There was a time when I was travelling and stopped to work on a diary farm for some weeks. No pay, but food and accomodation and also trips to all kinds of local attractions once a week. It's a simple way to get around, as it can get difficult sometimes to find a job when you are moving all the time.
So I lived with this single woman in her mid-thirties. Getting up was at 4am and we worked in a shed. It had a lower platform so you could reach under the cows, that were on a 70cm higher level. Attaching the cups, moving the cows and cleaning was the main part of it.
The same thing in the afternoon at 4pm plus additional odd jobs around the house and farm. It was very hard work, but frankly I enjoyed it. If it weren't for that woman.
At first she was nice, but after a while she started verbally assaulting me, calling me a lazy *bleep* and a lot of other things. Once I overlooked a dark spot on the wall (which I had to clean) and she said: "That's okay, you are a man.". I would have laughed, but I tried to remain polite, said "Alright." and cleaned up.
To be fair I broke a glass of her when I was washing dishes. And also the vacuum cleaner (which was almost broken to begin with). Her mother, a really nice old lady, who lived nearby bought her a new one for $800, which you couldn't compare at all to the old one. Well guess what,she yelled at me again because her mother was so nice. And I even offered her to pay for it, but she refused (probably because that would have gained her $100 at most).
And on the last day, when we were milking the cows in the morning, something made the cows go crazy. An earthquake or something like that. There was a small stampede and the cows we were milking (40 in all, 20 on each side) started pooping at the same time, almost showering us (we had to run).
Then she was so freaking angry, like never before. The cows were in disarray, in panic, stuck or still pooping. We tried to get everything in order, but she kept messing up. I tried to help out anyway, but she kept yelling and cursing, saying it my fault that nothing works.
She said I could go *bleep* myself. So I did. I went, left her alone with the huge mess, had a shower, grabbed my stuff and left. I was lucky, that this was my last day because I had already booked the bus. Walking 10 kilometres to the bus station was hard after the work, but it was still early morning and I had a lot of time.
Got the bus and escaped. Really, I take my work very serious and want to be proud on my results. But nonetheless she probably had so many prejudices against men, that I could do nothing to please her. It's sad, really.
And on another farm, they had two bulls. For those who don't know, bulls are extremely territorial, but their owners wanted me to weed the garden (with the bulls around). They never even bothered with removing their pointy horns, so I was feeling very uneasy. Kept an eye on them all the time while working. When they were coming close, I stood up, making myself as big as possible. At first this worked but they kept coming but, until one of them started to jump at me. I lifted the wheelbarrow far over my head and the bull stopped. Slowly I made my way off the field,the wheelbarrow over my head, not letting them out of my eye.
****, I was so scared. There was no literally one else around for miles who could have helped if something happened. Yes, dangerous work! I talked with my boss that evening and he said, Yeah, alright and gave me other work for the next day. He seemed nice at first, but he didn't really care about anything. At night I could often hear him and his family arguing. It was not very nice.
But it was a little adventure and I had a really great time.
