Ich habe forgessen

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  Hofheim in unterfranken, Germany
Wednesday, November 7, 2007

So, I had a great title for today's entry, I thought of it in the car driving to one of my calls. And promptly forgot it. So insteaad the titles states, "I have forgotten." Anyway.

I've been busy working as of late (big surprise, eh?) Nay, not too busy, just enough. The weekend I had duty on the big farm, then tried to get things done in the afternoon. It's frustrating to have stores open only until noon on Saturdays as then I cannot accomplish anything  on the weekends when I work. Unless I want to drive a ways to a bigger town. Then this week has been a mixed bag of work. Monday was the big farm, and the afternoon free...which became one giant nap. I intended to go home and study a bit, but ended up sleeping for 4 hours. Much needed, I think. Tuesday had some normal herd visits, then ended up the day with a farmer's nutrition seminar put on by the clinic. Turns out, all the younger farmers come to these, as the older guys are not interested or too busy, or who knows what. So, it was a great evening spent with my other vets (the four of us younger ones don't get to hang out together often--one or another is always working) and some farmers my age. I really did try to pay attention to the lecture, it was all about corn silage and grass silage that Pioneer (the sponsor) is developing. But there is only so long one can pay attention to a lecture where I don't understand what is being said...So, we ended up playing a game of deutche word hangman, to teach me words. We did respectfully wait until the question segment of the lecture to fully engage the game...

Today has been the day of weird and challenging cases. I was on call last night, so today I had the 'around the clinic' duty, working the calls that come up during the day. Of course, it turned out that I ended up going to the same direction/town three times...only about a 20 mintue drive, but by the third time at 5pm, I was bored with the drive. Multiple prolapsed things coming out that weren't supposed to be out, and complicated ones, not anything with an easy fix. Then I had a festlieger (downed) cow that had the weirdest thing I've ever heard. When she breathed out (hard, labored breathing), a spot on her side made a clicking or flapping noise. She had no broken ribs, no swellings, nothing exterior to suggest what would be making the sound. She was looking pretty severe, so we're trying all we can, but I'm not sure she'll make it. I really want to know what that noise is, though. I'll have to ask around the clinic, see if anyone's has anything similar.

I do have to say that everywhere I've been, every farm I have been to, the people have been great. Sometimes weird or stubborn (see Kat's entries, stories from the beef farm...), but still super nice. Any problems I thought I would have with people not wanting to work with me, and language issues aren't even an issue. Everyone, and I mean everyone, thinks it's the coolest thing that I'm here, and am learning the language, and they're all super-encouraging about my language skills, too, which helps! It's kind of fun to get out and work the farms I don't normally, especially on my vor ort days, because I have a bit more leeway with time. Tonight, the guy with the festlieger kuh was really cool, and we were discussing the difficulty of slang or dialect. He had been in Australia where I don't think they have any normal words, and had some funny stories. He had super-cute kids, too. They were all concerned about the cow, and the boy was a vet-in-training, I think. He was only like 8 maybe, and thought of the idea to turn her often so she wasn't always on the same side. Pretty good for a little kid!! Ha ha, I do have to brag a little bit, though, I was accused of speaking dialect the other day! It made my day. I often use nett instead of nicht for not or none, because it's used all around me, it's frankish, and I used it one day and a woman said...hey! You're speaking dialect! Good! Made me smile.

I'm slightly mourning the fact the Wolfgang is getting his new auto this week, which means I'll be getting his old one. I rather like driving my stick now, and don't want to switch back to an automatic. It will be nice to have a car that can accelerate faster than 0.000001km/hr, though. The little golf has absolutely no getupandgo, which makes for interesting autobahn merging.

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