Living experience on a raw food farm – Day 2

Day 2 12/14/04

Ok, I’m tired, I admit it. It’s a good tired. My back is sore and I still feel good. I’ll probably still feel good as long as my back doesn’t give out or get too sore.

Cows are dirty. They’re more than dirty, they’re filthy. They shit everywhere and I mean everywhere: On their udders, on my shoes, they flick it in my face, they can rebound it off the wall and make it land in my mouth or in their vaginas. I seriously don’t understand why cows don’t have major vaginal infections. They shit right on their vaginas. The poop oozes out of their ass, slides across the taint or no-mans land and then oozes ever slowly, slowly across and in their vagina. They don’t care, they’re oblivious to it. They might even like it. I don’t understand how human women have to pee after sex or they get vaginal infections but cow women can poop in their vaginas and be fine. Maybe that’s why men are attracted to sheep more than cows, because even “the shit in the pussy thing” is a turn off even to potential beastialiters.

I like to talk to the cows, when I go to the barn in the morning. When they are all there I like to say “Hello Girls” or “How are my Angels” like Charlie’s Angels. They all look at me when I say it; maybe they are saying “Hi Charlie” back. When I clean their udders before I milk them, I’m supposed to say “Whoa” and touch them on the flank so they know I’m there. When I clean their udders, if they are particularly dirty ones, I like to say in a sleazy voice “You’re a dirty girl,” or “aren’t you a dirty girl” and “You’re a dirty girl...Ain’t ‘cha”. I really get a kick out of it. When I’m done cleaning them or milking them, I like to say “Thank You”. If just feels right. I know if someone was rubbing my nipples against my will I would want them to say thank you also. One of them tried to kick me a couple of times today.

I cleaned and packed chicken eggs today(1). It took me over four hours and I still didn’t get them all done. It’s funny, I’m so used to having someone come and rescue me when I get too tired or have been working at the same task for too long. The Amish simply don’t care. Or maybe they do care, but are just used to doing repetitive tasks for so long that it doesn’t bother them(2). I was cold and sore in the basement, cleaning chicken poop and vaginal debris off of brown eggs. Chicken eggs are disgusting. Want to know what a chicken egg looks like fresh out of the chicken? Bloody tampon + the contents of a lawn mower bag + egg = Fresh chicken egg.

Barn animals are disgusting, yet cute in a strange sort of way. I went on my first horse and buddy ride today with Peter, Albert’s father. We went to Homer Adams’s house to make ice cream. They had a gas powered ice cream machine. Horse and buggy rides are fun. The best part is when the horse poops and the smell hits you right in the face.

Peter is nice; he cares about good food and believes in what he’s doing. I’m tired. For breakfast I had eggs over easy, yeasted, soaked spelt bread, some kind of sausage gravy thing cooked in copious amounts of butter. (Albert adds more when Marie isn’t looking). Real milk + yogurt. For lunch I just snacked as the day went on and ate Kefir, raw eggs, cream, and cream with honey. For dinner I had mashed potatoes with butter (Albert added more), chunks of ham, garden fresh frozen peas, and a slice of sourdough spelt bread, and lots of butter. My hands smell like cow poop. Goot-Nat (Good Night)

1. Albert had a hen house with over 3000 chickens in it. It was about the length and width of a football field. He was packaging these eggs to be sold under the Organic Valley Free-Range/Cage-Free label. I asked him how could they be marketed under Free-Range/Cage-Free if they didn’t even get that much sunlight and they were crowded together. He said, “I try to let them out as much as possible, but during the winter it is too cold, they would die. Also, I am only required to give them 1.75 sq ft. of space for each bird to be considered Free-range.” Actually, there is no real legal definition for those types of eggs. Albert wasn’t a bad person or trying to mislead people. It was just too expensive for him to not raise them the way he did.

2. I spent hours in this dusty, dark “free-range” barn working alongside Susan and Naomi; two 14 year old Amish workhorses. I remember them bent over the egg conveyor belt, cleaning the debris off eggs in the fading sunlight. Not once did they take a break, go to the bathroom or complain. I was really able to see the difference between our two cultures. In their culture, in some ways, the sexes are more equal. Even skinny, 14 year old girls have to do the same heavy, manual labor that boys and adults do. And they never complain. I honestly think that was the first time in my life that I chose not to weasel my way out of something. It was at the second, in the dark, allergen filled chicken house of death that I pushed passed that invisible barrier and started to become a man.

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