Queen of the cows

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Hokitika

I arrived in Hokitika on a Friday at about 2. By 3 I had seen everything Hokitika had to offer - and had 30 minutes to spare for a cup of tea. However my next wwoofing destination was a bus ride away and the bus only stops once a day. With hindsight I would have just used the 40 minute lunch break during the bus journey to see Hokitika and then carried on to Ross. Well with true hindsight I would have just stayed on to the glaciers and avoided one of the strangest weeks of my life.

Hokitika is famous for jade carving and a Wild Foods Festival which takes place every March. I was a week early, but assumed I would be staying at the farm until at least the next Saturday. I still wasn't actually sure I was going to the farm - sometimes I spoke to the farmer and he was perfectly clear about who I was and when I was arriving. Sometimes he got my name wrong and kept on saying to me 'well, telephone me when you are near' .... errr, but that is why I am calling now. Once we met I realised that the cause of the confusion was often found at the bottom of a bottle of red wine.

Ross

Even though the farm is a mere 6 kilometres from a bus stop, the farmer insisted that anyone arriving by bus demand the driver drop them off at the top of the road to the farm. When the driver dropped me off there was nobody there to meet me. He said that he hoped someone was coming, and so did I. I was quite tempted to get back on the bus and head for Franz Josef Glaciers. Looking back I can't believe I ignored all these indications that I should run for the hills.

Christiana, a German girl also wwoofing, came and met me. When we got back she showed me my room - I was downstairs and, true luxury in that house, had a room with a door. The other two young girls and the farmer were upstairs - with no bedroom doors. Very young girls, very old farmer, very no doors - is there only me that finds this oversight really, really creepy? It was several days before I realised this, by which time I had already written the farmer off as a freak, but for the time being I was assuming he was normal, or at least what passes for normal as far as farmers are concerned. There was another young girl there - Ryoku from Japan who was really friendly. Her English wasn't good - although far better than my Japanese which is limited to 'Sushi', but she was very hard working and always smiling. We communicated with a lot of pointing and laughing.

Christiana took me out to one of the paddocks and showed me how to catch a calf and lead it around. Some of the cows are taken to shows and so they have to learn early how to be harnessed and lead. Christiana caught them by getting them to put their head in a bucket of food, and they would also unwittingly put their head through the harness to get to the food. You had to wait until they made contact with the food and started eating before you then pulled the harness over their ears and secured it. It took me ages to master this, I felt so hopeless, poor Christiana felt guilty for having even suggested it. She kept on saying to me 'wait until they start eating' - but do I look like a patient person? The calves stood on my feet - and they are heavy, or I tried to pull the harness over their ears too early and they bolted. One was really greedy, and so was the bull calf, so they were easy to catch. Leading them around was another problem altogether - in the end they only allowed us to lead them because we waved the food bucket at them. Christiana told me that cows hate to be separated from the herd, so that was why we had two harness and lead two at once. A few days later I went out on my own for a bit of harness practice and managed to harness two and lead them - actually beg, drag and heave would be more appropriate. That evening Christiana asked me why I had harnessed two, I reminded her of what she had said and she replied "oh, but only when there are two of you, I never catch two when it is just me". This comment was typical of the way things were done on that farm - this is how we do things today, but when you have learned this, tomorrow we will tell you that you are wrong and it should all be done a different way, and when you have learned that we will explain that it is only done this way when there are two clouds in the sky and a Z in the month.

I met the farmer after calf harnessing. He seemed normal, a bit overhearty and not-looking-you-in-the-eye in the way that shy/unstable people have. We all went to milk the cows - Ryoku and Christiana to actually milk them, me to watch. I watched, and I saw far too much cow poo and pee for my liking, it didn't bode well for the morning. Also the steps you had to learn for the Milking Tango seemed very complicated - on here, wash there, off here, on there, off and not on, I am sure it all made sense once you got the hang of it.

After an hour of watching and feeling slightly dizzy the farmer suggested I could prepare dinner so that 'we don't have to eat so late'. He told me where the vegetables were. He always prepared the meat himself and it was in the slow-cooker - we mere girls were only to be trusted with veg, nothing as valuable as actual meat. No sooner had I got in the kitchen than he was beside me, checking I had got all the veg. He told me how he wanted them cut up, and then started cutting them up himself - just in case I, at the tender age of 42, hadn't quite mastered a chopping board and knife. Later on I suggested to Christiana that he was a complete control freak - she said he was far from it. I nodded in agreement, but secretly thinking far from it in the same way that boats are far from water.

I prepared the veg and put them in the oven to be ready for 8.30 - 9. Milking was finished early - at about 7.30. Then I found out that, regardless of what time the food is ready, regardless of what time everyone is showered and ready to eat, regardless of how hungry and tired everyone is, nobody eats until the farmer says. Dinner was always preceded by drinks and conversation. The conversation was generally limited to the farmer talking, reeling off his irritating catchphrases and telling his lame jokes. It was very much a one sided conversation - if any of the rest of us made a comment we were interrupted with 'yep, yep, yep, yep, yep'. I wondered if, as a child, the farmer had a lot of imaginary friends because he didn't seem to have mastered the art of communication. By the time we ate it was gone 10, the veg were roasted to a frazzle, and the farmer literally fell asleep over his dinner, but he had a voice and had been determined we were going to hear it. I started washing up. The farmer woke up and bustled over 'no we don't do that, we just rinse them under the cold tap and then wash them all up tomorrow, it is because of the cost of hot water see!'. Actually I didn't see - did hot water cost more at 11 p.m. at night than it did at 10 a.m.? But of course he wasn't a control freak, just a plain, everyday, common or garden, house freak. Also there was no computer, no microwave, a dishwasher we weren't allowed to use - I started to wonder if he was Amish.

Sunday - my first attempt at milking. I discovered that cows do not crap on you whilst you are actually putting on the milking machines, however any other time is fair game. The machines milked 20 cows at a time. They lined up - and sometimes you had to smack them on their shitty backsides to get them into position. Ryoku and I would get them all lined up and each in a little stall. Christiana or the farmer or, on a really bossy day, both, would then come along and smack them all to move them around a bit more - just to show Ryoku and I that we weren't accomplished smackers. Sometimes Christiana was really nice, but occasionally, around the farmer in particular, her pomposity made me want to show her just how accomplished a smacker I could be, if I put my mind to it.

Then we washed them all - sometimes it needed a bit more with the jet hose, then they were washed by hand. I didn't like to wash them until the water warmed up - it seemed cruel. You had to be quite brutal when washing the teats to 'stimulate the milk'. I didn't like being brutal, so I just washed them as best I could in my own way. Then we put the milking machines on. It worried me that some of the cows had warts and some had cuts, and still we put the milking machines on - did it make them worse? Was it painful? One day I pointed out to the farmer a cow with a sore on the teat and asked if it was OK to continue, he assured me that it was as she was going to the knackers yard that day - oh ok, lucky cow! I was the right height for milking / torturing - poor Christiana was always bruised from having to bend and bash against everything. However my arms were too short to reach the front teats, so I hooked my arm round the cows' back legs rather than inbetween their legs. This ran the risk of one of them standing on my arm and I thanked god every time my arms were intact at the end of milking. All the while you were doing this they would swish their tails in your face - tails which were generally covered in whatever came out of their backsides. At first I was horrified. After a few days I didn't even notice, so much so that at breakfast one morning Christiana said to me 'you still have shit on your face', I just nodded and took another slurp of my tea. You wouldn't think you could, but you just want to do whatever it takes to get milking out of the way.

I preferred the mornings, there were some beautiful sunrises. Although going to bed at midnight and getting up at 5.30 a.m. was tough. However by the time we finished milking and had shovelled up all the shit and hosed the yard down - much to the entertainment of the ducks who loved to splash around in the shitty water, all was right with the world. By the evening I was tired, I knew we wouldn't eat before 10, I was completely sick of the farmer's jokes, criticism, favouritism and general insanity. We all worked hard, yet he behaved as if there was only one worker amongst us. His eyes lit up when she walked in the room, he rushed to get her anything she wished to eat / buy. I was quite tempted to assure him that being his favourite would turn my stomach, but I would appreciate it if he could have been more civil to and appreciative of the rest of us. Also during the day was our time off - but we were constantly told that the farmer preferred Asian wwoofers because 'they don't lounge round the house all day, they help with jobs on the farm'. If we only did the milking we still put in an 8 hour day for no pay, but clearly that signified we were bone idle. I helped most days - just to make the time go quicker, I mowed all the grass around the house and the orchard. I cleaned out the hen house and put new sawdust down, I picked up hundreds of rocks from a newly ploughed paddocks. Christiana and I baked muffins. We did chocolate chip for everyone, and then date and banana for the farmer - which were in the tin for days because nobody really liked them. By this time he had sunk so low in my opinion I couldn't help wondering if he preferred these just to be bloody-minded.

Ryoku and I picked blackberries - we had to get into a drainage ditch which 'wasn't deep'. 12 inches of cowshit is actually my idea of deep, and a real waste of time for such a poor crop, even the half decent ones were covered in maggots. I got a paltry amount - maggot free, supplemented it with apples and made a crumble. Ryoku got a bucketful, I didn't have the heart to tell her that, because of the maggots and mould, they were inedible - how would she know what blackberries were meant to look like. I was about to throw them away, however the farmer snatched them off me, sealed them in Tupperware and put them in the freezer, snapping at me 'we'll use them for something'. So I asked him if he could wait until I had gone to use them for something that involved anyone eating them. I wonder if Mr Tupperware realised when he created his little plastic tubs that one day some weird farmer would use them to keep blackberries as maggoty and rotten as the day that they were picked.

Ryoku left and I was sorry to see her go. Christiana and I got on, but she didn't see the side of the farmer that the rest of us saw. The loathing was clearly mutual - I made the mistake of pointing out that working early, then working late and eating ridiculously late wasn't a 'cultural exchange' it was slave labour and unreasonable. This was one of the rare days when the farmer actually listened to something I said. He yet again spouted the line that 'well I prefer Asian workers, they don't want to sit around all day' which I interpreted as 'their English was not being up to telling him what a complete bastard he was'.

Farming seems to be a very hard living - working 15 hours a day, constantly struggling, holidays are a true luxury. The amount of broken cars, machines and bicycles around the farm drove me mad -why not just dump them? Also the attitude towards the animals sometimes shocked me - but they were all working animals, not pets. They weren't maltreated, I just always wanted to give them more food, let them in the house (not the 200 cows obviously) and let the ginger cat keep all her kittens, not just one. The farmer went out hunting one morning whilst we three milked the cows and came back with a deer. Christiana and I went out to look at it - even though it had no head and no insides it still looked really alive and we kept on expecting it to move. However I eat meat (and now even weird parts of the animal I would never have expected to touch) and so it is hypocritical to object to the transition between bounding round the land alive and frying in the pan, very very dead.

I was planning to leave by about midweek - not because the farmer killed the deer, but because the working hours were killing me, but then Ros arrived and brought with her some much welcomed humour and sanity. It was so nice to have someone around who was normal and who saw things in a similar way to me that I stayed on a few days. The farmer treated her with less contempt than he treated me - but only marginally.

In the mornings and evenings we would go and round up the cows for milking. You had to make them all wait at the gates until they had all emptied their bowels, and then walk behind them up the lanes hurrying them along - whilst they continued to empty their bowels at least another 30 times each, but making sure to save some for the milking shed. It is hard to hurry along 200 cows when you are at the very back. When Ryoku and I went, she would tail behind with the really old, slow cows, stroking them in sympathy, which I could understand. They looked about to drop dead. Ros and I tried a different approach as the dog wouldn't always come with us, so one day Ros started barking at the cows. It made no difference to their speed, so we tried Jack Russel barking, Rhodesian Ridgeback barking and eventually, mooing. The cows would occasionally stop and turn in wonder at the lunacy behind them. By the time we arrived at the milking shed we were screaming with laughter, and were greeted by the boot-faced farmer and his tight-lipped assistant. Just because we are working our backsides off for nothing was clearly no reason to gain any enjoyment from the event.

Finally Saturday arrived. We were all going to the Hokitika Wildfoods Festival. This is an annual event that brings about 15,000 people into the tiny town. Locals have stalls selling local and weird delicacies - and basically the most disgusting food imaginable. I was amazed the farmer hadn't entered his maggotty blackberries. This is the one place they would have gone down a storm. The farmer had bought tickets for himself and Christiana, and arranged for them to stay at his brother's. Ros and I bought our own tickets and made our own arrangements. At the Festival the farmer had arranged for Christiana to spend the day with him and his very drunk friends, Ros and I made our own arrangements - and dragged Christiana off with us, rebels that we are. For the next three hours we wandered round the Festival eating weird food, drinking home made wine and cider, taking stupid photos and having fun. Every 30 minutes or so one of us would pretend to look for the farmer so Christiana could return to her prison. We ate shark (I don't think it was really shark, it just tasted like white fish), crocodile, cow's udder (really fatty), sheep's testicle - tastes like lamb, worms - which tasted of nothing, and paua. Nothing tasted truly disgusting, but it is just the thought of what you are eating that makes you feel a bit queasy.

Afterwards we all went and sat on the beach. The farmer very generously bought cheese and wine and we watched the sunset which was beautiful. For once he was relaxed and we all had a laugh. It made me sad that it couldn't always have been like this, he would have enjoyed his work more if he had been able to relax and treat us all the same, rather than obsess over one and assume everyone else was hopeless. He and I were daring each other to swim in the sea - but only Ros was brave enough, we just sat shivering on the shore. Once she was dry, Ros, Christiana and I played on the sand like 4 year olds, taking stupid pictures, running around, completely oblivious to the couple next to us who were trying to have a romantic drink whilst watching the sunset - obscured by three halfwits with cameras.

In the evening after a day of drinking I decided to retire early. Christiana had said that the farmer had now arranged for Ros and I to stay at his brother's. Afterwards I found out that Christiana may have misunderstood the farmer and he may not have arranged this, but that was afterwards - I stayed there anyway, they were really lovely people - so nice, so normal! It was a relief to be away from the bedlam of the town. Ros and Christiana being young slept on the beach, drinking all night round a fire - sometimes I feel so old, but I like beds.

My week at the farm was incredibly weird. I found it very hard to deal with someone so set in his ways - and he probably thought the same about me. I thought the whole set-up was an abuse of trust - wwoofers are meant to work for about 5 hours a day, not 8 and definitely not 14. However I had stuck it out and, if I hadn't stayed, I wouldn't have met Ros - and it was so refreshing to just have a laugh and not take it all seriously. You spend most of the day covered in shit and piss - why not at least laugh about it? It was a very odd week - but at least there had been Ryoku, Christiana and Ros around to joke about with and ease the pressure of the moody farmer. The phrase 'queen of the cows' was donated by Christiana's father - who called her this when he telephoned. In fact his jokes were about the only funny thing we heard over dinner - so Mr C where ever you are, thank you.

So there you go - Viv's advice on milking cows .... avoid, avoid, avoid!

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Photos

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My job is shit.

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Hokitika, Westland

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The calf that Viv trained

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Chickens run

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Mother hen and her brood ... aaaahhh.

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Your udder awaits.

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Heading for the milking shed

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Cows are so vein

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Sometimes it's a struggle just trying to keep your head held high.

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Shitty tail in the face trick ... again!

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And they're on ... although I'm not looking too clean.

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Best of friends

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Pooh must be good for you - the ducks love it.

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Anyone for grasshopper?

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Viv eating cow's udder, Ros laughing.

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Mmmm - weird aftertaste.

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Westland police - completely professional at all times.

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Frying testicles

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Hokitika beach - the only day of the year it's crowded.

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Red or red?

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Sunset viewed from Hokitika beach, Wild Foods Festival Day.

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And another sunset shot - with some seagulls for a bit of variation

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Trying, and failing, to spit. How lovely.