Cows for sale!

Too nervous to take a pic while this place was hopping, but for the general idea this is where the cattle come in. The auctioneer stands to the left and the farmers gather around the ring to bid. The sign in the back shows birth date, owner, location. The blue gate is a scale that weighs the cattle before they go into the ring. Everything is weighed in kg. One of the baby calves was 305kg (670lbs) and went for ~600 Euro. Money. It was cool. I went with farmer and sat with other farmers and asked many questions and sat there with wide eyes and a grin on my face the whole time.

His friend bought a calf so we helped him coral it into a trailer and then back to their house. He showed me their 3000Euro cow they bought a few weeks ago and their two baby calves. I got too close to one of them and the mom knocked her head into my butt. Cheeky cows. I was already wearing his hat at this point bc I came unprepared, but then we went to a garage for his mechanic to fix the tractor where I then put on his jacket to complete my ridiculous oversized ensemble. We stayed in the FREEZING warehouse for hours and is likely the cause for me feeling under the weather right now. Wellies are great for keeping feet dry, but terrible at keepin’ em warm.

For the better half of it I was tucked away in the cabin with the doors closed and heat blasting trying to make myself useful by cleaning the windows.

When everything was fixed he told me to hop back in as I was driving it home. Come again? It wasn’t too far, but I drove this monster out of the warehouse and down the street to his farm, laughing to myself the whole time. It was awesome. We got into a big truck he had to return to a friend and warmed up by his fire drinking tea and having a biscuit. I love the tea, biscuit and scone times of day. It was such a fun night of random farmin’ adventures.

The next day I went out again along the farm. This guy lives down the road and I just met him this week. I could have been farming for weeks!! But he gave me a grand ol' tour including a sit in a helicopter

And then off to tag and dehorn more calves. Before:

After:

You take the tags and with an ear piercing looking thing just plug it in between two veins on the ear. They could care less it was going on. We went to a sheep farm and then a beef farm. These boys will be exported for hamburger making.

And then stopped into his house for tea and toast and soup. A lot of people here have dinner around 2PM and then just a small dinner around normal dinner time. After a bit of tv in the toasty room we went to Clonenny or something where we had some pints by the fire and the keeper brought out brown bread with jam after lock in.

And then someone broke into the jeep. Bashed the window and stole the passenger side door handle! Hooligans.....

Back to finals for this smelly lady of farm, cows and curry chips.