What a Good Boss
Ahhh. Another fine day on the farm. Well, not my farm. I don’t have a farm, remember the faux part is where I come in. This is my neighbor’s farm. They are bringing in the hay so their son has to do a lot of the barn chores.He told me that he had to start his chores at 6:45am. I asked him what he had to do and he told me the list of all his chores. The one that I really liked was feeding the pigs. I never fed a pig and told him that. He offered to let me come along with him in the morning and help with the chores if I wanted to. OK, it was a tough decision. On the one hand -it is a faux farmer dream to drop in a farm for just an hour or two. On the other hand, the really good part of being a faux farmer is that you are still sleeping and dreaming when all the real farmers are working. Farm or sleep, farm or sleep. I made a decision and told him that I would be ready to work at 6:45am and sure enough at 6:45 he was ready to go to the barn. I asked him what time his dad got up and I loved his response. He said “my dad stands up at 5am”. Well, that is putting it plainly. Not waking up but standing up - that is the true test of being awake. Are you standing up?
We went into the barn and over to the corn feed bin. He said “if the stall had two mules I was to put in one large scoop- half in each bin. Don’t use the the deep bin as that is for hay. Now try to keep the same amount for each mule. In a stall with one mule, give him just a half a scoop.” Then we had to feed the dog, Sparky, who stole my work glove. Next we gave the ponies and horses their grain. Back to the mules, they each got one slice of hay, in the big deep bin. If I didn’t do it correctly, he gently showed me how and then let me do it. Next, yeah! We get to feed the pigs. They got a bucket of corn cobs and water. They were very stinky and it wasn’t as much fun as I thought. They looked rather mean or it that because I just watched a show about feral pigs on the Discovery Channel? The show said that in one generation a farm pig that has escaped to the wild grows bristly hair, a longer snout, tusks and is very vicious. They were actually just mean because I noticed Alvin was very cautious in the pig pen and had the bucket ready to use as a shield as he eased his way out of the pen. BABE? NOT! Then he asked if I wanted to see the kittens and all the milking cows.
So we checked them out. We went back to the mule barn and then he pulled the doors closed and opened the first stall and let the mules out. I didn’t see that coming. They don’t have water in their stalls and have to be let out to drink. So mule after mule the doors open and out they come and when they are done they just go back to their stall and get locked back in. They are huge, really huge. The oldest mule was 15 and the youngest was 3 and he wasn’t very big at all. They don’t fill out till about 5.
Then it was time to sweep the barn. I started sweeping left to right moving towards the door but he said “let me show you” and he swept in a straight line towards the door. How was I to know? Now the most important thing to remember about all of this is that Alvin is 8 years old. Yes, I said 8, eight, one year more than 7. He took his job seriously and he took his teaching of me very seriously. And he was good at both. On the way back we noticed that one of the new calves had gotten out of the pen. We tried to get him back and I actually caught him at one point and tried to hold onto him but he kept pushing me towards the electric fence.
Ouch, I wasn’t going there, so I let him go. I think he was banking on that move. When I tried to get him again he ran into the fence and it zapped him. Crackle! He looked at me like it was all my fault. Cows! Jacob came out and wrestled him back to the other barn where there were about 30 more little calves. They were so cute and little. It was a fine day. Chores done by 8:30am. Time to go home and take a nap! Alvin had to go back and do it again at 4pm. I had to go to work.
I would rather have stayed at the Faux Farm and swept the barn again. Oh well!
Faux Farm Girl,
Ann