Speak Yourself

Phew!

March 13, 2010 at 2:43 pm (On my mind, Think about it) (cows, dairy farm, farm, feature story, food, milk, smell, work)

I’m working on a feature story about a guy who has tested milk for nearly 59 years. And it’s a stinky process.

This guy goes to area dairy farms and weighs the milk each cow produces. He also takes a sample, which is sent for testing and then all the information is stored for each individual cow on a computer. It’s basically a really good management tool for dairy farmers that tells them how to breed cows, when to sell them, et cetera et cetera.

But while on the farm with him, I must admit it’s a bit smelly. Because it’s still chilly, the cows are kept in dry barns where they will be “happier” and produce more milk. This means they are much, much dirtier. They lay in their own poop and are caked in it. If you know anything about cows, they poop all the time (or at least is seems like they do based on the cow plops I hear while on the job…). The odor even seeps into my hair and clothes, which means I come home smelling of cow and get whiffs of it if I don’t take a shower right away.

So when on the site where the milk tester is doing his job, the farm owners show us around the place… which means stepping in poop. Now I’m not squeamish by any means. The only thing that really freaks me out is parasites that prey on humans, so stepping in poop that is basically digested hay and grain is no problem. But thank God I thought to change into my crappy scrub shoes. They REEK of cow manure and I don’t honestly know if I’ll be able to keep them after the story is done. Thank goodness they were already old and ratty.

But it’s interesting to see the process. As kids, my sisters and I drank a lot of milk. It was one of our favorite drinks and from what I remember, we had it with nearly every meal. I still love milk and I think chocolate milk is the best drink in the world. I can’t remember it, but my parents took us to a farm that demonstrated where milk came from and they thought we would never drink milk again. I never think about where milk or other food comes from. I just go to the store an pick it up out of a cooler or off the shelf. It’s somewhat odd to see the very first step of the process in getting my milk to the store because I quite simply never think about it. It makes me wonder where some of my other food comes from and how it starts out.

Just something to think about.

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