Farm

On wednesday I was able to visit a local farm after school. A friend from school, Heidi Arctander, told me about it and had asked them earlier on in the week if I could possible work for them after school to give me something to do. We set up an "appointment" for wednesday, so after school the two of us went together. Heidi showed me which bus to get on...I am soooo glad I wasnt doing that by myself. When we got to the corect location on the route, she pulled the string and off we went. As soon as we got off we checked the chart for bus times back. If everything went well and the farmer was to welcome me back..hehe..then I could take a bus after school from the farm back to Slemmestad either after an hours worth of time, or three. So, I think for now, Ill just stay for a short while, work for about an hour, then head on back home. I just miss the country life, so a little bit of it after school every day, should be great. So, after checking bus times, we started to walk....and find the farm. From the bus stop, its about a five minute walk. Its nice and cute. You pass a little car shop, cross the road, over a bridge, (to grandmas house we go...Bahah, just kiding) but then after the bridge, you walk along the dirt road, up a hill (where you can see over everything, so cute) and then turn left into the Transeth Farm property where we were headed. His wife bakes breades and little things to sell on Saturdays and Sundays. We saw her in the house, so knocked on the door and asked for Hans Petter. She called him, and he came out around the corner of the barn. Heidi and I walked over to talk to em for a bit. I changed into some cloths that he had ready, so mine wouldnt stink. Much of his cattle is all opporated on indoor facilities, so that was differnt from home. Before Heidi had to leave to catch her bus, we stood together and watched the ways the Hans Petter fed the cattle. Again, since its all indoors, its kind of interesting to see the differences in our cattle opperations. Once Heidi left, Hans Petter showed me how to clean the barn where a differnt group of cattle were located. These were all tied up and in a line. We took a rubber car window washer looking utincel...hehe...and started to clean out the "stalls." I'm not so sure what you would call them. Their not stalls, cuz its just one room, but the cattle are all tied up, so you can kinda imagine the stalls being there. Ha, Im not so sure, it kinda reminded me of the 4-H cattle shed down at Henderson County. Okay, so, once cleaning that, all the manure was scraped into a pit. This is when it started to remind me Clark Kellys hog confinment. So, we scraped all the manure into a small pit that goes from one end of the shed to the other. Then, you turn this knob on the wall, which starts a machine that scrapes the manure out of that pit and it falls into the larger one benieth. It was kinda neat. Hans Petter picked up a bucket full of the tiniest little wood chips you ever did see (I had orrigional actually thought it was grain for the cattle) and he sprinkled it along the feet of the cows. So, I guess it was acutally like a saw dust affect, soaking up the moisture left by the cattle. :) Once that was done, we headed up to the loft, and droped down hay by the pitchfork full. It fell right in the middle of all the cattle, so perfectly. We headed back down again, to spread it out evenly. Oh....and before all of this, I took the wheel barrow around to each cow and personaly gave them their food from a small scoop. Hehe. It was so cute. Im not so used to treating each cow individually. Since our cattle are always outdoors, unless their calving in the cold winter or something, then really, they kinda take care of themelsves. I loved it though. The whole day was great. Finally around 5:30, Ivar came to pick me up. When I got home I took a shower. :( Now, the nice cow smell was gone....at least until next time. THANK YOU HEIDI!...for finding the cutest little farm ever. :)