A day of whey

5/31:
My first day was absolutely fantastic. Despite my excitement for work, my jetlag really took over and I didn't wake until around 11am so I started work late (Rosie had said to sleep in as much as I wanted). I went to the dairy straight away and was directed by Eileen to go upstairs to the cheese-making room. I donned a white apron, white wellies, a hairnet and a pair of green rubber gloves before entering through the glass doors. Inside, Eileen shouted out the names of the workers over the roar coming from the big vats of curds and whey but I didn't catch a word so I just smiled and nodded. The room was small and about a quarter of the space was taken up by the two big vats but there was room for about three stainless-steel tables. I was taken up to one of them where I met Linda, a pretty black-haired young woman who was very very sweet. We worked together at the table which was piled high with molds. Our job was to one by none take the weights and the lid off before banging the mold to loosen the cheese so we could flip it over. When the cheese was flipped we put the lid and weights back on and started on the next mold. The women moved quickly but my inexperienced hands worked about half as slow. Nevertheless, in a matter of minutes the whole table was miraculously done! After this I walked back downstairs to la bel all the cheese for a few orders until the second batch was ready to be put into molds. When I was done I again went pustairs where the women were already scooping curds into more molds. I washed my arms carefully from shoulder to finger with warm water and soap before walking over to the tubs and sinking my arm in alongside Linda. The warm yellow whey felt so good against my skin as I fished my mold around to collect the tiny soft pieces of whey. After about twenty minutes of scooping and filling most of the curds were gone so we went back to flipping the cheese. Outside the rain drizzled and two beautiful white geese stood and watched us work as their fuzzy yellow-gray goslings goofed around nearby. After this great morning, the ladies took off for lunch so I stayed behind to eat lunch with Tom, Rosie and Brennan. We ate together for about an hour until it was time to get back to work. Tom took off to finish pouring cement on the roof of Fingal's new house (it's going to be a grass roof) while Rosie went to go weed Clovis' garden and Brennan went to check on the pregnant cows. I headed back to the dairy where I met Derek Darius who vaguely reminds me of a polish version of Manuel from Fawlty towers. He's a funny little man with thick fingers and an even thicker neck who laughs a lot and makes lots of noises to supplement his mediocre English (mediocre is generous). When he first met me, he kissed my hand and just said "from Poland" with a wave of his hand. We spent the afternoon together laughing in "the dungeon" while washing mold off of the wax of the smoked Gubbeen cheeses. After an afternoon of washing and carrying heavy cheese the day was over so I changed out of my boots, apron and gloves and walked back to my trailer (I'll call it Browny?) only to find that the road was full of cows! But no matter, at least the smell of cows is infinitelty better than the smell of pigs.