Got milk?

Ava's kindergarten class went on a field trip today. Dejong's Dairy is the last fully automated dairy (from cow to bottle and not sold in stores) in Southern California. All of the Orange County dairies sold to the big guys long ago.

Of course, one major highlight is getting to ride the yellow school bus to the dairy and so the adventure begins. They start the field trip tour off by gathering the kids in pasture and as all the kids are holding their noses and screaming about the horrible stench they explain that the smell is not going to go away and you cannot hold your nose for 2 hours so get used to it. They also tell the kids that cow don't use toilets and they poop, pee and do all sorts of gross things like lick your face when you feed them. What they didn't mention is that one cow was in labor and all the gross things associated with that :-O.

There was a newborn calf that was born just 3 hours before we arrived. When we got there he couldn't even stand and by the time we left he was wobbly walking next to his mom. Meanwhile his bull dad was trying to get some more cows pregnant. *One girl screamed out "look mom, just like our dog does!* As we were feeding the baby cows the sequestered mama cow in active labor was mooing and moaning. She started to walk off by herself and she turned around and crapped everywhere...with bloody show. *kids, let's go over here, we don't want phone calls later from angry parents*

After feeding the cows, petting the cows and being licked by the cows we watched the cow removal process and then the bottling process. Followed by cookies and fresh chocolate milk along with brown bag lunches and then visiting the petting zoo.

We had a great morning down on the farm.