Apologies...

...for the generally pissed-off tone of the past few posts. I've been in pain, and worried about people, and annoyed by people, and missing people, which altogether does not exactly make me Pollyanna.

But, I also realised that I have at no point mentioned that I'm back working at Thompsons' farm again. This is probably an important point to make before I tell about things like, for example, my mother meeting me at the door with "You stink!" in case someone decides that this must be the traditional greeting in my family.

It was a worrying remark, as she was about 6 feet away from me at the time.

Basically, my working day today consisted of 3 main jobs.



1) Power washing
I don't think I can adequately describe the happy, slightly idiotic feeling that occurs when given a hose capable of blasting old paint from gates and asked to clean a cowshed.

Really, I was actually enjoying the job, apart from the weight of the power hose. You really have to understand the kind of "immoveable" dirt on the walls of any indoor cow pen, and the odd power that can be felt on seeing it disappear the second you basically point at it.

Unfortunately, when the task involves "clearing the slats" (the floor of the pen has slats which the muck can run down through to a slurry runoff thing underneath), backspray of some sort is inevitable, considering the power of the jet.

So, to say that I have learned a new meaning for the term "shitfaced" would not be far off the mark.


2) Covering a silage clamp
For those who aren't aware, silage (food for cows/sheep made from fermented grass) tends to be made in clamps in Ireland. Clamps are made by dumping large amounts of cut, compacted, and fairly damp grass into a specially designated space with high walls, until a kind of hill is formed allowing one to walk from the ground to the top of the walls. The grass is then covered by a couple of huuuuuuuuuge plastic sheets (like binliners times 110) and several people start chucking old tyres onto the covers to hold them down.

Reasons this causes the workers to smell:

a) You know how those grass clippings smell from after you mow the lawn? Same stuff, really.
b) The tyres are left outside all year round, and are generally filled with silage-scented rainwater.
c)i) When someone throws a tyre on to the covers near where you stand there is a 95% chance that the water will splash out over you.
ii) When you throw a tyre onto a loading bucket of a tractor for transportation, there is a 45% chance that it will land in such a way for the water to fly back in your face.


3) Milking
Today the cows were "loose". No, they weren't coming on to anything, or anyone (thankfully). I mean the dung was "loose"... i.e. was very, very liquid. And was released frequently.

And splattered.

And they chose their goddamn moments.

Thankfully, cow shit does wash off skin very easily.



Afterwards
Shower.
Which was nice.
I appreciate the simple things in life.