thank god it's over

Today marks my last day of Therio! yay!

I was on with three good friends of mine so that made it bearable and full of laughs:)

One day, we were at a dairy farm palpating what felt like a billion dairy cows, when this tour group of Algerian business people came walking through the barn. So here I am, armpit deep in cow butt, covered in manure, when a man asks me, "are you inseminating?". I politely answer "No, I'm rectally palpating to determine her stage of cycle". Oh, I can be professional--and you doubted!

These Algerians were constantly shapping pictures and taking video of us. I wonder what newspaper or TV show is showing me in Algeria. We laughed for a good 20 minutes after they left.

oh, but the day got even better!

We went to culver's for lunch where there was a big to-do about them lying to us vegetarians about the meat products in their food. The short version is that the culver's corporation states on their allergen pamphlet that none of their food is certified vegetarian and all may contain trace amounts of animal products. So not only did several employees argue with us that the potato au gratin soup was vegetarian (it's not...it has fish and pork in it) but they shouldn't ever use the word "vegetarian" b/c the corporation has that disclaimer. This was a serious problem for me as a vegetarian and could have been a lot worse--if i was jewish i'd be morally outraged and if i was allergic to fish--i'd be in the hospital!

anyway--i wrote a letter to the culver's corp asking to get it in their training protocol so more serious situations don't arise. i got a letter of apology back so i was satisfied. the funny thing was, in the letter they included gift certificates for free food baskets at culvers......hmmm...i wonder if they even read my letter or maybe they're getting their kicks by giving non-vegetarian food to a vegetarian, "good luck eating this!". haha, whatever.

And finally, this friday we went out to a dairy goat farm to do a herd evaluation which was pretty fun. Essentially we got a tour of the farm and ultra sounded a ton of goats to see who was pregnant. Goats are awesome animals--they are so curious and hearty. The picture at the top is me standing next to a goat in the milking parlor. Goats go up ramps so when they are being milked (from behind) the milker doesn't have to stoop. This picture adequately represents the part of the animal we were concerned with on this rotation, although slightly obscured by the tail;)