Hello 2016, goodbye 2015. Or, as the Italians would probably say, "Ciao 2016, ciao 2015." I am reporting to you from Sardegna, a beautiful Italian island in the Mediterranean Sea. The nearest town, Villaputzu, is located on the east coast of the island, and from my vantage point on the porch, I can see the small town climbing up the hills to my right. The sea is just visible in my direct line of sight, with farmland in the stretch between. The sun is shining. The breeze is warm. I am suckin' on the teet of life, as they say. Pretty much every New Year, the relentless passing of time stresses me out some, but it's easy to put that aside when the view is so damn nice.

Before I go on about this current farm, I need to cover pretty much a month's worth of unblogged material. So… sorry. I'll guess we'll travel back to 2015, to a colder, Frencher part of the world: a dairy farm outside of Avranches. Le Jardin du Trèfle.

Trèfle is French for clovers, and Pierre,the owner of the farm, told me he named it so the for the numerous clovers that you could find covering the fields that the cows graze in. In the farm's store, where they sell milk, Cœur de Trèfle (fresh cheese), Tome d'Isigny (a harder cheese), and yogurt, you can see the clover symbol plastered on some of the products.

Cows are essentially big, slow, shy dogs that eat grass and give milk. They don't like change or strangers very much--unfortunately for me. But after about a week, they started to acclimate to my presence. That's one of the reasons that Pierre prefers to host wwoofers for at least a month at a time. The cows get to deal with less change, plus the wwoofer gets a chance to learn the ropes of milking and caring for the cows (and there's plenty to learn).

There were a total of 23 cows that we milked regularly. They had 5 calves, 6 heifers (going thru cow puberty), and a few more that were pregnant. Cows need to milked twice a day--early morning and in the evening--and if they don't get milked they get really uncomfortable. Milking is an involved process that takes about 1.5-2 hours in total. In the mornings, we started at 7:00AM, when dawn was barely breaking. The cows were first led into their milking stations, where they fed happily on hay and silage while we connected the milking device to each cow, one by one. The milk traveled through pipes to a huge metal tank, where we could take fresh milk whenever we needed it. Some cows didn't like to be milked and would squirm if you got near their udders, while others seemed completely happy with it. Pierre usually let me have the easy ones.

After the cows were fed and milked, they were led back out to the fields to graze. And then we would clean up. For some reason, all the cows always shit at the same time, just before they left their milking stations, so we always needed to shovel the poop into the drainage, where the poop would flow into a huge pool of more poop.

Once all that was done, we would take a few buckets of milk to give to the calves, which was always the highlight for me because they got so excited when you brought milk. It's just the best. And if you stick your hand in the pen when they're hungry for milk, they'll start sucking on your hand. It feels really weird but it's kind of endearing. Then, as the calves were eating, we laid new straw for them in their pen, as well as for the heifers. And then we put out more hay and silage for the evening milking. By the time that all that was done, it was usually after 9AM.

For the rest of the day until the evening milking, the jobs were varied and sometimes there was nothing to do at all. We mainly used that time to collect and chop firewood, harvest maize, or make cheese and yogurt. Otherwise, I would just chill out until 4-5PM, when we would bring the cows in again.
Cheese-making is a super interesting process. The wheels of fresh cheese we made in small batches, converting 2-3 buckets of milk at a time. Getting the milk to solidify is all about using enzymes and maintaing the temperature, then letting the whey drain out--a pretty simple process if you have the enzymes and an instant-read thermometer. The hard cheese, Tome d'Isigny, is made in a huge vat which is heated and stirred until the curds separate from the whey. The curds are then collected and pressed for a few days, before they are salted and then put into a temperature and humidity-controlled cheese room to age for at least a few months.

This was the first farm I stayed at where most of the evening meals weren't shared. It did make sense, since my accommodation was separate from the house in a (nicely furnished) barn with a kitchen. It meant I had to plan my own meals and cook for myself, which I actually really enjoyed. I was allowed to take anything I needed from their cupboards. Pierre only bought seasonal produce though, and they only ate meat when a cow was put down, so that made cooking more of a challenge. But in a good way. Creating a meal for myself became something that I looked forward to during the day.

On my days off, I wanted to explore the area. I found the local village, Isigny le Buat, to be pretty dull, but on one of the days Pierre drove me to Mont Saint-Michel, one of France's most iconic landmarks. I'll have the photos from that day in the next post.

All in all it was a great stay. I feel bad for posting about it so late, since a lot of little details have started to fade from my memory. I'll certainly remember cheese-making and yogurt-making, as well as getting to the know the cows. I had planned to stay for a month, until the end of December, but a friend invited to spend the holidays in Spain, so I decided to leave 2 weeks earlier. I have a lot of photos queued up, so I may devote the next few post to mainly photos. If you're reading this, thanks for sticking with me this far! À bientôt.