Hessen Country

I have offically been with my 2nd host family, The Seeger's, for 2 weeks! I really love it here. Their home is officially called Otzberg, Nieder-Klingen and is the state, Hessen. The landscape here is quite different from my last family's. Here, there are many hills and it is more humid here as well. Most of the days have been very warm and I am enjoying the sunshine since it had rained almost everday in Gescher.

The Seeger Family are IFYE Veterans. They have had at least 3 other IFYE's, that I know about, not including me. And all the IFYE's they've had have been from Colorado! They think that there are only IFYE's from Colorado..LOL! The family consists of Peter & Kathrin(Host Parents), Sebastion, age 7, Julia, turning 5 on Aug.9, and Leo, age 3. The kids have been helping me with my Deutsch...well I wouldn't say helping me but they prefer I speak Deutsch so we can have more fun playing together. So lets say...They encourage me?:) The parents of Peter live right next door, Irene and Wolfgang.

This is a family farm that has grown quickly over the past years growing from one pig barn to four. One pig barn is located here at the house and the other three are close to the house, only a few km away. I have mainly been working at the barn near the house. This barn consists of the Sals(pregnant pigs) that go from being artifically inseminated to fairing (I maybe spelling this wrong) FYI-giving birth. So lets see- i have been involved in the insemination process, cleaning up pig poo, in the birthing process and with the baby piglets.

Now, please allow me to walk you through my main job: So when the Sals have their babies, roughly 12 piglets, I have the IMPORTANT job of giving them an antibiotic shot, then I clip their tails, then lastly I inject a multivitamim like supplement into thier mouths. im definetley not the favorite person of these piglets when I am finished. I've probably done this to about 750+ piglets...Im pretty much a pro:) Oh and another important job i do is that I also help Stephan or Peter move the finished pigs into the truck to be sent to the butcher.