The joys of getting older and fun on the farm!

Here I am six weeks into my thirteen week placement. It is all passing very quickly and we are trying to pack as much as possible into our remaining weekends. I have had such a great experience so far. I was pretty down before coming out here applying for jobs day in day out and not getting any interviews and not being the best candidate. Here everyone is treated as an equal and the work that is being done is appreciated which is so refreshing.

I turned 24 on Sunday and I couldn’t help but think that when I was 18 I thought that I would have my life sorted out by this stage. I do not and that’s okay because one day I am going to do something amazing and until then I am going to enjoy getting there! I spent Saturday in the sun in Ubeda and then we went bowling and for the first time that I can remember I did not come last! We then went out for a few cheeky beverages on Saturday night and partied Spanish style until 6/7 in the morning. On Sunday I got to catch up with family and friends on Skype and at the flat we celebrated me getting older with homemade chorizo sausage rolls and a banoffee sundae made by Marcus (Thanks again!) It was a chilled out weekend spent with some awesome people!

I was overwhelmed by the number of people that made the effort to send cards out to Spain as I thought my birthday may pass relatively unnoticed at home. It was great to put them all together and receive air mail. Thank you all! My parents kindly send me over a new jacket so now when I socialise I do not have to smell goaty, delighted does’t even cover it.

Work never fails to amaze me. Every day Elysia and I come home with a new story. It ranges from the tractor roof blowing off, a goat death/birth or some misinterpretation due to us still finding our feet with the language. Take for example me trying to explain to the farmer in Spanish that I worked with polar bears in Scotland and they liked eating mayonnaise. This is not exactly a common sentence in English never mind in Spanish.

Last week I said there were three kid goats born and now I can report that there are over forty! In one week!! They are just popping out everywhere. At one stage on Tuesday there were three giving birth at the same time. The speed at which they come out is crazy and within five minutes the kid is standing and after half an hour they are running around. It is so sweet having so many baby goats everywhere. They are so playful and inquisitive. And if that wasn’t good enough there are also piglets on the farm!! They are the cutest things ever and the runt of the litter fits into the palm of my hand.  

Goat photobomb

Yesterday we also had to deal with a goat giving birth while in the milking room. Had the goat been standing up this would have been a simple task of taking its neck out of the hold and taking it out into the shed. But no of course things were not going to be easy; the goat lay down and made the process a whole lot more difficult. After much deliberation the mum was out of the hold and the baby was happy and healthy!

The milking room is proving to be a place of risks as just before the above birth I was approximately one second away from getting diarrhoea all over my face! I luckily managed to run away just in time (running and screaming) but now I am terrified as it has happened to the farmers’ daughter and wife already. With this in mind today one goat ‘fired’ its poo across the milking room and it narrowly missed Elysia. I feel like it is not a case of if it will happen but when and I am not looking forward to this day.

I will keep you all updated on the poop developments.

Laura xox 

Goats, goats and mas cabras

Be prepared for many goat pictures over the next few weeks as work is where I am currently spending the vast majority of my time.  There are now baby goats on the farm!! There have been three born so far and I managed to capture one of the births on film. Feel free to watch at your leisure but if you are squeamish then do not blame me if you do not enjoy the wonder of life haha.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkKxq8cW6MY

We have seen life and sadly some death at the farm. I was not prepared for the attachment I would have towards the livestock. I should be viewing them as producers of milk and meat but I can’t help but find them cute and get a bit sad when they die. This is what I like to call ‘character building’, I will come out of this a stronger person!  There are guard dogs on the farm and my favourite is called Cheo as she is so hyper and bouncy all the time and reminds me of our dog Ollie at home.  There is also a duck that thinks it is a goat and I think it is the best thing ever as I feel like I am living in the film ‘Babe’.

Next week we are hopefully being taken to the quesoria and the goats might get let out of the shed and we can get our own walking sticks to herd them in the fields. I am so excited! Definitely learning a lot while I am out here and I cannot believe that it is coming up for five weeks in Spain already.

At the weekend we took a trip to Cazorla Natural Park. A friend of a friend was our own personal tour guide for the day and he was able to tell us about the area and took us places that we could not have reached without a car. Sadly it was very wet and foggy but the views were still awesome and I am looking forward to going back on a nicer day. On our route back the fog was so thick that we could not see the terrifying S bend corners that could have resulted in driving down the cliff. Why did we carry on? Well our driver said he knew the road by memory….. Luckily he did know it very well and we all made it back safely!

This weekend I am saying goodbye to 23 as it is my birthday on Sunday. Plans are very weather dependent at the moment as originally we were going to take part in activities such as rafting or caving but that is not looking likely at the moment so we will have to see where we end up!

I cannot get over how much I am enjoying living in Spain and listening to the language. My understanding is increasing every day but my speech still needs improvement. I am enjoying learning it though and small conversations with people feel like mini achievements. 

Laura xox

Life on the farm!

Work is going well and I am learning a lot! Alongside the goats I got to visit an olive factory this week to see where everything gets processed. Olives are everywhere here and are very important for the area! We visited Juans olive patch and his is the only organic one within the local area. The difference on the ground is immediately obvious as there is grass everywhere whereas the mass produced areas are bare, waterlogged and full of gullies. He is an inspirational man and talks highly about the ecological aspects of both olives and farming (and I understood what he was saying!). 

He only started up the farm six years ago with his family and is very passionate about it. His plans for the future include vermiculture for the insects that are on the farm, increasing the number of goats from 500 to 800 and opening up opportunities for agritourism such as showing children where their food/drink naturally comes from and possibly horse trekking. I wish him all the best in his endeavours as he has the passion and vision to carry it forward.

Every day at the farm we milk around 300 goats in the morning and then we have breakfast. Following this we feed all the goats, clean the shed, feed to the pigs, dogs and collect the eggs from the chickens. It is not a bad life! We have also made some cheese which is something that I hope to do again when I get home.

The happiest goat of all time!

Milking the goats has provided many entertaining moments so far. I have sadly already been pooed on, as much as I tried to avoid it! I am getting slightly concerned that I now recognise more of the goats by their back end rather than their face! For anyone who has seen the edited version of the Taylor Swift song with the goats should know that they make those sorts of noises all the time and it can be quite something. If you are milking and that sound comes out it can be quite unnerving as I might well make the same sound if someone came up behind me and attached suckers without asking haha! I am really enjoying working with these animals and they are providing plenty of entertainment. My technique for catching kid goats definitely needs to improve as at the moment I am just running up and down the shed being outsmarted by a 6 month year old animal!

This weekend we went out on the Friday night to celebrate us completing our first week of work and on Sunday we walked to Úbedas neighbour town Baeza. We went through olive fields, across dual carriageways and up steep hills but we made it in one piece! They had the best churros, beautiful buildings, the sun was shining and we had the Sierra Mágina all around us what more could we want in life?

These pictures don't do it justice as I was using my phone and I felt like it was time to include some photos of me haha. 

Laura xox