other things I'd rather

In other words, I'm typing to that infamous muse, the reader, instead of thinking of good probing questions to ask the dairy farmer tomorrow. We have a herd project (heard of what?) for this rotation, where we look at different aspects of a dairy and try to figure out areas of improvement. And because I imagine that one of the edifying thing about reading blogs is that you get a glimpse of a truly different daily life, here's a doozy for you. You are running a dairy, milking about 300 head, mostly Holsteins (what most people picture when you say "cow"). This means you get up pretty early, milk for 4 to 5 hours, take an hour break to clean the parlour, and then start up all over again. Not to mention that you need to feed the cows, watch them for signs of heat, lameness, general badness, and scrape the barn (a true necessity, if you know cows). The coolest thing about dairymen is that they can tell you what cow it is by looking at them, often only looking from the feet and udder perspective (most parlors being sunk low in the floor). I wish I was as good at names, only I guess most people'd look at you a bit sidelong if you stared at their feet and crotch before you said hello ("Oh, HI Madge, didn't recognize you at first--sitting behind that desk and all."). But to prove a point that was long ago proven, all specialties have their lingo, and dairy farming is no exception. So I'm trying to look cool, here (can't help it, you would too---do you like to look like an idiot? I didn't think so), and come up with some real professional questions. OK, you internet dairyman/woman you, so tell me: TMR or component feeding? How's your average calving interval? What's your cull rate, and from what? LDAs/RDAs common? Ketosis/milk fever/fat cow syndrome (you heard me, fat cow syndrome)? See, you hadn't ever really thought about it, have you? Every subject only becomes infinitely more complicated when you delve into it--could you run a dairy farm? Maybe you already do. But I bet most of you couldn't. This infinite complication fractal-like theory is why I'm a splitter, not a lumper, but that's a different blog. Later.

The other thing I wanted to mention is that I was stuck with talk radio again today, and I could barely stand it. (Do you think I'd fail the rotation if I accidentally pulled out a few crucial wires?) So in self-defense, and to rid my brain of that nasty talk radio aftertaste, I thought it was poem time. And this time I was kind to any poetry haters out there, 'cause I waited till the end. This is one of my favorites, but it really should be read aloud. Don't be shy, unless you're in one of those internet cafe things, in which case, go ahead and be shy. This is why I despair of modern vocabulary. We just don't get to roll our tongue about words the way we used to. I'll admit, for some this one may need an intro: it's about a lovely wet spot, somewhere wild, with a brook ripping through it. Would that today's environmentalists could be so eloquent.

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89). Poems. 1918.

33. Inversnaid

THIS darksome burn, horseback brown,
His rollrock highroad roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.
A windpuff-bonnet of fáwn-fróth	5
Turns and twindles over the broth
Of a pool so pitchblack, féll-frówning,
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.
Degged with dew, dappled with dew
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,	10
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.
What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;	15
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

You go, Gerard.