“Muck” is a Verb…Who Knew??

So, I’m living here on a farm near Rutland, MA, and if my first day is any indication, I’m going to be doing quite a bit of work, having alot of fun, having my fair share of adventures.

The first person I met last night was an older guy who picked me up from the airport. The farm is about an hour from Boston, so we had a while to get to know each other. Just in our short time together in the car, I was able to learn that he worked for the NSA for a couple of years before starting his 40+ year career as a freelance interpreter. In addition to English, he speaks Spanish, German, Russian, in addition to who knows how many other languages that just didn’t come up in conversation. He and his wife are now retired and, living out of their motor home, volunteer full time splitting time between Overlook Farm and a couple of marine refuges in Florida.

I am already impressed by the type of people involved with Heifer, and I’m not even to the farm yet.

When I arrived at the farm, I received a warm welcome from everybody in my house. (The house, by the way, is called “Camelot” because the camel’s pen is adjacent to the house.) The only other guy in the house is my roommate, Matt. He’s about my age, plays guitar, and is a returned Peace Corps volunteer, so we’ve got some stuff in common.

This post is already waaaay too long, so I’ll tell you as briefly as possible about my first day….

I spent most of the morning “mucking,” that is, shoveling cow poo from one place to the other. Then I moved some cows (a mother and her calf that just dropped on Friday) to another pen so that I could convert their little barn into a series of stalls that we’ll use for breeding goats. (I’m already calling it the Cabrito Love Shack. We’ll see if it sticks) While moving the same cows later in the day, we had to walk them through the camel pasture. When the camel got between the mother and her calf, the mother head-butted the camel, which caused the camel to rear up like some pissed-off horse. Now, camels are big animals when they are on all fours. When they rear up like that, you’ll want to go ahead and get out of their way.

So, lots of other stuff happened today (loose cows, frightened children, dogs herding sheep…), but I’ll save them for later.

Thanks for reading….I’ll be better about posting. As always, comments are more than welcome, even if they’re completely unrelated to the post.

I’m off to eat another meal made solely from organic vegetables and fresh dairy products….it’s rough.