20091112.
"I've got a great resource here, and it'd be a shame putting it to waste."
Mrs Roberts takes out a whole box of seeds. "And by a great resource I meant you lot." Turns out we're going to plant seeds.
But first we went to have a look at the newborn calves.
We walked down to the pump shed paddock, with Johnston's Year 7 class at the paddock before us.
We met the grandmother cow "Now everyone have a look at her bum. See her vulva is actually quite wrinkly..." I laughed at how everyone had such deadpan faces just listening to it. Blame my immaturity ^^
Then we walked up to the mother of the new calf. Words of advice on handling with cows. "Say hi to the head before you pat it on the bum. It's a bit like women, isn't it?"
Yeah, we had a look at the "blob" of a calf- who turned out to be quite lively, and loved posing for the camera. xD Roberts took a few photos of us looking at the cows and the calf, and the calf kept getting closer to the camera xD
Mrs Roberts noted that the slime on the mother cow was afterbirth, and that "if you scout around you might find some- there's a puddle here." Fang proceeds to poke it with a bit of grass root, stepped on it a few times- *squish*. Horrified squeals from some of the girls ensued.
Fang also tried putting Anna's Broadway hat onto the calf, but it kept running away. He let some of the cows have a sniff, but they didn't really like it, turned their heads away ^^
Although some Year 7s were in charge of giving it a name, we made a few, like Elmo and Evan (ty Jeffery), or Elliott, or Einstein or Edison ("they'd know it come from Ruse!" someone said)...
Sonia: "Let's call it Eeyore!"
Moby: "Nooo! He'll be depressed and have a permanent raincloud over his head..."
Fang tried some lucerne, and apparently it didn't taste good- "like shit", actually. Listened a bit about how an aphid in the 1970s/80s from Canada wiped out whole fields of lucerne- while farmers tried to bring in Canadian varieties, scientists in Australia were busily making their own.
We didn't get the seedlings planted. ^^
I liked this entry. It had a very quirky feel to it. Especially the last line. :D