I dreamed that I was part of a group of high school kids visiting a big commercial dairy farm outside of College Station, TX. As we crossed a wide, flat bridge over the Brazos River, I looked down and commented to my friend Emily on how beautiful and clear the water was, and how pretty the aqua water looked over the white-gold limestone. Emily asked me if I'd ever been to this farm. She had, as part of going to an A&M school, because the farm was affiliated with the University. I told her that of course I'd been to the farm, and eaten the ice cream at the creamery. After all, I was born in Bryan.
We got to the dairy farm, which was set up like a cross between a livestock show in a big warehouse and a museum. We were guided down an enclosed pathway throughout the giant barn, carpeted, with big glass windows on either side, looking out onto broad, concrete floored spaces where the livestock were fed, moved, milked, etc. We had two tour guides that explained things and answered questions. After going through all the exhibits, I went back to the first room.
In this room, they talked about managing the input and output, as it were, of having any type of livestock. The feed comes in, the manure goes out, and various processing and separating is required. They'd done something rather ingenious at this farm. They'd trained the goats to use little shovels with handles that fit specially into goat mouths to flip different things onto conveyor belts that then took matter to a sorter. So they had goats working in the feed storage area and the manure processing area, and I watched them for a while, and took a lot of photos of these adorable trained goats at work.
I finally met up with the rest of my group in the gift shop and creamery. We all ate ice cream, and then I said I needed to buy some special goats milk bubble bath before we left. I found it and paid for it and we all got back in the vans to go home, and then I woke up.
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