- Feb 5, 2002
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Every day at 5:30 a.m., without fail, the rooster’s call woke me up, a piercing alarm against the backdrop of a delicate dawn. Quickly throwing on my ratty jeans and T-shirt, I stumbled out of the cabin, half-awake, and headed toward the cow barn.
In my sophomore year of high school, I and three other girls spent two weeks as eco-ambassadors working on a 200-acre dairy farm in upstate New York. We needed this early start to get the cows in their stalls, feed them hay and pellets, clean and prep their udders for milking, connect their teats to the milk pumps, record the gallons produced, and when the ladies finally returned to pasture, clean up all the droppings that they left behind. And cow patties are big. And messy.
After the milking, we attended to the hungry goats, chickens, ducks and pigs. The rest of the day was spent mending broken fences, planting and weeding, and other necessary tasks before the morning’s labor repeated itself during the evening chores.
Needless to say, by the time the day was over, I was covered from head to toe in sweat, muck and mud, my clothes stained with pee and poo and God-only-knows what else. In brief: I was dirty.
When my parents arrived to bring me home, they chuckled, wondering how long it would take to air out the cow smell from the car — and from me. The two-week stint in high school, meant to teach us the ethical and theological confluence of working the land sustainably, awakened in me a love of and a deep dedication to a simple, pure, truly natural life.
And such a life is often messy.
Continued below.
www.oursundayvisitor.com
In my sophomore year of high school, I and three other girls spent two weeks as eco-ambassadors working on a 200-acre dairy farm in upstate New York. We needed this early start to get the cows in their stalls, feed them hay and pellets, clean and prep their udders for milking, connect their teats to the milk pumps, record the gallons produced, and when the ladies finally returned to pasture, clean up all the droppings that they left behind. And cow patties are big. And messy.
After the milking, we attended to the hungry goats, chickens, ducks and pigs. The rest of the day was spent mending broken fences, planting and weeding, and other necessary tasks before the morning’s labor repeated itself during the evening chores.
Needless to say, by the time the day was over, I was covered from head to toe in sweat, muck and mud, my clothes stained with pee and poo and God-only-knows what else. In brief: I was dirty.
When my parents arrived to bring me home, they chuckled, wondering how long it would take to air out the cow smell from the car — and from me. The two-week stint in high school, meant to teach us the ethical and theological confluence of working the land sustainably, awakened in me a love of and a deep dedication to a simple, pure, truly natural life.
And such a life is often messy.
Continued below.
Know there is holiness in a messy job well-done
Discover the sacred beauty in messy, authentic living — from barn chores to daily chaos — where even the dirtiest work holds divine dignity.
www.oursundayvisitor.com
