New territory

Hey guys!

It was a really interesting work day today!

I was running late so I jumped on my bike and rushed to the farm. I got there at 6:36 but nobody really seemed to mind. I still need to work on my timing, I'll figure it out eventually. Anyway!

New students are working on the farm so Profe Moro introduce all of the 4th year students and I. Profe Moro explained my two projects (because it's hard for me to explain genetics in spanish) and all of the older students explained their projects. Once everyone was introduced, the new students took a tour of the farm while the 4th years and I got to work.

I was working in the lecheria again and it was great. I've finally gotten the hang of milking a cow by hand although there's always the occasional cow that is a little harder to milk. We went through that pretty quickly which was nice. The system is easy to learn and we only did one thing out of the ordinary. Jenny and I fed certain cows a small bucket of sugarcane mixed with mineral powder and a liquid solution. We do this every time Jenny is working on the farm to see how this diet change could make the milk better. We even had some time to talk and joke around. Jenny, Dona Yamy, and Don Maurice were joking around with me about an incident that was, to be fair, extremely funny. I didn't remember to tell you guys this story, but when I worked on the lecheria thursday a little bit of a water war went on between Dona Yamy and Don Maurice. Don was hosing down one of the milking apparatuses and accidentally squirted Dona, who responded with a quick squirt to the face. Within seconds they both turned to me, hoses in hand, and grinned. I usually don't mind getting wet, but the water was really cold. I yelled "No no no!" which stopped them from squirting me. They were laughing so hard that they forgot to squirt me. Dona Yamy and Don Maurice were telling Jenny this story, complete with an impersonation of my shrill shriek of "No no no!" Anyway, we got done milking around 9:30 and began to clean up some of the corral.

After 15 minutes or so of hosing down the area, Profe Moro and Jenny took me around the grazing system. We herded the cattle out to the designated area, ducking under electric fences (that weren't on thank god), stepping in mud puddles, wading through tall grass, and jumped over some small ditches. This grazing area is huge! There's so many sections that are going to be used and it's just amazing to see all of this land cut up into pieces, it's so organized. Once we herded the cattle into the right plot, we went back to the main farm to turn on the electric fence. I learned that you could listen to hear if the fence is turned on, or, you can touch it with a stick. I'm going to do this test every time I go out into the field, because god knows I'll find a way to electrocute myself if I don't double check.

We went up to the outdoor kitchen for a break when Jenny and Profe Moro told me that I'd be going to the lab with Jenny to test milk samples. I was so excited! The only thing I wasn't excited about was riding my bike to the lab. Jenny rode with Profe Moro in his car and I followed behind them. Let me tell you, that was one heck of a bike ride. I rode up hills, drove through potholes, did my best to avoid hitting any big rocks in the road, for about a mile and a half. I was exhausted and it was hot out. When I finally caught up with them I was really excited to get to work. Jenny told me about her project and led me into the lab, which was air conditioned to the point where I was shivering. I think that was the best thing about the lab. Anyway, the lab is really cool. It's a room off of this warehouse like building where students cook, make yogurt, and conduct food science research. In the lab itself there was some packaged herbs that EARTH sells. It was a small room, bu there was a lot of really cool lab equipment.

The sterilization chamber

The herbs

Jenny and I had to wear lab coats and hairnets throughout the entire experiment. I felt so official! The lab coat even had EARTH's logo on the pocket.

Ready to experiment!

For Jenny's experiment, she took milk samples from a lot of different cows. She was trying to prove that cows that are treated a certain way and eat a certain diet produce better milk. We used some of the milk samples she collected to measure the ph level, protein content, and amount of grass particles in the sample.

Some of the milk samples that we brought from the farm

We used a machine that calculated all of the percentages of protein and printed out the results.

The machine we used

We poured a small amount of milk into the black cup and sipped the metal rod into the cup. Within a few minutes we got a receipt breaking down the important information we were looking for.

The receipts here have the percentage of grass particles in the milk and the protein underlined because these are the big factors that make milk good. A grass percentage that's around 4 is extremely good. The receipts above have grass percentages of 4.44 and 4.54, so these samples were really good. The protein levels were exceptional as well because anything about a 3 is really good.

In addition to that test, I got to measure the ph of the samples using a pipette, a flask, some chemicals that turned the milk a slight pink when it had a good ph, and some light. I had to pour in small increments of this chemical into the milk until it turned light pink in order to show that the milk had a good ph level. Everything had to be very precise so I had to re-start a few times. I eventually got the hang of it. It was really interesting to see how certain small changes to a cow's life such as a special meal every wednesday and saturday could affect the milk so well.

It was great experience and I can't wait to go back again!

Once we were done with the experiment I helped clean up and then headed off to lunch. The rest of the day was pretty relaxing. Tomorrow I'm going to show a new intern from the US around! I'm really excited to help out. 

Bye guys!

-Allie