Bliss (Capital)

A cow at midday

My days start early: when my alarm sounds at 5:30am or whenever I'm awoken by the sound of rain on the roof of my caravan. I get dressed, donning a sweater and overalls with a waterproof shell layer on top, and meet Siebe Klaas, the farmer at Natuureiland Gouden Boaiem, in the stables. There, we turn on the lights and close the fences so that the cows have a circuit to walk. Next, we head out into the fields and herd the cows. I've started to get more comfortable around the giant animals, but the fear of encountering one of the two bulls in the hundred-plus flock of cows keeps me from getting too aggressive. Siebe Klaas on the other hand seems like he's walking through a field of wildflowers instead of one populated by half-ton, eating machines- but for good reason: over the past two days I have learned a lot about the gentle giants, each cow has a unique personality which gives her an endearing quality.

A view of where Siebe Klaas and I stand;
milk nodes line the sides

Once we've successfully ushered the cows from the fields to the stables, the milking process begins. Luckily, we don't milk each cow by hand, instead using a milking machine that accommodates eighteen cows at a time, with each of the eighteen end-nodes having four suction tubes. But the process isn't fully automated, first, we pull a rope to feed each cow, then while it is eating, we clean the udders of the cow and carefully attach a suction tube of the machine to each of the four udders. The process isn't always this simple however, as I learned this morning: some cows have a propensity to take a dump while the machine is being attached, others like to suddenly thrash to grab some extra grub from the cow next door, plus the occasional cow is missing a nipple (or has one too many). There are two rows of the milking machine, with nine cows each, that Siebe Klaas and I operate simultaneously; once one row is done, the exit gate is lifted and hose is used to clean the milking nodes and encourage the cows to depart their troughs, then another nine enter and the process restarts.


I struggle to convey one thing about the process in my description above: it's incredibly fun. Each morning, Siebe Klaas has a giant grin on his face as we get to work and, frankly, the joy is contagious. The work is both rhythmic and spontaneous, mechanical and whimsical, in a way that differs from the more conventional garden labor I did at Hof van Twello.

On a good morning, we finish milking all the cows around 8:30 and go and have breakfast with the family. Siebe Klaas lives with his wife, Pytsje, and their three kids, Klaas, Berber, and a nine month old boy whose name I forget. The kids are a joy, especially the little guy, and their blond hair and blue eyes remind me of my little siblings. Eating with the family has made working on this farm even more of a learning experience because it gives me ample opportunity to talk with Siebe Klaas and Pytsje.

They started the farm in 2013, uprooting their young family and moving onto the island. They are both Friesland natives, but neither were originally farmers; Siebe Klaas had the opportunity to farm the land for free through his job at the Dutch Forestry Commission, that is why it doubles as a nature preserve for birds. When I asked Siebe Klaas why he decided to start farming under these circumstances, he told me "I don't want to be like the farmers who change the land for money, this way it is natural, it is like a circle."

A hen and her chicks

I remember watching Dan Barber's TED talk about ecological farming a few years ago and being blown away by the ingenuity of extensive farming, now I've been given the opportunity to work side by side with a farmer who practices the principles Barber preaches. The farm is an ecosystem within itself, with goats to eat back the ever-encroaching bramble, chickens to spread the fertile cow droppings, and natural landscapes to provide habitats for endangered birds.

After breakfast is over, the kids go off to school and Siebe Klaas and I both take a quick nap, though I often spend this time reading instead. We meet for coffee at 9:30 and decide my tasks for the day: yesterday it was shoveling out the pens of the calves and stacking wood, today it was harvesting the beans in the small garden next to the house. While I was shoveling out their pen, I became friendly with the calves, who I subsequently gave names that defied gender/anatomical conceptions and reflected their personalities.

Bill E. GOAT, my personal favorite and
unquestionably the best of the four

Bill next to Mike Rowe, the smallest
and dirtiest calf

A shot of the fields at midday

So far, my time here has been an absolute joy, the solitude that I once would've dreaded has become very comfortable. Without WiFi in my caravan, I spend most of my time reading (at the moment I am engrossed in Capital by Thomas Piketty, pick it up if you have time for 816 pages like I do) or sleeping, with the occasional attempt at meditation. Currently, I'm trying to not focus on the short tenure I have left in Smallebrugge/the Netherlands, but the exciting thoughts of my return to family in New York and friends in Los Angeles makes it quite difficult. Regardless, I am really in a state of bliss.