Farmer Girl Evy

Ever since finishing my final exams about 3 weeks ago, I’ve been keeping busy completing the remainder of my practical work experience with large animals. I rode a 7 hour train followed by a 1.5 hour bus ride and then a 1 hour car ride to a beef cattle property where I spent a week working with Angus cattle. My jobs included feeding, mustering, grooming, haltering, and doing the dishes. The family was very nice and the husband even had a hearing impairment so we got along really well! He asked me lots of questions about Texas and American history! Was funny because when he’d introduce me to people, he’d say “This is Evelyn, she’s a Texan, and deaf as post just like me!” Lol.

After spending a week with Angus cattle, I spent a week with dairy cattle (Holstein Friesians) only 3 hours from Sydney. The dairy was part of a small agricultural college. Rented a car and dragged Cheryl & Buster with me to keep me company out in the country. The first night, we stayed in a hole in the wall place that looked like one of those places that you rent by the hour…got eaten alive by mosquitos that night. After spending one night there, we ended up spending the remainder of the week at the college student housing. My main jobs at the dairy included feeding, teaching the calves how to drink milk from a bucket, mustering, & lots of milking!! Also did some ear tagging. I liked mustering because I’d get to use a 4 wheeler (or a quad as it is called here) to herd about 200 cows from the paddocks into the milking barn. To teach calves how to drink from a bucket, I’d stick my fingers in their mouth to get the sucking action going & then slowly bring their heads down into the bucket of milk and let them suck the milk & eventually removing my fingers. Once the milk is gone, the calves will try to head butt your crotch or your bum so they can get more milk which can give you quite a shock if you’re not expecting it! Was an exhausting 2 weeks of prac work, but had fun!