Sunday, January 24, 2010

Sunday Visit in the Countryside

longview

internOur intern is working out an arrangement for his son to come down during winter vacation next week to work for a week on the cow farm where 3 children from my Saturday English Club live.  He prefers that his son learn the value of hard work rather than sit around just playing on the computer and watching TV. So this morning I went with him to check out the farm first.

My main reason for wanting to go was to see my students. They were hard at work when we arrived.

kids

Winnie and Jane’s aunt and her parents presently mehave over 300 heads of cattle on their farm, which includes dozens of calves but no bulls. I  was surprised that, unlike cattle in the U.S., they are still primarily  grass and hay-fed. The owners import grass and hay (along with corn, of course) from the United States.

cows

Each cow has two numbers on its ear- one for the company that the cow belongs to and the other for the farmers. There’s also a number on the side of their back.

head

The grandfather and his wife live in a separate house 50 yards or so over. The grandkids (and maybe one set of parents) live in the elevated house below right:

house

The large sticks are to keep the calves moving between pens, as you can see below: