Guns of Steel...and Germs

If I were to write a book about my experiences thus far on the dairy, this would pretty much sum it up. I was telling my sister, Audra, about my day last night, and she came up with my blog post title for the day...We've been mucking out the goat barn...and will have to early next week as well since it's been freezing at night and flurrying during the day. (Is flurrying a word?...it looks weird.) This is my first time ever mucking out anything...besides my bedroom, but this is far more intense and I've had a few thoughts.

1. Pitchforks are ingenious. I never really understood their advantage until yesterday when I started trying to hack away layers of straw and goat excrement all nicely cemented together by week-old piss with a shovel and rake. I mean, they all have their purpose throughout the process, but if you could only have one, a pitchfork would be it. Hands down. I'd actually almost prefer an actual fork to a shovel. ...well, no. Not quite. But almost. Ridiculous.

2. With 75 goats hanging out in a fairly small area during the nights and chilly days, I'd say that it gets to a point when it might make more sense to just make a straw bale structure with a tarp over it...and then when it gets too full of crap and ammonia fumes you'd just send the goats over to the other side of the pasture with some buckets of beans and then torch the thing and start over. Seriously. I'd rather stack straw bales than peel out layers of nastiness, haul it to the farthest pasture in a wheelbarrow and then pitch it around so it'll decompose nicely out of sight and (hopefully) smell of the neighbor's place. If I ever have goats there will only be 2, and I will clean out their pen with a skid loader, or I will hitch them to a little cart and they can slog it away themselves.

3. Two people heaving all their crap into wheelbarrows and hauling it off, only to return for more, is far more fascinating to the goats than me chipping ice out of their water basin. They stand right behind me, right in front of me, right beside me...occasionally standing up on their back legs to put their front hooves on my back while I'm trying to shovel...trying to touch noses while I'm bent over lifting an especially juicy/heavy chunk of straw. It's endlessly curious to them...and while their fascination can be amusing, I also often have surges of homicidal thoughts. (Is it homicide if it's just a goat? I mean, if you're a vegetarian? probably not...we'll go with 'murderous'.) But they're just standing there while you're breaking your back for their health and comfort and staring at you with this look that seems to be saying, in a completely innocent/wondering tone, "My goodness! You look tired!"..."Let's just butt heads together, yes?"..."Can I eat this hard, sharp thing you're swinging around violently without getting impaled or losing an eye?...mmm...I thiiiink so..."..."But why won't you let me eat your jacket?"..."You know, if you'd stop moving around so much we could just touch noses and sniff each other."

Cute, but ARG.

4. Before I got here I was slightly concerned that between feeding the animals and making cheese I was going to get soft and lazy again after 10 months of hauling brush and cutting trees all day. Ha. Ha. Haaaa. So funny. This is turning out to be just as, if not more, physically demanding as the Corps... Which part of me is glad for, because I liked that whole strong/capable feeling I ended the year with for the first time since maybe cross country season back in, oh...2000. But I'm also absolutely wiped every night. I generally go to bed at 8:30 or 9 and get up at 6...And from what they say it's just going to get worse... Eek. :/


And now I'm sure you're wondering, "'Guns of Steel' I get, but 'Germs'?"

I'm probably going to die in two months from some rare caprine sinus infection. This is going to sound crazy, but it's hard to not return the nose-to-nose invitation from a goat. In my first few days here when a little yearling put her hooves up on the fence and stretched her neck out to my face, I, without thinking, bent over and returned her "hello" sniff. As I was standing there giving my goat-fashion greeting, alllllllll the other little yearlings came up and wanted to nose-to-nose with me too. We never actually touched noses (and I totally didn't inhale - haha, that's a joke, get it?), but still...that's pretty gross. I restrain myself now because I've seen more than a few noses with what is obviously poop all over it, but at first this was hard- it felt like a very warm, friendly bonding thing...Or maybe from the moment they first sniffed me they saw I was a sap, and they knew they could use their cute little goat affections to ensure they get a hefty helping of beans and hay...and possibly baby carrots every evening... It's quite possible I've been duped by a bunch of adolescent goats... But I'm really okay with that. They're cute.

Also - just a side note related to germs - the ammonia smell is horrific. It's like a badly neglected cat litter box times 100 for each square foot of decomposing straw... I'm pretty sure the straw is usually fresh, but the acid of their urine just eats away at it until it's mushy overnight. I think it's already eaten away part of my brain. Eew.

That's it for now. We're spreading fresh straw when it dries out a bit, which is a nice cozy activity - I almost want to curl up there with them. :) Then some sorting of cheeses this evening... Then sleep. My bosses are off to Hawaii today to begin their annual vacation. Lucky them. :P

Hope you're all well. <3 julia.