Farm Life

Well, after a few physically and mentally exhausting days as a WWOOFer (Willing Worker on an Organic Farm), I am slowly adjusting to life here. Today was my fifth day and it was finally sunny!
There are 80 cows on the farm, 40 of which we milk twice a day. It's an exhausting amount of work between the 2 of us, but Katsunori-san does it by himself when there are no WWOOFers to help out. I can hardly imagine. Maki, one of his 2 daughters (he also has 2 sons), lives here as well, but she is at work at a fish factory in town from 6:30 or 7:00 in the morning until about the same time in the evening. When she gets home, she usually makes us dinner, but a few nights a week she also works evenings at a cafe!
For me, the average day goes roughly as follows:
6:30 - Wake up, eat a banana and slip into my coveralls and gumboots.
6:45 - Heat up some milk to give to the calves, by bottle or bucket. During that time, I also prepare for milking by sanitizing towels and setting up the milking machines. When the cows come in to the stalls, I dip the nipples in a type of soap then wipe off the dung and mud with a hot moist towel. Before attaching the milking machine (which works like a vacuum), I milk each nipple a bit. It took me a bit to get the hang of it because I was always afraid I was going to hurt them, but I guess they're pretty tough animals, you just squeeze as hard as you can and squirt, squirt, squirt! When the machine has finished, there's another dip and on to the next cow...
8:45ish - As we finish up milking, I shovel the dung out of the milking stalls. Today I had to get Katsunori-san kill a spider because I couldn't walk past it. I just freeze up, but seriously, they're as big as golf balls, with butts that size of olives! Then we put away the equipment and I hose down the milking stalls.
9:30ish - We come back to the house and make something for breakfast... usually a full meal of delicious Japanese food, homemade bread, veggies from the garden, etc. There's definitely plenty of food around here and of course fresh dairy products... milked-this-morning milk at dinner and the other day, Kastunori-san made yogourt and cream cheese! We also had homemade ice cream and caramels!
10:30ish - I get suited up again and take the cows out to one of the pastures. This is my favourite part of the day because I get to walk through the mud to the fields under the mountains and I always listen to music on my MP3 player and sing at the top of my lungs because the cows don't mind! Back at the barn, I shovel the dung off the cow beds and sweep them off so that Katsunori-san can plough the dung, etc. out of the barn and lay down fresh saw dust.
11:30ish - I have some free time, so back at the house, I do the dishes and write in my blog, hopefully soon I can use this time to study Japanese or climb the mountains.
1:00ish - We make lunch, another full meal! I made tacos for us today because Katsunori-san had gone to cut the hay in one of the hay fields. Tomorrow he has to continue preparing it (we're hoping it doesn't rain in the next few days).
2:00ish - Time to bring the cows in from the pasture... another episode of fun singing (and sometimes even dancing, heh heh!).
4:00ish - We repeat the same thing as in the morning from giving the calves milk to milking the 40 milk cows.
6:30ish - I'm done and take a much appreciated shower after the backbreaking day of getting splashed with dung, pee, milk, mud, and sometimes even whipped in the face with a tail.
7:00ish - We eat a good dinner and chat a bit then do our own thing until next thing you know it's nearly 11:00pm and I climb up to bed, exhausted.
Tomorrow afternoon, 2 students from Taiwan are arriving, so things are going to change once there are 4 of us around. I'm looking forward to their company.