Milking cows - an expose...

I like milking cows.

Despite the 3:30am starts and my fingers being so swollen now that I can no longer wear my wedding ring there's something enjoyable about it. It's not the fact I'm groping cow's teets all day that does it, I think it is because it is like squeezing a stress ball for 5 hours a day.

I may wake up barely able to move my fingers in the morning, but when the first cow comes mooing to me and the milk starts flowing I soon forget the pain. I've managed to beat my four a day habit and am now managing to milk 14 a day without any problems. The most I've managed in two hours was nine and a half (for some reason they didn't want me to finish the last one all by myself - it was probably because I was starting to look like Ozzy Osbourne with my DT) - they seemed impressed with that.

Contrary to what I believed before I had ever milked a cow, it is not simply moving your hand up and down which produces a torrent of white liquid, it is more of a clenching motion. Imagine rolling your fingers down at each joint and then pressing into the palm of your hand as hard as possible whilst moving up and down. It is something like this. You can feel your triceps tense with each squeeze, and the tendons in your wrists start to ache as the morning or afternoon goes on.

Mind you not all cows are equal. There are a wide variety of different teets, some are long and thin (usually very easy), some are small and thin (ridiculously difficult especially if you have big hands), some are thick and long (a little bit tough, but not too bad - the downside is you usually end up with blisters on your index fingers), and those that are thick and small (once again extremely difficult). The amount of cows with superfluous nipples when compared to humans is quite astonishing. It is not unusual for them to have more five or six teets sometimes. Obviously these teets don't work and are generally just there to throw you off your stroke (so to speak you filthy minded individuals). Some of the teets produce a constant flow of frothy milk that comes up and splashes you in the face when it hits the bucket while others produce a fine stream of the white stuff which leaves you straining over the bucket for a good half an hour. Some are tough to milk and others aren't - you can rarely tell before you get a grip on them.

But in general cows are nice creatures anyway (not their ugly male counterparts however). It always reminds me a little of hometime at a boarding school when I head down to the milking pen as the Bezerros (baby cows - amended spelling to be correct now...) are kept separately all day and this is the only time they get to see their mums. The mums enter the pen (with a bit of coercion and Michael Jackson) and after they have chilled out a bit start to moo to their children. I've realised that they've got several different kind of moos. There is the more commonly known 'moo' which just seems to be something they do in their own time, there is the grunting 'moo' which seems to be when they are calling for their children, and of course the more sultry 'moo' to try and coax the bull into only having eyes for her. Once we decide to milk a cow we let the bezerro out of its pen and watch it try to find its mother - it generally knows who it is (apart from one cow which tries to feed from every cow much to their annoyance). Once found, we let it suckle a small amount of milk (there's obviously a fine line between feeding the children and letting them drink your profits) before tying a rope around its neck and tying it to its mothers front legs. We then tie up the mother's back legs so she can no longer move. Once this is done she is powerless to stop us having our wicked way with her. The bezerros always call to their mum's. It's quite sweet in a way.

My ability to tie up these hefty heffers is getting better and better. I can tie a slipknot round their ankles and the babies' mouths faster than they can run away from me (just the way I like it). Once I have done the deed and let them run away from me the filthy creatures.

Whilst my opinion of cows has gone up highly through waking up to them every morning, my opinion of chickens has gone down rapidly. I see them every day scrabbling through cow shit and urine eating it and gobbing it down. They're horrible animals.

On the subject of bovine excretions, I am slowly getting used to being covered in cow poo. The worst moments come however when you are tying up their hind legs and you suddenly see their tail lift up in the air. Then you know you're in trouble - you're either going to be on the receiving end of some fecal matter or a golden shower. Not sure which is better. There have been times when I've run away like a girl I must be honest. Every day when I come home Cristina quickly orders me to have a shower and leave my clothes outside. It's odd I can't smell any difference, I'm probably used to being surrounded by it all day.

On average we fill about 500 litres a day by hand three of us milking together day in and day out. Every day I try to beat the amount of cows I did the day before and love to milk those dirty cows more and more. We fill up 50 litre urns through a filter which skins off the cream from the top which we then put in a bowl and give to the cats and dogs - possibly where the phrase 'the cat that got the cream' came from. Maybe not, but it's a nice thought.

At the end of the day to some up my opinions of milking cows:

If there's no shake in your milk you're doing it wrong.

My first day at the farm...

...A 'how to' in disappointing your father-in-law

We arrived at the farm on a sunny (what are the chances?) Friday afternoon. We settled into the farm house and had a few drinks before heading to bed to prepare for my first full day of work at the farm. I asked Cristina (the missus) what time she thought her parents would start in the morning to which she responded '5am'. Early I know, but to be expected really, so I snuggled down for a cosy nights sleep.

Imagine my horror when at 3:30am I heard a stirring coming from Cristina's parents room as they awoke. I was still in a state of shock when the front door closed at 3:45am as they headed down to the farm. I quickly jumped out of the bed leaving a very much awake and disgruntled wife (the best reason to get up in the morning in my opinion). I quickly got changed and headed for the guest's bathroom where I hurriedly brushed my teeth with the first toothbrush to hand - I prayed to god it was not regularly used to clean the toilet.

Picking up a few Pão de Queijo (the staple breakfast of Brazil) I headed for the door and out into the morning at 3:55am. With the farm being in the middle of nowhere and no lights on anywhere nearby I was surprised that even at this time of the morning, in pitch black, the full moon cast shadows. Anyway, I made the ten minute walk down to the farm to the cows enclosure.

Next followed for me a relatively surreal moment.

I arrived at the cow enclosure to see around 40 cows all huddled together. Although the lights were on, as far as I could tell there was no one there. Not unusual you may say, but for the fact that a radio was blasting out Prince's 'Purple Rain' to the cows. It was like some late night bovine club as they shifted from foot to foot, jittered and moved about slowly, bleary eyed as if they'd been taking drugs.

It was only after about a minute of taking this in that I realised that Cristina's parents and Maurice the farmhand were hunched under the cows milking away on their stools. I lumbered over the fence and proceeded to join them. I took it slow and milked four cows dry by 6am – they weren't impressed. After this I  helped Cristina's dad (Carlinho – little Carlos in English) to feed the cows.

After a quick refresher course on the tractor I was ready to go and moved the beast into place next to the storehouse. Carlinho and I lugged six bags of food each half the size of a man to the back of the tractor and drove off to the feeding fields (two gates away). We laid down the mush (not very appetising, but I guess it had a lot of fibre in it – probably the reason they fart so much) and headed back to the milking pen where we carried the five full urns of milk to the milk storing machine (not it's technical name, but I don't know what it's called. It's a big metal tank which holds around 1,100 litres and has a big spatula type thing in the middle of the lid which periodically rotates to stop the milk settling). These things were heavy, but after a lot of huffing and puffing we managed to lift them up and empty them into the tank.

It was about 7am now so we drove the tractor up to the house for a half an hour breakfast before heading out once again.

Getting back onto the tractor we were to head to another farm. The trip was going well right up until the point I nearly ran over a colchete (a type of fence which is purely wire and wood for ease of access). Carlinho had to quickly ram his foot on the brakes as the tractor hurtled towards the thin pieces of wire. I feigned ignorance and blamed it on my lack of glasses, but in truth I think I was looking at the scenery... that was disappointment number two! He got down and opened the fence and we headed to the next farm where we greeted the farmer and settled in for a few drinks. The reasons for going here are still not obvious to me, but I think it was to drink a couple of shots of cachaça as this was all we did!

On the way back to Carlinho's farm we picked up a trailer and attached it to the tractor which upon arrival we filled up with prepared posts and wire to build a fence around a new sugar cane field. It was only after picking them up that we realised we were three posts short of a full fence. Darn it. This meant that we had to endure a torturous two hour tractor drive round a neighbouring field to find three pieces of broken tree that were straight enough and about six foot in length. Not easy, especially with me not wearing any glasses. We eventually did find three pieces of the right size and stature, but not before I had managed to drop one of the said pieces of wood on my foot. Considering it took two of us to carry this thing I'm surprised I didn't break anything. Carlinho just gave me a nervous laugh...

With our wood collected and dropped off at the field we headed back for lunch and a siesta. I had an hours sleep and was a bit peeved to wake up to find a swarm of flies hovering overhead. They'd obviously been attracted by the smell of cow shit, sweat, and calf saliva all over me. Cristina's a lucky lady.

At 14:00 we headed back for another milking session which lasted 3 hours, after which Carlinho and I went about placing the posts for the circa into the field and ensuring that they lined up. All of this was done by eye which made it even more painstaking. Again, largely because I refused to wear my glasses. This was so painstaking in fact that we got to about halfway when Carlinho asked if we should go and have a drink at his friends farm (the same one who supplied us with the alcohol earlier). We got to the farm and he wasn't there so we helped ourselves in, had a bite to eat, and helped ourselves to some more cachaça. I thnk Carlinho decided to call it a day at this point as we didn't head back to the half built fence, but instead went fishing in the farmer's field. In total we caught two fish, but in the process I managed to break two fishing lines much to Carlinho's disappointment. It appears as though fishing isn't my strong point as we would have managed to double our catch otherwise.

As the winds signalled oncoming storm clouds we ran to the tractor and back to the house where after an evening meal I fell asleep. The first day at the farm was long, but wasn't as tiring as I had expected – I could imagine however that doing it day in and day out was what made it tiring. One thing was for sure however, I certainly wasn't a natural farmer!