* I've done consulting in Poland twice and
* couldn't believe my eyes - no fences
* anywhere, one adult man and one dog (Alsation
* - German shepherd) herding 50 sheep on
* pasture seven days a week and housing them at
* night. The herder gets a break in winter when
* snow covers all.
HI Folks,
Poland is a place I know pretty well. I've never been there, of course, but
have many friends from there.
We hosted somewhere between 50 and 75 Polish agriculture trainees on our dairy
farm. Also many from East Germany, Russia, Hungary, and other communist
block countries. This was prior to the strikeing down of the Berlin wall and
the iron curtain.
I can honestly say, that through those various exchange programs, I have
definitely met the very best, and also some of the very worst of humanity.
All of them were grist for the mill. I have made cow milkers from the
strangest of human material.
I hate to differ with my valuable friend, Vaughan Jones, but there ARE many
electric fences in Poland.
I know this for a fact, as one of my Polish trainees was employed as an
electric fence inspector in Poland, for the four years following his
graduation from agricultural college. This was just prior to his work
experience on my farm.
He traveled around Poland, and viewed electic fences, all day, every day.
However, he did mention, that in all that time, he never actually found an
electric fence in Poland that was working.
I questioned him closely on this failure to find a working electric fence in 4
years. I couldn't believe it.
I was thinking that a thousand monkeys, working randomly for a few years,
could surely construct at least one working electric fence.
But my friend assured me that this was not the case in his professional
experience.
I hate to open myself up as being politically incorrect about the Polish, but
in my extensive experience with Polish agricultural trainees, if have
concluded that Polish jokes may have sound basis in fact.
Here are a few examples. I could write a book on this subject;
One young Polish man managed to get a scraper tractor exactly crossways in an
eleven foot wide freestall alley. At some point in the process, he had
detached the 3-point box scraper as that was sitting in a free stall.
To get the tractor out, I had to get a chainsaw, and cut off three posts and
then lift the tractor out with a PayLoader. Even today, I haven't a clue how
he did it, as it was clearly impossible. It's wonderful what a person can do
who who hasn't been educated to know his limits.
On another occasion, my wife began to complain that most of the water glasses
(tumblers) had disappeared from her kitchen.
Come to find out, we discovered that a young man from Poland, who was living
with us, had filled one or two tumblers every day with milk, and had 15 of
them lined up in the top shelf of one of the kitchen cabinets. He felt that
milk wasn't fit to drink until about the 7th or 8th day.
Another young man from Poland was very clean in his personal habits, but
astounded my wife.
Somehow, everytime he visited the bathroom, he managed to spatter water all
over the mirror, and surounding wall, the opposite way, the toliet and even
the ceiling. This went on for his full 6 months and we never solved it.
All these men, dozens and dozens of ag trainees, used plenty of cologne,
hopeing that they would smell sweeter. They all used the SAME brand. They
all smelled exactly alike.
I believe that it was possibly manufactured in Hungary, but was used by
Russians, Poles, E Germans and others.
I think the communists only had one cologne factory that served the entire
communist block. The stuff smelled exactly, EXACTLY, like a wet dog.
I hope you won't feel that I'm prejudiced against the Polish.
I'm not. How could a be?, living as I do, in the shadow of the second largest
Polish city in the world, Cleveland, and only a short drive from the greatest
Polish city, Detroit.
Many of the current residents of these cities, took their first step as
agricultural trainees in Homerville. They found friendship and sympathy
here.
--
Kindest regards,
========================
F. W. Owen
Owenlea Holsteins
9430 Spencer Road
Homerville, Ohio 44235
e-mail fwo@bright.net
home page http://www.bright.net/~fwo
voice & fax 330.625.2369
cell 330.635.2287
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