We have have started our woofing adventures at our first farm : The Farm of Esmeralda, in Normandy. The farm is ran by Lucile, with the help of her husband Nicolas and her two kids, Etienne (7) and Helene (3). The work revolves a lot around the goats, and they require a lot more then I thought ;-)
Most of the day yesterday was spent herding the goats around the huge terrain that makes up this farm. (they seem to be walking and eating ALL day). Most of the time though, the goats walk you and not the other way around. There's also a shepherd's dog, Edwin, which is supposed to help with the goats herding, although as Nicolas says, controlling Edwin is half the trick of controlling the goats. Edwin sometimes charges off on his own and steers the goats the other way, just when you had them going where you wanted. And believe me, controlling 87 goats is not an easy task. Not to mention getting them all back into their barn, which can take a looong time (yes! 2 more in; oops, 4 went out. Ok, that's another 3 in; damn I lost 5 more !)
After running up and down after all the goats (Normandy is quite hilly), it's time to put them to bed for the night, separate the adults from the kids (so the kids don't drink all the milk) and feed the baby goats. Some of them feed from their moms, some other will be fed by baby bottles (cute!). There is one little baby goat that was born 2 days ago and is not in the best of shape. It sleeps inside by the fireplace but needs constant attention as it tried to get inside the fire a few times already !
8pm, it's finally time to get back home and make dinner (long day !!). We gulped down our dinners and passed out before 10pm, absolutely exhausted.
This morning we woke up at 7am, had breakfast and went straight to milk the goats. It takes a while to get the hang of it, but after a couple of goats, Rick and I were much more comfortable with it (even though Lucile was milking 4 goats when we were half done with one...). The goat milk is used to make goat cheese, in the brand new lab that we helped finishing this morning !
This afternoon is off, so we taking the time to do some interneting (as you can see) and will even try to go for a run. The days work by shift, so we can do 8am - 1pm or 2pm - 7pm shift, plus a little help in the kitchen. Attached are some pics of the farm, the fields, the goats, and us !
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