Mitchell, hay and wild cow milking

Last year,
I made a desperate blog,
begging someone, 

anyone to come and help us out this year during haying season.
Much to my surprise, I had a few responses!

One of  them was Mitchell.

Mitchell joined us (from the Netherlands) this year for 4 weeks to come make some hay.

Having never worked on a ranch before,
  we always like to err on the side of caution when it comes to newbies running the equipment.

Mitchell was a quick learner, after two rounds on the mower he "got it".
One sentence of explanation and he had the rake figured out.

5 bales later, he had the baler figured out.

The biggest mistake he made was chucking a bale out before it had wrapped...
And if that is all that goes wrong, then we are very happy!

It was great to be able to work with someone who had:

 no issues
was not nervous, shaky or silly,
was not pouty and sulky
got the job done without breaking stuff

did not complain and whine.

All we can say is THANK YOU,
you made a dent in our haymaking this year and it was great to get to know you.
We appreciate your attitude, your help and our door is always open to you anytime.

However, 

we did finally find one skill that Mitchell did not master..
He is a bad "wild cow milker".
(Uhmm,  his team mates were no help either.)

The "Dutchies" consisting of Eric, Mitchell and neighbour Martien entered into the wild cow milking at the rodeo.

Eric would try to rope the cow (anchor), Martien would be mugger (hold the head of the cow)
while Mitchell would be the milker ( you know, get some milk out of the udder).

We thought Mitchell would have some experience in that area...

To make a long story short,
no cow, no milk no glory.

However, Mitchell did get to go down the slip and slide, run a corn maze,
he drove endless rounds on the tractor, handled dogs and sheep, putting up nets,
he learnt about washing tractor windows, cleaning out filters and radiators, he watched the rodeo, saw coyotes close up, fixed fence and rode a horse.

We hope you will come back for a holiday next time!
( and you can bring your Mom as well!)