Melk, moocows, midgies and more
Jun0
I looked up at the cow.
The pile of hay I was moving had slipped off the prongs of the piyhfork again, flurrying down in a shower of stalks and grass seeds across my shoulders, arms and boots.
The cow stared back unimpressed, then calmly, with complete bovine nonchalance, flicked out a surprisingly long tongue to sweep up the hay from my forearm, leaving a glistening, slimy and slightly green trail of cowdrool.
Day one on the farm in Aichau, and I’m apparently already popular with the animals.
***
I’m writing this in Vienna after three amazing, sweaty, hard-working weeks at the farm. I’m not quite sure how to catch up on the blogging as there’s so much to tell, but I guess I’ll just start with writing a bit about my time in Aichau and see where it goes from there.
I arrived in Melk, the nearest sleepy town to the even sleepier tiny village of Aichau (population roughly 45 people in 6 farms) on a sunday, which meant that the town was even quieter than usual, with nothing open save an old cafe/patisserie where all the old couples taking their afternoon coffee looked up and said ‘grußgott’ (hello) when I came in, lugging my rucksack and dripping from the rain.
I met my host Christine up the hill in Melk Abbey, where she works as a guide for part of the week. Christine immediately presented me with a huge apple, saying ‘eat’, in a friendly yet authoritative voice, before striding off to her car at a cracking pace, gesturing me to follow.
‘We are very disorganised,’ said Christine as we drove, ‘we just do things as they’re needed, so just feel at home.’
Willi’s Bauernhof, Christine’s farm, is certainly homely, and the family wonderfully easy going, but I’d certainly not call Christine disorganised. Along with work at the Abbey, she somehow juggles the routine farm work every morning and evening, looking after the fields, doing laundry and cooking for any guests staying at the guest house, making jams, juices, liquors, bread, cleaning, picking up after her teenage kids, and a gazillion other things that need doing.
I arrived in the kitchen amid a flurry or flour. Oma (granny) was preparing dough for a batch of sweet plaited loaves, gathering the dough and plaiting it with a lightening-quick flourish, while giving me a grandmotherly smile. I was immediately set to work helping to me a strawberry sponge from a giant basket of fresh strawberries.
“Now we feed the guests, then the animals, then we eat,” said Christine briskly, setting the table in the dining room then leading the way to the cowshed.
The next weeks followed roughly the same pattern, my job being to get up between 6 and 7 each morning to feed and muck out the horses, sometimes helping with the cows and pigs, some other jobs during the day around the farm (mostly epic rasperberry weeding), then the same animal feeding routine in the evening. I soon got to know the two big horses, Willi and Jonny, pretty well, with Willi defending me jealously against any possible attention from Jonny, even to the extent of ignoring me for a day when he caught me petting Jonny and giving him a carrot. Sandi the pony proved to be a bit more of a challenge, eating the ends of my jumper and trying to bite my legs at every given opportunity – apparently that means she likes me.
time running low in this internet cafe. sorry this is so badly written. I’ll continue properly next time I get a chance, but to get up to date, since leaving Edinburgh I have:
- Mucked out pig pens
- Been bitten by a pony
- Won over a pony
- Been licked by a cow
- Tried to count an infinity of cats
- Been nibbled by a goat
- Cycled the whole Wachau valley (both banks) in a hurry
- Learned to make traditional Austrian cakes and lots soups
- Learned to say ‘I’ve eaten too much food’
- Weeded 20 rows of raspberries and been eaten alive by nettles
- Sold a painting in Melk market
- Got lost in a thunderstorm up a hill I didn’t know existed
- Promised myself ice cream
speaking of which, I never did get that ice cream…
later 
No Comments »
No comments yet.