arm wavin' the bull kept coming towards me. I decided not to play chicken with the bull and I moved first. We got it a figured out somehow and got the chores done, but I'm not sure we ever had two days alike. I suppose that, too, is another aspect of farm life. While the list of chores may be the same day to day, the addition of animals' unpredictable behaviors keep things interesting. 

By out last day, we had worked out a good routine to get all the chores done. It was a little sad to leave the busy farm life, but the part I miss most is hanging out with one of the coolest cow dogs I've ever met (granted that is a rather short list), but he was a good dog. I can't wait to see Rocky again!

I really enjoyed the experience and the opportunity to play farmer for a couple weeks. I even think I could manage a single dairy cow eventually at our future home...although I'm still working on convincing Randy of that. :)

By the way, I also learned why they call it HOT wire...twice. :P 

"Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished: but he that gathereth by labour shall increase." Proverbs 13:11