As I clean and pack up my things, it's really hard for me to believe that it is my last night to spent here at the farm. Yes, I know that I have to leave; I have completed my internship and I now must move on with my life, but it's hard. I really have come to enjoy Max and Leigh (Max is the other full-time intern left, Leigh is his g/f), and also the animals.
I used to hate sheep. Yes they are incredibly dumb animals, but they are also easy to handle. You can make them do just about anything you want, as opposed to cows that outweigh a person by 1,000 pounds usually. I have made some pets out of the sheep and I'll definitely miss the dogs too. It's a beautiful place here and I never fully appreciated it until recently and it's odd to think that I won't be here anymore.
One thing I forgot to mention about a few weeks ago... We've been keeping the donkey in during the day because he's been having issues with his hooves and with getting too much nutrients. Well, he has his own bucket of water which is left there during the day. One morning after milking but before clean up (Max and I were taking the sheep out), I heard a squeaking noise similar to the sounds my chinchillas make when they're distressed. I look and there's a waterlogged chipmunk trying to swim (or 'doggy paddle') for his life. He couldn't jump out so if I hadn't saved him he would have drowned. I picked him up and put him in the inside pocket of my carhartt sweatshirt for a few hours and he recovered. The funny part is when I was holding him, he spit out a water-logged piece of corn into my hand; the little bastard was stealing our corn. He obviously mistook the water bucket for a corn bucket which is what is normally in the basement of the barn. It was amusing to me. I rehabilitated a chipmunk.
Anyway. Enough being sentimental. The pigs were out this morning. I walk out of my house this morning to see a pig walking up our road. They had plowed through the fence we made (literally plowed) ... They had piled a bunch of dirt in front of the fence and pushed with a ton of force; I know because I had to dig up that fence and pick it up. But anyway, somehow I managed to get all three of them back in by myself. I was so proud of myself! And then Bob had me go pick up a total of 12 fences, 3 of which were the pigs'... And build 2 sheep pastures. It's alright though, the only issue I had (besides the buried fence) was the terrible bugs.
Today was incredibly rainy... It never stops, and when it does it's so hot and humid out! I'm not sure if I prefer the rain over the warmth... But I'm going to guess that yes, I actually think the rain is okay comparatively.
Alright, bed time. We're trimming the milkers hooves tomorrow and running them through the foot bath before I leave I guess. So yeah, early wake up time! Woo!
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
I am so frustrated!!!
So Bob and Ann came back on Sunday night and were around for Monday morning chores. The bad intern was to be leaving Monday evening. Since it was my day off, I was going home with Mark (since I don't have a car)... I had a job interview on Tuesday for a job in Liverpool which went very well... Then I came back to reality (by stealing my mother's van).
Since I didn't get to sleep until 12:30 on Tuesday night (technically Wednesday morning), I didn't work until 7. I called them several times to see when they wanted me to work and they didn't return my calls until at least 8 that night. It's a four and a half hour drive from my house, if they had wanted me to work early, they should have let me know. Anyway.
I cleaned up yesterday morning from when Ann had milked and she kept giving me task after task of stuff to do. First, I had to go refill the footwash bottle that we've been spraying the sheep with that have footrot. We set up a foot bath, but for some unknown reason they won't FINISH setting it up (aka, put the bath IN it). So then she tells me that I need to bring more grain to the holding area. Ok, not a big deal, I can do that. However, after I had cleaned the parlor was when she told me that I had to go and clean out the hoppers for the grain in the parlor because the bad intern had put corn in them... But if they had originally told us from the start that corn doesn't go in there, or at least had told us that feed was even being delivered while they were gone, we wouldn't have had this problem.
And so, I spent about twenty minutes in the hopper, shoveling out feed, which shouldn't have been there in the first place... only to replace it with pellets. And then I had to go down to the parlor and put it through the hoppers to finish out the corn. It's not my fault that it happened, but I fixed it...
At this point it's about 90 degrees out with no breeze. The next chore you think would be a low-key one that doesn't involve much exertion, right? Because I'm already sweating my butt off? Wrong. Use the push lawn mower (which is NOT self-propelled, btw) and mow two areas in front of the house that are on a hill. Ok, But the sun is clearly going to be beating down on it. When it's 90 degrees. With no breeze.
So I complete that task and she's like 'well, this part over here needs to be mower too... sorry I didn't tell you'... And this area has a STEEPER slope. So for a 'break' I got to bag hay chafe on the barn floor because its supposed to be 'easy'... except that the barn floor is in direct sunlight at this time of day. So I spent another 15 minutes sweating off my ass only to go back and mow the part of the steep lawn in front of the house.
Get done with that, and it's 10:30, I figured she would give me the rest of the morning off right? Because, you know, I look like I have heat stroke and probably wasn't far from it. I only had one glass of water and no breakfast. Yeah... instead she tells me to take the sithe to the stinging nettles. So again, I do as I'm told. After I was done, I came in and had 5 glasses of water and went straight up to bed.
Afternoon... Do the chores (rams, pigs, set up)... and before I do set up (which takes place at 2:45), Ann tells me to go and use the sithe on the ragweed that is on the pasture side of the rock wall (NOT the road side that ppl see). She goes 'Well I spent an hour doing it in the blazing hot sun earlier'... I was half tempted to say 'no shit, you think pushing that lawnmower was any easier???', but I stopped myself.
Milked, cleaned up, and was then given cleaning the house as my last task... Or basically to sort out bottles and cans and recycling. Wouldn't have been bad but A) Bob told me to do it and B) there was probably a months worth in there because nobody else had gotten around to it. The reason I say that Bob told me to do it was one of my issues was because HIM of all people to tell US about cleanlines... well, that's like the pot calling the kettle black. Half the time he doesn't clean up after making scones (pans left in the kitchen, uncleaned until the next day)... And when they do get cleaned, it's usually us interns that have to clean up after them.
So this morning... milked. Cleaned up. Took out the sheep. Came and got changed to send out a cheese order. Which means I had to work with Ann. I am so sick and tired of her treating me like a two year old also. It seems like ever since I told them that I wanted to leave when my 600 hours is up (which is this weekend), they have been absolutely miserable to me (mainly Ann)... They're trying to get me to stay another week, but honestly, I don't want to just because of her. I can't stand working under her most of the time now. I mean, people should understand the difference between cool weather work and warm weather work. Mowing the lawn with a push lawn mower with a ridiculous incline is NOT warm weather work!!
Good lord... And to top it all off, I have an interview with the business I interviewed with last Tuesday on this Tuesday. When I go home for it, I will certainly have a hell of a hard time coming back here. Hopefully tonight I will sit down and tell them this.
Although, in addition to all of this that has just happened, I then sit back and think. If they had fired that intern like they should have, I wouldn't have had to shovel out the hoppers or probably clean the recycling. I understand that they kept him for a reason, but honestly... Somebody who wrecks your car, has no work ethic, gets out of work as much as possible, shows up to work late, messes up a batch of cheese, and also is a pathalogical liar would not be somebody I would defend.
Of course, there has been a severe lack of communication on their part. And lack of preparation. Like when they went away for the week and didn't order more flour or buy more cream and eggs so some of the baking was thrown off... And how they didn't tell us that an order of feed was coming. And while we were packing cheeses today Ann was criticizing me, and I can accept criticizm when I'm actually doing something wrong that I've learned before but I have only packed cheeses ONE other time, and she was treating me like a five year old and showing me how to do it (but it wasn't portrayed as a nice way when she was doing it)
And the whole week they were gone, the only thing we had to drive was the dodge truck. It's stick and I can't drive stick. At the beginning of this internship when I applied, they said we could drive farm vehicles, so this prepared me if my car ever did die. And when my car dies, they take one cross country and they let the other sit in an airport all week, and yes, both were automatics. They knew I wasn't going to have my car. And also when I was gone on vaca, they never told me they were leaving early or anything. And never told me they were changing the schedule. It's been so much all in the last two weeks that has been bothering me but I've been trying to be good and ignore it or brush it off. I can't anymoreeee.
I just want out. And if I didn't have 12 more hours of work till they gave me my evaluation for this semester, I would just leave. I feel like they are showing me no respect at all and I am not their slave. I am trying to hold my tongue until they evaluate me because I don't want a bad grade this semester for all the busting of my butt that I have done. I've worked my ass off for them this summer and this is how I get repaid... Awesome.
Since I didn't get to sleep until 12:30 on Tuesday night (technically Wednesday morning), I didn't work until 7. I called them several times to see when they wanted me to work and they didn't return my calls until at least 8 that night. It's a four and a half hour drive from my house, if they had wanted me to work early, they should have let me know. Anyway.
I cleaned up yesterday morning from when Ann had milked and she kept giving me task after task of stuff to do. First, I had to go refill the footwash bottle that we've been spraying the sheep with that have footrot. We set up a foot bath, but for some unknown reason they won't FINISH setting it up (aka, put the bath IN it). So then she tells me that I need to bring more grain to the holding area. Ok, not a big deal, I can do that. However, after I had cleaned the parlor was when she told me that I had to go and clean out the hoppers for the grain in the parlor because the bad intern had put corn in them... But if they had originally told us from the start that corn doesn't go in there, or at least had told us that feed was even being delivered while they were gone, we wouldn't have had this problem.
And so, I spent about twenty minutes in the hopper, shoveling out feed, which shouldn't have been there in the first place... only to replace it with pellets. And then I had to go down to the parlor and put it through the hoppers to finish out the corn. It's not my fault that it happened, but I fixed it...
At this point it's about 90 degrees out with no breeze. The next chore you think would be a low-key one that doesn't involve much exertion, right? Because I'm already sweating my butt off? Wrong. Use the push lawn mower (which is NOT self-propelled, btw) and mow two areas in front of the house that are on a hill. Ok, But the sun is clearly going to be beating down on it. When it's 90 degrees. With no breeze.
So I complete that task and she's like 'well, this part over here needs to be mower too... sorry I didn't tell you'... And this area has a STEEPER slope. So for a 'break' I got to bag hay chafe on the barn floor because its supposed to be 'easy'... except that the barn floor is in direct sunlight at this time of day. So I spent another 15 minutes sweating off my ass only to go back and mow the part of the steep lawn in front of the house.
Get done with that, and it's 10:30, I figured she would give me the rest of the morning off right? Because, you know, I look like I have heat stroke and probably wasn't far from it. I only had one glass of water and no breakfast. Yeah... instead she tells me to take the sithe to the stinging nettles. So again, I do as I'm told. After I was done, I came in and had 5 glasses of water and went straight up to bed.
Afternoon... Do the chores (rams, pigs, set up)... and before I do set up (which takes place at 2:45), Ann tells me to go and use the sithe on the ragweed that is on the pasture side of the rock wall (NOT the road side that ppl see). She goes 'Well I spent an hour doing it in the blazing hot sun earlier'... I was half tempted to say 'no shit, you think pushing that lawnmower was any easier???', but I stopped myself.
Milked, cleaned up, and was then given cleaning the house as my last task... Or basically to sort out bottles and cans and recycling. Wouldn't have been bad but A) Bob told me to do it and B) there was probably a months worth in there because nobody else had gotten around to it. The reason I say that Bob told me to do it was one of my issues was because HIM of all people to tell US about cleanlines... well, that's like the pot calling the kettle black. Half the time he doesn't clean up after making scones (pans left in the kitchen, uncleaned until the next day)... And when they do get cleaned, it's usually us interns that have to clean up after them.
So this morning... milked. Cleaned up. Took out the sheep. Came and got changed to send out a cheese order. Which means I had to work with Ann. I am so sick and tired of her treating me like a two year old also. It seems like ever since I told them that I wanted to leave when my 600 hours is up (which is this weekend), they have been absolutely miserable to me (mainly Ann)... They're trying to get me to stay another week, but honestly, I don't want to just because of her. I can't stand working under her most of the time now. I mean, people should understand the difference between cool weather work and warm weather work. Mowing the lawn with a push lawn mower with a ridiculous incline is NOT warm weather work!!
Good lord... And to top it all off, I have an interview with the business I interviewed with last Tuesday on this Tuesday. When I go home for it, I will certainly have a hell of a hard time coming back here. Hopefully tonight I will sit down and tell them this.
Although, in addition to all of this that has just happened, I then sit back and think. If they had fired that intern like they should have, I wouldn't have had to shovel out the hoppers or probably clean the recycling. I understand that they kept him for a reason, but honestly... Somebody who wrecks your car, has no work ethic, gets out of work as much as possible, shows up to work late, messes up a batch of cheese, and also is a pathalogical liar would not be somebody I would defend.
Of course, there has been a severe lack of communication on their part. And lack of preparation. Like when they went away for the week and didn't order more flour or buy more cream and eggs so some of the baking was thrown off... And how they didn't tell us that an order of feed was coming. And while we were packing cheeses today Ann was criticizing me, and I can accept criticizm when I'm actually doing something wrong that I've learned before but I have only packed cheeses ONE other time, and she was treating me like a five year old and showing me how to do it (but it wasn't portrayed as a nice way when she was doing it)
And the whole week they were gone, the only thing we had to drive was the dodge truck. It's stick and I can't drive stick. At the beginning of this internship when I applied, they said we could drive farm vehicles, so this prepared me if my car ever did die. And when my car dies, they take one cross country and they let the other sit in an airport all week, and yes, both were automatics. They knew I wasn't going to have my car. And also when I was gone on vaca, they never told me they were leaving early or anything. And never told me they were changing the schedule. It's been so much all in the last two weeks that has been bothering me but I've been trying to be good and ignore it or brush it off. I can't anymoreeee.
I just want out. And if I didn't have 12 more hours of work till they gave me my evaluation for this semester, I would just leave. I feel like they are showing me no respect at all and I am not their slave. I am trying to hold my tongue until they evaluate me because I don't want a bad grade this semester for all the busting of my butt that I have done. I've worked my ass off for them this summer and this is how I get repaid... Awesome.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Another week or so has flown by...
My vacation was last week, which was nice to get away from the farm for a few days.
However, my return was not so good. It's so frustrating that they make a schedule and tell you what you're supposed to be doing, and when you come back the boss' are gone and one of the other interns (my least favorite) is telling me what to do. I got back Friday night and they weren't supposed to leave until Saturday afternoon. I understand plans change, but I do carry a cell phone. It's just extremely frustrating. I have so many milking times its not even funny. I think there are only three times where I'm not milking the whole time they're gone. Ugh.
I can't wait to be done. Another thing that has bothered me is their lack of planning about this trip. It's like they ruminated over the schedule and changed it so many times, but they left things undone like the cleaning of their house (which Max had to do), and the ordering of flour so bread and scones can be made, and not getting more cream so we can do the baking. And the feed also came today which NONE of us knew about or where to put it.
Oh well... I've only got a few more weeks here, but after being here and doing everything for them while they're gone will make it much harder to go back to work for them when they come back. I don't like it when they supervise me and tell me what to do because I can think and figure stuff out myself. I guess I think a part of this internship is learning how NOT to manage people also.
Don't get me wrong, I still love them, but I'm just counting down the hours... Only 112.25 left to go which shouldn't take much time at all with the amount of time I've been working and the hours I will be working to come. It's so exciting! That's all for now!
However, my return was not so good. It's so frustrating that they make a schedule and tell you what you're supposed to be doing, and when you come back the boss' are gone and one of the other interns (my least favorite) is telling me what to do. I got back Friday night and they weren't supposed to leave until Saturday afternoon. I understand plans change, but I do carry a cell phone. It's just extremely frustrating. I have so many milking times its not even funny. I think there are only three times where I'm not milking the whole time they're gone. Ugh.
I can't wait to be done. Another thing that has bothered me is their lack of planning about this trip. It's like they ruminated over the schedule and changed it so many times, but they left things undone like the cleaning of their house (which Max had to do), and the ordering of flour so bread and scones can be made, and not getting more cream so we can do the baking. And the feed also came today which NONE of us knew about or where to put it.
Oh well... I've only got a few more weeks here, but after being here and doing everything for them while they're gone will make it much harder to go back to work for them when they come back. I don't like it when they supervise me and tell me what to do because I can think and figure stuff out myself. I guess I think a part of this internship is learning how NOT to manage people also.
Don't get me wrong, I still love them, but I'm just counting down the hours... Only 112.25 left to go which shouldn't take much time at all with the amount of time I've been working and the hours I will be working to come. It's so exciting! That's all for now!
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