February 17, 2014.
I staged as a farmhand at Cruze Farm for a day with my buddy Manjit. We started by riding to a campground site on the property where an old farmhand use to live. He had several chicken coops and a toilet attached to a pvc pipe that ran off the mountain. Some genuine engineering here. It had such a real rustic country feel. We revved up the chainsaw after filling it with gas and oil and hacked away at about 2 tons of wood that had fallen around the area. We weren't sure of what type of wood it was. I should check from here on out to learn and identify for future experiences. Jit would hack and I would pick up the wood and toss it into the back of the truck. We then drove to another location on the property and collected some cedar. The cedar was very dried out and easy to handle, not too heavy and broke apart somewhat easily. We identified it as cedar from the red ring it had on the inside of it's trunk. I don't know if this is correct or not. Apparently when the tree is older the red ring turns brown and is less identifiable. After collecting all the wood we split it back at the farm with a wood splitter and an axe. There was also a wedge used for bigger pieces. I learned how to chop and split wood which was a cool chore. You feel so manly when you wield a huge axe and bring it down with all your might and split a giant wood trunk in two. It must be some primal beast trait that gives me joy when i smash something with a club. I don't know but I loved it. Now to the cool part, I got to milk cows. It's not something most people know much about, myself included. Around 70 cows yield about 260 gallons of milk a day, and they're milked twice a day once every 12 hours or so. A farmhand milks every morning at 6 or 7, and they're milked again at night around 4 or 5 depending on the farmhand. First step is to ensure the milking area is clean. There were 8 feeding troughs, 4 on each side. We filled the troughs then pressure washed the floor and milking area. The first cow we brought in had been stabled alone. It's currently battling an infection so they had it on antibiotics. When a cow is on antibiotics their milk is virtually useless. If traces of the antibiotics make it into the milk the dairy farm could lose it's license. As a side note a cow on antibiotics must be cleared for 4 days since it's last dosage before it's milk can be used. After milking this cow we put her back in the pin and herded up the other 65+ cows. In they came 4 at a time and we set them up and got them eating. There was a spray hose for water to wash the teats. Not all cows had 4 teats like you'd imagine. Some were infect and some just didn't have developed teats. We'd wash the teats of dirty and debris and then use a spray bottle of iodine as a disinfectant on the teat. Next step is to completely dry the teat which we did with paper towels. Now the milking. We'd take the hose which had 4 suction cups and turn the valve to on. The suction would begin and we'd start with the back teats and work our way up. The whole milking process per cow takes about 3-5 minutes depending on how much milk they have. Each cow produces about 5 gallons. These were Jersey cows too ad a side note. Jersey cows have a very high fat content in their milk which is why cruze farm is famous for their buttermilk. You're constantly moving in the milking room. Between cleaning teats, watching the suction cups from falling and possibly sucking up feces and urine which is on the floor from cows popping everywhere. Bringing new cows into the room and applying a kick harness to the known trouble makers you're constantly busy. It usually takes about 2-3 hours to milk all the cows. At the end of the day I had a great time, ate a great lunch made by colleen, a rye bread sandwich with beef caramelized onions, mayonaise, cheese some fresh herbs and a tomatoey sauce. Drinking great milk chopping wood etc. I had a wonderful time.
