First week of the German Adventure

Howdy y’all!!

I promised, i think, almost everyone to keep them posted on how it’s going, so i decided to bring back my old habbit and hobby: experience and write about it! Easier for me and everyone can decide for themselves if they like to read it!

Well. Start with the beginning. Saturday I drove over here in about 5 hours, so that was pretty awesome. Had a lot of rain on the way and sorry for my german friends but… Germans just don’t know how to drive a vehicle, especially when it’s raining… Called, as agreed, the wife of the boss about my time of arrival and as you could have seen on facebook, there was a party going on! She asked me if i could come to her, as she was at the party, and stay at the same time to have something to eat and drink. When i came over there, she called with the man who ones my guesthouse and he wanted us to come over first to show me my room and give me the key. So that’s what we did. After a 2 minute drive (! very small but fun town) we came at the guesthouse. It’s very nice. The owner is a nice, sometimes a bit too nice and curious, man who helped me carry all of my stuff up to my tiny little room at second floor... In other words… i had my workout that day! In the meanwhile Denise (Boss his wife) went away to the party again and demanded me to come as soon as i had unpacked my fully stuffed vehicle. So i did. Kinda nervous, because the only one i knew of all the people, is Sietze, who is a friend of mine. Luckely we weren’t the only Dutch people! Two colleagues of Sietze are also Dutch, as is the boss and his brother. So we had a kind of our own Dutch party in between the german bigger one! About midnight i was getting tired and left for the hotel to grab some sleep.

Sunday morning I woke up about 9, after a pretty good night of sleep and after some unpacking went downstairs to get my breakfast, what the owner had been offering to me saterdaynight. After the delicious sandwiches, I did some more unpacking. The owner was afraid he had offered me a too tiny room, because of all the things I brought. I think I finally persuade him today (Thursday) in believing me he didn’t!! I have seen an other, bigger room and I kinda loved my tiny spot even more! Remco, one of the dutch guys I met on the party, stays in the same guesthouse as mine. He fullfills an interimship here and tries to write an essay, but somethimes he’s more on a shovel he said than working in the office on his essay! And after a few days on my new job, I kinda found out, that’s typical for the company! ;)
By change, all the three guys I met on the party had a day off! Sietze called me and asked if I would like to go over with him to Sams place and have a decent cup of dutch coffee! Just before, I had agreed to go with Remco on some sightseeing (he was here just a week before I did), persuaded him and he went with us to Sam. Sam works over here for his 5 year in a row and lives over here since 1 year. Has a fine place with a well working internet connection and dutch television! Kinda handy! After we had some coffee and did some chilling, we went to magdenburg to go karting. Tried to get some more dutch guys with us, but they all did just want to drink some beer haha! That’s kinda the thing around here for the dutchies. Working all day and than go to the bar and have some beers! Afterwards we went into a diner to grab a bite to eat. It’s good eating around here, and it’s all waaaaaaaaaay cheaper than in Holland! 

And than the work started at mondaymorning. Get up every day at 4 am, starting at 5. Met my two direct colleguages, Inez and Matthias. Inez is a 38 year old woman who takes mostly care of the calves and works at the barn for about 3 years now. Matthias is a 27 year old guy who just started 6 weeks ago and takes mostly care of the sick cows and the milking. Together they keep an eye on the birthcontrol and helping each other where neccesarry.
I mostly start every day helping Matthias taking care of the milking. During the milking we take milktests to see if they are healthy enough to go back to the carroussel (the “main”stage of the milking part of the barn) or give treatments to get them better as soon as possible. We have two groups of cows. Group 13 (as they call it) is a group of cows who are ill, lame (feet issues) or any other illness. We also select the cows in the morning that just had a calf and they stay in group 13 for mostly a day or two. The other group of cows all has mastitis. That’s a bacteria in the udder (for everyone who didn’t know). On Monday morning I directly found a dead one… so that was not such a nice start of the day.
After milking we go to an other part of the barn, where the “normal” cows are. There, we meassure temperature for ten days of the cows how have just calved. We also check if all the cows are healthy by side, and select cows that need some kind of threatment. After that we mostly have breakfast.
During the day we provide treatments to the sick cows, make sure they have enough access to food and water somehow, keep an eye on all the pregnants ones and help with the birthing where necessary. And around 3 we start milking again. We are mostly done around 5.
Thuesday I helped Inez a bit more taking care of the calves. Giving them treatments, milk and a clean place to sleep.
By the way... it’s pretty funny to take notice of how my brain works! I write this in English, app at the same time with some friends in Hollands and speak to the owner of the guesthouse in German! Sometimes I typ in hollands or german, instead of English! Lol!!
Wednesday was an off day. The caroussel didn’t work in the morning, so everything had a delay for an hour. Also in the morning we had a very sick cow. Gave her an infusion and she got a bit better, but in the afternoon she went down again. We had to move her with a machine. Luckely she is still alive and getting better by the day. In the meanwhile there was a calf born with a bit of trouble. It had already trouble breathing, but was alive. Right after they are born they get the first milk by probe. Sadly she got some milk in her longs also, cause she couldn’t hold still. We tried to save her, but she died in the afternoon. And on top of all that, there were some guys cleaning the solar panels on the roof of the barn. In the afternoon one of them fell down through a light plate right to the concrete. He was brought to the hospital by helicopter. We are still not sure if he’s gonna make it. They say he looked better the day after than expected, but still nothing sure about any permanent dammage. We all want to forget that day very very fast!!
The rest of the week was quiet compared to that. Had the weekend off, but helped saterdaymorning again for a half a day. Went back to the appartment and fell asleep for two hours. Did some grocery shopping after that and went coocking for me and one of my dutch colleagues Niels. He has a bit of the same workingschedule, in stead of all the other guys like sam, sietze and remco, so we eat together a lot. Went back to the guesthouse at 9.30 pm and got an text from Sam to come to the dutch bar in town. It’s a 2 minute walk from my guesthouse. The owner is a dutch guy and they even have a snackbar! So everyone… I don’t have to miss my frikadel special! All dutch people around the area hang out there almost every night. So got to know a lot more people yesterday and had a lot to drink! Went home (it’s a guesthouse, but I already call it home) around 2:30 am.
This morning I had a guesthouse breakfast again, talked with remco and a new guy Tim (a dutch guy from Norway) and put my wash in the washing machine. Now I’m taking off to go have a cup of coffee with Sam. And then the work starts again!
Have to work, I think, about 11 days in a row now and then off for two or three days again. So I try to keep up with the writing, but it’s not getting very fast due to the less free time and the mostly spending all the freetime with the Dutchies!

Hope with all of you everything is going very well, “my” horses are still doing fine and you don’t miss me too much! :P I try to make more pictures this week, to give you all an impression of the barn and the environment.

Till the next time!!!! (oh and sorry for misspelling or grammatic!)