Animal farm

pictured: bavaria in the morning // Die grüne Ecke (farm)

Oink oink, baa, moo, neigh, meow, bark, hallo…this place is filled with animals – and germans.

upon starting work promptly after our arrival we knew we had gotten ourselves into some serious shit (literally and figuratively.) unlike plants (which is secondary), animals can’t wait. They need to be fed, cleaned up after, and milked – twice a day. And within an hour we were thrown (no introduction or any real explanation) into it all.

pictured: cows have really big heads

Alex took care of the feeding – wheel barrowing over lots and lots of green grass for the sheep and goats to chomp on, while I helped with the milking – something I really wanted to do – once. But the milk keeps on coming (it takes roughly 12 hours for the goats and sheep to make a full bust of milk) as does the poo - which of course is powered by food.

pictured: sheep and goats meet in the middle to feast on greens and flowers

And with so much milk being produced on a daily basis, there’s lots left over for butter and cheese making. Today I got to make some butter (see blog entry: Turn fat into fun - with butter making 101!). And while we haven’t yet made any cheese, we sure have been eating it! In the refrigerator is the biggest plate of specialty cheese I’ve ever seen (it’s probably worth hundreds of dollars if you were to get something similar in ny.). And because our diet is mostly bread here (breakfast and dinner are bread meals, lunch is the only “hot” meal) we have had the chance to try many cheeses. They are all good, but I kind of wish I knew what sort of cheese it is that i am enjoying.

Which brings me to the lack of communication we are (I am) experiencing. Even though the germans here know a decent amount of English, they forgo using it and only speak to alex – leaving me to stare at my feet or the flies during meals. It’s pretty tough - for me to just totally sit out of conversations – but there’s not much I can do (sometimes they even speak german to me as if maybe I’ll understand. – ie saying “we can speak English now” in german!) it’s not much better for alex. Even though he can understand what’s being said – sometimes we aren’t even told what to do, or why we’re doing it – so we end up just standing around until someone tells us a small part of the task (“move this there”). It’s really a bummer, cause this place is very interesting and there’s lots to learn – especially since is totally different from any of the other farms. Regardless, I do think we’ll still learn lots…it’ll just be like an ikea manual.

pictured: three pigs // pigs have strong noses

Anyway, I like the animals. The pigs are especially funny – I don’t think I’ve ever seen pigs like these. They look like animatronics since their eyes are skin are so human-eque. It’s a bit creepy, but I can’t help but want to give them a big fat hug. That is, if they weren’t rolling around in mud (typical) all day. Oh, and there’s a bunch of piglets that are free to roam around – and always look like they are up to something mischievous – in that cute happy pig way. Their noses feel nice.

pictured: horse and alex - horses have really nice noses as well

In addition to the pigs, there’s also: a horse, 3 cows, maybe 10 goats, 50 sheep, 2 dogs, a cat, and about 9 germans (we’ve only seen 3).