You're Not A True Stockman Until You Get Kicked

So today I became a true stockman! (stockwoman, stockperson?). So ya, I took the temp of a cow and right afterwards she gave me a swift kick to my thigh. It's just now starting to bruise, so if it gets gross looking I'll post a pic! Today started off fairly normally, milking, feeding calves, etc. Then we took a break for breakfast as usual, then the guys got started building the new pens for future incoming calves, since we're full up at the moment. While they were doing that I replaced bits of the milkers with these other bits that you can attach bottles to because a company came today that takes samples of the milk an test for things like butterfat %, bacteria, how many litres each cow is producing, etc. apparently they come every few months, it's a voluntary thing that the farmer pays for so that he can monitor output in cows, sell his milk for more, and if he ever wanted to sell a cow he'd have record of how she did. It was really cool to actually see how it's done, and definitely something I didn't think I'd see! There are many surprises at the farm! This is turning out to be a vey informative EMS placement!