An Udderly Different Sort of Job: Working for Our Second Year Visa

What does a farmer talk about when they are milking cows? Udder nonsense (it's true!)

One of the reasons for deciding to come out to Australia to travel was that we weren't happy enough with what we were doing work wise. It was bringing us down. I had hoped that maybe some time away would inspire something for our eventual return; I can safely say that milking cows is definitely not our calling in life!

Don't get me wrong, the job wasn't too difficult. But 3 months of milking between ‪600-1100‬ cows gives you plenty to reflect on.

I've never done a night shift. The closest to being at work at a ridiculous time was waiting for Kjel to cash up at the restaurant at like ‪1am‬ but it's certainly an experience I don't wish to do again. Shifting between days and nights has been difficult; I think I've spent the entire time feeling like I have constant jet lag.

And who ever thought it was a good idea to head south in winter? To a job where the majority of the time you're working ‪between 11:45pm and 7am‬? These clever dicks! It's been cold. And not like "Oh it's not 25 degrees, it's dropped to 22 degrees, it's so chilly." Nope. Cold like "Ooh I can't feel my feet, my nose is frozen... did I hear the radio say it's -5 degrees outside?" kind of cold. Buying so many layers of warm clothes was not on my original to-do list when we arrived in Sydney all those many, many long months ago!

As I'm writing this, spring has arrived and the days are finally getting brighter earlier (which is a delight when you're trying to tell your body to just go to sleep at 7 or half 7 in the morning) but I don't think I've ever felt quite as pale as I do right now. Working nights has meant going to work in the dark, working in the dark, going home in the dark, sleeping and waking up to perhaps an hour, an hour and a half of "daylight" before it's dark again and the routine starts again. We're probably hugely lacking in Vit D right now but we're hoping to make up for that pretty soon.

We chose to work with animals on a farm rather than pick fruit as the stories we'd heard or read weren't too fantastic, and although I'm sure our experience doesn't even exist on the 'sh*t jobs to do to get your 2nd year visa scale', it hasn't come without its own trials and tribulations. Like many jobs, there is the normal cr*p to deal with. People. Hours. People...(hang on, I think I may have already said that) but this job came with some additional cr*p. Never in my whole life have I been in such close proximity to pretty much all cow-related bodily fluids. Grown-up cow sh*t, baby cow sh*t, wee, afterbirth, you name it, my face has been too close to it.

I've spent the last 3 months perfecting my ninja dodging skills to the Matrix level in order to avoid the plethora of poop.

The classic cow pat, while it mostly lands in one spot, it drops with such a massive force, splash back is highly likely. 

The sh*t shower. Coming out with a pressure you would consider pretty good if it were water from a shower, it coats everything. If you're really lucky, when multiple cows in a row perform this action, it's almost like being in the open showers at a swimming pool, splashed from every angle. This motion is often referred to as a 'poonami'.

The explosive, homing-missile sh*t fart. Every so often you catch the tail raising and feel just confident enough to move back in order to avoid the oncoming yellowy-brown tidal waves. Sometimes, you even get cocky when the first splat just missed you and then you head for cover. But just as you start to feel safe, you're not. Out of nowhere, come the explosive, homing-missile sh*t farts. Disguised as a fart, the projectile sh*t is powerful enough to smack you face on from even the farthest distance that you can take cover; the sh*t will find you.

The wee-sh*ts. When the sh*t showers aren't covering enough area to douse all within its path, there comes the wee-sh*ts. More liquid than solid, the high-pressured sprinkler sh*t will continue to drip from the protective bars long after the culprit has moved on. 

Baby cow sh*t. Like something out of a horror movie, or a million bugs smooshed together, this gloopy yellow mess is perhaps the worst of all. It genuinely looks like an alien has exploded on you and stinks like something else.

And the smell lingers. The vile hydrogen-peroxide-y stench from their pee mixed with the pat-splash odours hits us smack in the face every time that we get changed into our work clothes and slowly wafts around our room between shifts (thank heavens for Fabreeze!). Even washing them doesn't quite make them fresh as our washing machine only uses cold, bore water, so we've come to accept that we probably stink every time we head to civilisation to buy food.

We managed to arrive here just before peak calving season and have become unqualified cow midwives over the course of the last month or so, which like the human version I'm sure, has had it's up and down moments. It hasn't been all pretty but seeing the huge bundles of fluff bouncing around the paddocks is always a delight.

It's been a long three months living on the farm. Like the extra year of uni shared house living that I never wanted. There have been red-backs; many unwashed cups and bowls (for days, possibly weeks on end); games of toilet roll chicken; passive-aggressive door slamming; food theft; cold water clothes washes; salty showers; and dead mice. But in the middle of it all came a (albeit temporary) blossoming romance with horrendous TV programs and making a new travel companion so it certainly could have been worse.