2009 07 10. Friday.

2009 07 10. Friday.

I'm usually the first one to the afternoon compost seva so I can round up the materials we need so we're all set when the food waste comes. We were just about out of cow urine so I grabbed some buckets and trooped over the cowshed in the warm sunny early afternoon to get more (come to think of it, I never thought I'd be writing a sentence like that. I go from bookkeeping/accounting to collecting fresh cow dung and urine to spread on food waste. Curious the twists and turns life can take.). At the cowshed as I'm dipping the buckets into the urine collection trough I'm watching them train a new milker. Apparently milking the cows is primarily done by westerners. This time they were training the French guy I met back on Sunday, June 28th. One of the long term Indian cow caretakers was trying to show the French guy how to put the automatic milker on one of the cows. At the same time the calf of this cow was totally getting in the way. It wanted to be close to Mom, of course. So each time he tried to get the milker on the calf would move in and bump him. The Indian man was trying to show the French guy how to move the calf out of the way, but the calf was not interested in getting moved and the French guy was getting kind of nervous trying to get the calf and cow to cooperate. I definitely have a lot of respect for all the people who work with the cows. I was nervous watching the scene cause I was imagining at any time the calf or cow could kick with the back legs. That could easily kill you or severely break some bones.

At dinner today Francine (a very nice Italian lady who helps a lot at the compost area) and I were talking about Swami Jnanamrita. I told her I have this strong and compelling spiritual attraction to him. She smiled, waved her hands and said "Oh. Of course! We all do. We call him the Swami of Eternal Youth. Everyone is in love with him!" Swami J is about 45 years old but looks much younger. So apparently I'll need to get in a long line when they finally let us massage his feet and stare at his smile and eyes.