Global Service

During the summer of 2021, I travelled abroad to visit my family in Ireland. I took this amazing opportunity as my chance to find a way volunteer abroad. I ended up working on a farm within walking distance of my Grannie’s humble house amidst the green country-side of Waterford, Ireland for a week. Most days I would work till noon or “dinner” over there and other times I would stick around till four a.k.a. “tea time” or “supper”. My dad and the rest of the Buckley gang grew up on a milk farm and, today, most of my aunts and uncles have their own farms, this was extremely helpful for a girl who has grown up purely in the suburbs and city, it provided me with, if not experience, then at least knowledge about farming and what it entails. However, for any one who is thinking of exercising their green thumb, be prepared for early mornings and hard work.

The first day I showed up to volunteer I woke up at seven and watched the cows walk up the field past my Grannie’s house after they had finished their morning milking's. I had not yet been told what time I should meet William, the owner of the farm, at so I waited a while before making the short trek down to the farm yard where the cows are milked and green tin sheds sit next to each other in a like kindergarteners sitting patiently in a circle with their legs crossed waiting to be given something to do. After a cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal I found my way into the gravel floored yard, squeezed between the wall and gate of the milking parlor and found myself face to face with three cows and William. I had shimmied into the milking parlor just in time to milk the last three cows. Now, at the time, I wasn’t sure whether this was a blessing or a curse but now I know it was an interlude to the next 5 days. I warily walked forward in my grandmother’s old wellingtons which I had dusted cobwebs from earlier that morning. I looked around with familiarity at the two gated paths that lined either side of the parlor and which were bedecked with feeders that would keep the cows calm and stop them from moving. William invited me down the three steep stairs that led down about two meters so that you were within easy access of the cows udders. William showed me as he put the milking machine on each teats. In the moment I was not paying as much attention as I should have been, I was more thinking about the fact that “Oh, shoot! He’s gonna make me put this on the cow!” The milking machine is made up of four tubes known as cups. These cups act as vacuums so that the cow’s udders are sucked in and milked. The four cups are connected to a dome like contraption that is clear on one side and where one can see the milk run into, this is known as the claw. William clarified that the first thing you have to do is push up on the machine while it’s hanging in the air because the milking machine is connected to a tight string, in order to loosen the string you have to lift the machine up a little bit and then you’ll be able to move the milking machine about. Next, you have to carry the machine with the black button that you can see on the clear side of the claw down. Once the machine is in the correct position, with each tube hanging down and not tangled, check to make sure that the string the machine hangs from is not intertwined with the black plastic tubes on either side of the claw. Then connect the teats to the utters and it will feed the milk from the cow into a large tank until it is dry. This tube that carries the milk is known as the long milk tube which transfers the milk to pipelines above and into a large milk tank. The tube closest to the teat cups is known as the long pulse tube and connects to the pulsator in the pipes above which provides the air that allows the cups to suck on the cow’s teats. The black button must then be pushed up and locked into position, this keeps the air trapped in the machine, if the button in loose, then air can flow out and there will be no vacuum within the teat cups. I watched as William did all these steps with ease, simply cupping the bottom of the machine with ease, pressing the black button, all the while picking up the machine slightly to slacken the rope, then he put each cup on in a matter of second starting from the back left and moving clockwise. William had instructed me to do the next two cows in line, so I picked up the machine and attempted the same movements he had performed, however, did it very ungracefully if not incorrectly. When putting the cups on the udders I had to switch the machine from hand to hand las if it was on fire in order to gain access to the teat. In the end, I got the teat cups on and watched as the cow was milked. What is really nice about an automatic milking machine is that once the cow is finished milking the pulsator will cut off the air flow to the teat cups and the rope the milking machine is attached to will tighten, therefore slowly pulling the machine off the udders; you can also slightly pull on the machine so that it slides off faster. Once the machine is off the cow, you have to dip them, this just means you spray them with a disinfectant so that no bacteria get into the cows udders.

After milking is finished, you have to spray down the parlor and the rest of the shed where the cows walked through. I watched as William picked up the long, high-power hose and sprayed the muck from the floor, walls, and gates inside the parlor. William made his way towards the opening through which the cows walk out of, then handed me the hose. William instructed me to spray down the trap and gates that the cows walk through that lead back to the farm. The trap is a sort of electronic gate that can be ordered to trap a specific number cow by punching in its number on a key pad inside the parlor. It is handy if you want to separate a cow from the rest of the cattle. I took up the hose in my hands, turned the head and was jolted back slightly as the water propelled from it in one huge wave.

Once milking was done and finished, we headed back to William’s house for breakfast before going to check on the cattle situated in various fields. We got into Williams jeep and travelled to various fields, some rented out by William, some owned, to survey the various cattle and make sure they were all healthy. Using a stick were riled the cattle so that they would stand and walk around to ensure that none of them were lame. For some fields we had to move the electric wire surrounding the cattle so that they had accesses to higher growing grass. This involved corralling the cattle and using a stick and making loud noise so that that moved away from us and in the direction of the neighboring field. We then went to survey fields with recently laid grass seed to ensure that it was growing at the appropriate rate.

The next seven days I volunteered all began like that. Each day I became progressively better at milking and moving the electric fence on top of learning more and more about how different facilities on the farm work. Most days were spent fertilizing fields on the tractor. I would hop up in the tractor next to William and observe as he went up and down on the fields spreading the fertilizer after the recent cut of silage in May/ June. We also fertilized Gemma’s fields. Gemma is a neighbor to William and a professional horse jumper who owns and trains horses for show jumping. On about the third day, after we had finished the farming duties for that morning, we went to watch her horses jump in a nearby horse show. My uncle, being an avid lover of horses, used to have my two cousins show jump when they were younger, and I used to watch them compete when visiting during the summers, however, it had been a long time since I had attended a competition so going with William was especially amazing not only because it had been so long, but also because very few shows had occurred since the COVID-19 shutdown in Ireland so I felt very lucky.

One day, when we were checking the wire in a field down the road from William’s farm, he noticed that one of the electrical fences keeping the calves in, was not live. It took us at least an hour to trace the wire to the ruins of a protestant church and notice that it was caught to brush. Another day I got to drive the stick shift tractor on an actual road with little knowledge of how to drive a tractor or stick shift and, on top of that, the road an Ireland are old, narrow, and windy and they drive of the opposite side. But I was able to do it without problem and it left me with a story to tell.

For the last two to three days, rather than spreading fertilizer we chopped wood. My Grandmother has a huge shed, a section of which she uses to store wood for the winter. It’s common for large tree branches to fall due to strong winds throughout the year, William will cut up the trees into small logs and then use a wood cutter to make them the appropriate size for burning. Essentially, William would hold the wood in place while I would push a handle forwards and backwards to move the blade. Unfortunately, there was much wood to be cut, so I wasn’t able to see it all get done, but my cousin sent me a video of the last stick (seen to the left) and it was a relief for such a tedious task to be out of the way. It was also a great bonding experience.

During my time with William, I learnt so much about farming. He took me into one of the larger sheds where the calves go once, they are born and where the cows in general go during the winter months of January and December. The shed has two rows of gates to your right, left, and straight ahead when you walk in. The flooring is concrete, William told me that they layer the ground with mulch, or, in this case, very finely chopped timber up until about two feet high so that it will provide cushioning for the newly born calves. William explained that mulch is much easier to clean than clay. For the first 3 days of their life’s calves will feed off of their mother's, however after that there is a machine inside the shed that the calves can simply walk through and it scans the tags attached to their ears. This machine has a nipple attached to it that the calves drink from. Each calf gets two liters of powdered milk, the powder will automatically mix with the water every 8 hours so in total they're getting eight liters of milk a day. William said that it takes about two tries for the calves to understand that the machine is where they need to go to get milk, their only source of food for the early weeks of their lives. If a cow has a bull calf, then they will only ever drink the mother's milk and not the powdered milk, this is because milk farmers have no real use for bulls other than for mating so they sell them off while they are still young. Giving them the mother's milk creates a fatter looking bull which means they are more likely to be sold and for a higher price.

On the last day of farming, it was very foggy and one could barely see the ground. We drove up to the windmills located on the incline of the landscape that is Waterford. William explained to me how the farmers who were disrupted by the windmills were given an incentive to have them built and that, despite the clean energy they provide, many civilians are eager to have them taken down because of the loud noise and the large shadows they cast. I was able to see up close how large one of its propellors are as well as its central power station. It was a good way to go out, seeing such a beastly yet beneficial machine under the guise of the thick Irish fog.

During those weeks during August, I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent with William helping him of the farm all the while learning in addition to observing his livelihood. I so much appreciated his patience and time to help me learn and understand how farming works. You could tell that he was so passionate about it and wouldn’t want to be doing anything else.