How to stretch your cat, and other farm lessons, from Amanda L.

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Rehfeld, the first few weeks...

My new home stay is a cosy farm house in the middle of the woods (mostly pine forrest) about an hour south of Berlin. My Rehfeld adventures began with a yummy dinner when I arrived and it turns out Germans also live for bread! Omg Europeans and bread! Haha If I eat too much bread I get as big as a house! Luckily I went to bed early as I was super tired. This morning we got up at 7am to go feed the foals which are in a stable about 10mins down the road. There are five of them and they are about six months old. All very sweet. I tried to learn their names and colours as I will have to do all the work by myself next week after the girl Gerlind (my host mum) currently has working has to leave. Her name is Chrissy and she is from the USA. There was a brown horse called Mary, a chestnut called Hosta, a grey horse called Galaxy, another grey called Hippolita and the male foal is called Vernado. We then went and took down an electric fence, got candy from a tractor driver who also took us for a ride inside his tractor cab to warm us up (taking candy from complete strangers...yep!)....it was soooooo cold and snowing sooo much. Then we built another fence. After that we cleaned out all of the other stables as all the horses will be going into their new homes inside tonight rather than being outside. We spent an hour or more shovelling grain into a massive mountain pile in a room above the stables and then finally our last job was to move an enormous hay bale into a shed. I was exhausted.

Oh and did I mention its -9 outside and Gerlind says it isn't cold yet. Next week will be -15 and it wont really get cold til after christmas. Far out. I wore 3 layers on the bottom half today and 5 layers on the top, a beanie and scarf covering my entire face excpet my eyes.....any colder and I wont have enough room for more layers! Haha

The other horses in town are split into groups, 2 brood mares in one stable, 5 geldings in another stable, 1 boss gelding and his 4 mares and 1 pony (who later on turns out to be slightly evil), and lastly 3 individual stables for 1 old pony and 2 brood mares. Oh and back in the home paddocks there is one Shetland, two Welsh mountain ponies and 2 young horses currently being broken in.

Notes from emails sent home....

Lunch today was interesting....bratwurst with cheese inside, and home made chicken soup made from a chicken who was previously wandering outside in the pen.....note to self: do not get attached to the chickens, as they will later be dinner. Haha

A rundown of week two...

Tuesday we did the animals in the morning, then had to walk the perimeter of all 3 paddocks to check the wires of the electric fencing. The paddocks are huge so it took a long time and we were so exhausted anc hungry afterwards. After we had breakie we walked the dogs and worked with one of the young horses. Chrissy had to de-register from the local city hall which was in the next town 20-30mins away. I drove, but the snow was slippery and I lost control of the car on a corner trying to brake and nearly hit another car...scary but it was ok, I was driving slowly enough for it not to be a problem. It was easy fof chrissy to de register so we drove around town looking for the main road in town and the town centre... As it turned out, we were on it. Haha We stopped at the bakery for yummies and then drove home. I am not used to driving on the wrong side of the road and drifted too far to the snow on the side which ended up pulling the car over and I was stuck in a ditch. Luckily the German man in the car behind me drove it out and we went on...i had one other slight slide on the way back and when we finally got back to Rehfeld we saw a car that was fully wedged in a ditch. So I was lucky I had been going so slow.

Now just to get the horses in an head home. But the horses (the foals in particular) then decided that instead of going into the stables, they would run around the paddock for 20-30 minutes like mad crazy things...it took Chrissy and I 3-4 attempts before we got them inside. I was exhausted, I was also a little sad as an elderly family member back home had passed away. So when I tried a sentence is German after dinner and got it wrong and Gerlind said, no it's all wrong, and then chrissy said 'you wouldn't even say that in English' I lost it. Had a bit of a melt down, some tears, and went to bed. It was just too overwelming. So much to take in with a new home, new horses, new dogs, new work, new routine, new driving, loss of family member, and then on top of it all I continue to fail at my attempts at German. I slept from 9pm til 7am next morning...so that tells you how tired I was.

Wednesday
So next morning I was still frustrated by everything and after breakie, had a few tears when Gerlind continued to press me as to why I was not happy. I tried to explain that expecting me to know all the German words in a whole sentence was too much, I was overloaded and frustrated that I just kept continually failing to understand anything and being dissapointed at how little I had to communicate with in German. She said it wasn't a big problem, and we went off to do the horses stables. I was still grumpy, mostly with my own progress. We came back and walked the dogs seperately, I had the mountain dog, Alaska and Learsha.....which went all ok. Until.....Learsha, the 'killer dog' terrier who was still on the leash, got excited about something on the top step of the house. She attacked (didn't get the nickname killer dog for nothing) and I couldn't figure out what she had in her mouth. Turned out, it was one of Gerlind's cats. My immediate reaction..."OH s****!" I dragged her by the lead to the bottom of the steps and screamed at her and tried to lift her up by the lead to slightly strangle her so she would let go. Plan A fail. She held onto the cat's throat... Plan B.....grab my beanie off my head and start wackin her with it. Hmm Alaska thought 'this is a great game! I will join in' and promptly started to eat the other end of the cat. Plan B= EPIC FAIL! My current thoughts..... ¡¡¡¡¿¿*******!!!!???? Oh dear, not only can I not speak German, I have also torn the cat into two pieces. Double s***! Plan C: scream for help, wack all dogs with hat....eventually Learsha let go....cat ran for the nearest pine tree with Alaska close on her heels...luckily I was still half choking Learsha on her lead rope. After I put the dogs inside, Chrissy turns up with the other dogs (she claimed she heard the cat scream, but I explained it was actually just me...haha this is only funny much much later) and we all check the trees for cat....she was bleeding on the tree and glaring daggers at me, but still alive. Thankfully. Wouldn't come down though....Gerlind arrived home after lunch and Chrissy and I were to go to Leipzig on the train. We had a great afternoon at the Weinhachten markets (Christmas market) eating yummy food and checking out the markets. The cat, named Mouse, turned up for dinner and was alive and just sore and had a few scratches....thank goodness.

Thursday
So the fun not quite over....Thursday morning the two brood mares who are stabled together, one old and timid, the other mean and aggressive. Well I managed to tie up thr agressive one with the wrong clip, she got loose and tried to kill the other mare by kicking her against the fence where she couldn't get away as she was still tied up. More screaming, more distractions with hitting her with whatever I got my hands on....lead rope. Luckily she took my opening the gate to kill her as a signal it was time to stop kicking the quite mare and leave....I was so over it. No more!!! The quiet horse seems ok, she could walk but is stiff. Chrissy left at lunchtime so the afternoon shift I was on my own for the first time.

Of course....the foals were painful, didn't go in where they were supposed to, jumped the temporary hose gate I had placed there to stop them....fail on another plan A. Then once they and the stallions (called stallions even though 4 out of 5 are geldings) got in...luckily just the mares to go....just 11 horses. In 3 different areas...and I forgot which exact chestnut went in which stable...arg. One horse remembered, but as I got her in the right stable, another pony slipped through....very annoying (turns out this is that black slightly eveil pony...who makes frequent appearances in all dramatic events). Then I got the mean and aggresive brood mare in and then her poor timid stabled mate who was beaten up this morning....5 down, 6 to go....not too bad.... Except the stupid black pony who had slipped through only minutes previously decided to slip under the fence....break it free from the wall (it is only electric fencing which isn't wired up) and then let all 6 horses remaining FREE! Free completely to the town of Rehfeld, where they promptly headed for the local church. Yes, I inspired them to become religious.....might have been my shouts of "oh my god! Oh my god!". Nooooo!!!!! So I chased them around and around the areas outside the stable for a good half hour before I could distract them long enough to fix all the fences and then heard them back to where they should be....tie them all up and feed them. I was sooo late getting home. So that was the last and final drama. :-)

Friday
Nothing tricky, no animals killed eachother....all over. Managed to feed all the horses, let them out, have breakie, clean 7 stables, lunge the young horse, take 5 dogs for a walk, let the horses back in and feed them, feed the dogs....all without huge dramas. Yyyyyaaaayyyy.

Saturday
Only drama was when letting the ponies into the stable, I didn't know the cat (called Mouse...the one I stretched with the dogs) had decided that they fresh hay was quite warm...so she was lying curled up, right beneath the pony's belly who I had just walked into the stall. I have no idea how she didn't step on her when I led her in. When I realised and reached for the pony, she promptly turned around....yep....you guessed it.....and stood on the cat. Who screamed and scampered off with a NEW limp. Omg....first I stretch the poor cat, now I had a pony walk on it....how many lives has the poor thing used in just one week?!

But all is ok now....and so begins my time of routine, mental contemplation and being at one with a pine forest. Christmas is looming so my next blog will be a run down of how it is similar / different from a christmas in Australia.

P.s. Mouse (the cat) is all ok, no more injuries and back to her usual business of catching giant rats and eating them for dinner! I am just so happy she is alive, I congratulated her on the capture of the rat! :-)

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