Saturday, January 5, 2013

Changing the landscape

Every day, the manure lagoon looks different.

 


The term 'manure lagoon' used to sound funny to me, because I associated the word lagoon with a super blue tropical body of water.  Also that really creepy movie with Brooke Shields.  I saw part of it on TV once a long time ago - the parents didn't know what to feed their infant and were trying to stuff fruit in its mouth until she figured out it wanted to nurse.  I realize that they were shipwrecked and all, but these were the dumbest people I'd ever seen on television.  That was long before reality shows featuring people named Honey Boo Boo.

The amount of work that goes into it is amazing.  We're getting some clay from a pile in town.  When we go to town, we see that excavator putting clay into trucks.  The trucks come to our house.  The excavators here dig all the time.  The compactor (surprise!) compacts the clay.  The bull dozer moves dirt.  It is such a huge job - like every building site.  But to see it from the start right here just makes me think about all the construction in the world and how for everyone who's doing it - it's a big deal. 

Without it, we couldn't have more cattle, because more cattle produce more manure ... this lagoon isn't as classically beautiful as a tropical lagoon, no.  But on a dairy farm, it's much more useful.

***

Something interesting - the cows were licking the clean, bare cement in the parlor today in the beginning of the milking.  Kris talked to the nutritionist, and I researched on the internet why they might do that.  The internet told me that there's no reason, sometimes one does it so the others copy, they often can't find any cause, and it goes away after awhile. 

It also showed me lots of pictures of cows licking cats.  Why a cow would want to do that is an even better question.

7 comments:

rschett said...

i'm wondering where the cows found clean cement in a barn. Those crazy buggers!

Julie said...

I'm so using that with the girls. Instead of, "if everybody jumped off a cliff..." it'll be, "if everyone were licking the bare cement in a milk parlor..."

Carla said...

Rach - Yes, they are funny creatures, which is why they keep getting featured in your Christmas gifts, right? : )

Julie - HAHA! That's 'udder' genius. (I'm sorry.)

Melissa Gibson said...

Maybe when it's complete, you could get an artificial palm tree to decorate the lagoon!

Carla said...

Melissa - HA! You bring the raft. We'll do this up right. : )

Jessica said...

I saw a manure lagoon on Dirty Jobs once. They had a row boat that they took out into it to collect debris. I think you need a row boat. You can store it next to your palm tree.

Carla said...

Jessica - Yes! That sounds lovely. I'm fairly certain I will never row a boat in it ... unless the boys are looking for some unique entertainment!