EdBecerra wrote:Other way around, for me. I found riding fence (which I did for a neighbor off and on over a year) to be mindlessly restful.
Of course, it didn't matter if I succeeded or not, so my job really didn't matter, therefore I wasn't stressed. There was no "fail or succeed", just "show up... uhhh... sometime. And try not to fall off the horse 'n break your neck."
For the most part, I've found farm jobs to be something where I could just turn off my head and go on autopilot. Then again, I'm the sort of person who can very EASILY program the autopilot in my head. I'd often bike down the road while reading a book and only watching the road out of the corner of my eyes. And I could do this quite easily with no strain - but ONLY in my home town where I've internalized all the streets.
Really rather restful. Somewhat zombie-like, actually...

Like milking is for me, oddly enough.

Set me down by a cow's side and I just go to it like a born... hey, what
is the male term for "milkmaid"?
First time, I was all of eight years old, and my private school had a farm next door. (So we could learn about animals.) One day, the principal decided to let us all have turns milking the cow.
Oh, that poor cow.

The other kids had no talent for milking. They just grabbed and squeezed, yanked, and generally made that poor Jersey's life miserable.
Then I got up to the front of the line, and got the same talk that the others had: That I should gently, using my thumb and forefinger, squeeze down the teat in order to get the milk out. I looked, and it was just like a calf's mouth works; simple. So I reached out and went to work. I squeezed a little too gently at first (I always had a light touch), but I quickly got the hang of it.
The principal just stopped dead in her tracks. The cow turned around to watch me, then turned back around without a sound. And, surprisingly, I enjoyed it immensely. Not so fortunate for the other kids, who did
not get to milk the cow; by the time the principal had shaken off her "Good grief, he's doing it
right" stupor, all that was left was finishing off the milking.
Later that month, we had homemade butter, made from the milk of that cow. Yummy.:9
<sigh> Ah, to be a milk-... milk-...
<googlegooglegoogle>
Ah. Ah, to be a dairyman.
(I said I was from farm stock. My side of the family didn't own the farm, okay?)
Yours wishing for a cow to milk,
The wolfish,
Wanderer