Beep beep beep

“huuuuu”
 WHY ME GOD WHY ME!!!!!

I roll out of bed a little more literal then I would like to admit. It is 3:00 AM. The annoying sound of my alarm ʻBaby’ by Justin Bieber is going off. I stumble out of bed look around for a second I forget where I am, my eyes adjusting to the piercing light of my iPod. I hit the button that says stop and complete silence hits me like a tsunami. It’s dark. Darker than the center of a black hole. I feel like in my caravan it is a black hole. Every fibre of my body is telling me to lay back in bed and fall asleep but I know I can’t. I have a duty to my team. I get my clothes on wondering how much I smell like shit (a lot I would assume). Brush my teeth and make myself a quick cuppa. 

What hell is this that I’m in and why am I up at such an ungodly hour? Good question, it’s not hell at all. (most of the time ) I’m one of the main milkers in a farm in Australia. I bound out of my caravan which has no hot Water and is about as porous As a strainer and has more red back spiders on it than I think the whole country of Australia. But I love it. I love this crazy life. I stumble towards the dairy still wiping the sleep out of my eyes. As I do I look up in awe at the beautiful night sky like every other morning since I have been here. To say that there’s no light pollution here Is an understatement. I see every single star from the Milky Way to the Victoria cross and everything in between. To this day I cannot get over the stars here in the southern hemisphere; it looks as if Jackson Pollock took a brush with white paint and started to splatter it on a black canvas. It is absolutely beautiful.

 I march to the dairy. Just like a man on death row is marching to the gallows. And hop on 350 Kawasaki motorcycle or the old ATV depending which one is broken at the time. As I do this I go through in my head where I need to go to pick up the first Heard. My ass sits down on the cold fake leather, and I kick the kick starter as if it called me fat. It brings the motorcycle to life. The sound of the bike is ear-splitting compared to the hushed night air. To me, the engine sounds like an old man going through a coughing fit who has smoked since the great depression. I Chuckle as I drive down the main laneway of the dairy. I Imagine that I am passing through a great capillary or artery of a colossal beast.  Scanning my flashlight across the horizon, my light passes old decrepit skeletons of long since forgotten tractors and bikes.  With so much rust on them, they look like pieces of avant-garde art in a trendy bar that people take a selfie next to it. #throwbackthursday  

I eventually make it up to the front gate of the paddock and I see that the cows themselves are just waking up, brushing the sleep out of their own eyes.  I open the tapes and drive past them carefully making sure that they all are safe, happy and healthy. As I push them out of the paddock and into the laneway, It reminds me of  Black Friday in a small Midwestern town. Pushing one another forward, fighting to be in the front. Once they start slowly rambling to the dairy I start to get lost in my head. I tend to do that a lot in this job, there is not much else to do you are alone so much of the time. But eventually, the cows make it to the end and so does my thought process. They are now in the concrete laneway that enters the dairy.  I close them in and start to walk to the office. There is one thing I want and that is a hot cup of coffee. As I trudge into the office Passing the rotary, I see it is not just me who had the same idea. Kelly smiles back at me with her own cup of coffee and says good morning. I smile back. I think to myself how cool she is and how lucky I to have such a friend here in the middle of nowhere. After my first sip of coffee, I start to feel more alive like Frankenstein after the first bolt of lighting. And then I start cleaning and helping the morning milker.

 When the sun starts to rise that is when I pick up the 2nd herd. The river is too high for crossing with the bike so I need to take the land rover. It looks as if someone plucked it out of a world war 2 photograph. But not in the bigging of the war but at the end of WW2. There is no door, The whole body is falling apart more than Britney Spears in 2007. And the engine goes from 0 to 60 in about a week.  But Olney If the wind is to your back, needless to say, it works. I hop in, start the engine and off I go to get the second herd. It is easier to see since there is some sunlight, but As the sun rises so do the flies just like a giant swarm of locust they tend to take over almost everything. They are on your hands, your face, your eyes. They are as pervasive as the air itself. I pick up and start pushing the second herd but by this time the heat of the Australian sun is getting to me. I start to strip the layers off. Like a cheap stripper, Today is a good day. The cows go where they need to go. Passing one of the old dead gum trees I wake all the cockatoos that are asleep o it and they fly. It looks like they’re trying to do their best impression of a wispy cloud.

I finish pushing the cows in and run into the rotary to go do the changeover. I breathe a sigh of relief, I Made it there just in time, Kelly Is waiting at the exit gate I smile at her and she just rolls her eyes. I make a joke saying that all of Tokyo’s neon lights could be powered just by the power generated by her eyes rolling, from my bad jokes. She laughs at me and leaves me to finish the changeover, I push the Last cow off the dairy. Change the gates and settle into the Land Rover to push the First heard back all the cows are walking towards the Paddock, I lock them away, and drive off.  I look back To make sure that I close the door as I do that I see the long trail of the red dust cloud that shoots up from my tires. I make it back to the dairy and finish up the small tasks that I need to do.  YAY I clock off and then I have a couple hours break before I have to milk.

This afternoon I am Milking.

I wake up from a small nap. look at the time O SHIT I need to go.  I jump out of my caravan, start running to the dairy. I can see off in the distance a great cloud of dust it looks like a bush-fire. But I know that it is the first group of cows slowly walking to there dairy. There is only have five or 10 minutes before the first cows Will be here. I quickly Run to the van room attach the hose to the Vat and turn on the dairy. I flick the switch and press the button. There is a high pitch sound of the 60 cow rotary coming to life then It starts to slowly move. 

To the reader. 

— A dairy is an interesting site try and picture it for your-self it looks like a cross between a Caracalla and a BDSM Industrial club.—-

I quickly wash my hands put on gloves and put on an apron, just in time for the first cows to walk on to the main laneway. I smile because they all look so cute. In a few moments, it starts to get a little packed in the main laneway, just like the Tokyo subway at rush-hour. But the cows are moving onto the Rotary very smoothly.      I prefer doing the milking then driving, it is a lot easier you just have to listen up and make sure everything is working while you stand there as the cows passed you. all you need to do is pick up what has  been aptly named the cups. Which look like if an alien try to create an octopus with plastic. Press a button and put the cup on to the cows That is it, you do that over and over again about 1100 times. Needless to say, it’s a good arm workout.  When working you’re under the constant fear that you will literally get shit on or kicked in the head but other than that it’s a nice job. I tend to listen to podcasts when I milk, I really enjoyed Joe Rogan or stuff you should know, I find them quite insightful, Fast forward through about 1000 cows. Almost done my shoulders are sore, I’m a little sweaty. But all in all was a good day of work Me and the person who was driving the cows back, A intelligent and kind Irishwoman named Siobhán. We Work together to wash out the dairy and we eagerly clock off to rest. To get ready to do it all over again the next day.

My shift is between 10-14 hours. I stumble back home and make myself a Tea relax work on my website or message my friends. Then I fall asleep.

And then I do it all over again 12 days on two days off. I am not kidding my life is a country music song.

Now you may be asking why Dane why get shit on and kicked, just so little Timmy can have a glass of milk with his breakfast? Well, random reader, I’ve learned a lot about life on this job. Respect of an honest days work.  I also love The feeling of camaraderie when working together with a group of people. I think a lot about my time I have had here, and what it has done to change me. Now more so than ever do I have a profound respect for what it takes to produce anything. Just think about that the next time you pour your milk in your cup of coffee or eat a pizza as you chill with friends. An oddball Canadian might have helped make that milk.