Episode 4
NZ Screening date 3 March 2004

The City Girls finally get to try life on a dairy farm, complete with cows that must be milked twice a day, every day, 365 days a year. As they soon discover, dairy farmers rise to give the cows their first milking at an hour that would see most City Girls only just getting home from the clubs and pubs.

Lex and Kate draw the first milking and dutifully arrive at Farmer Paul’s milking shed at an insanely early hour in the day. Kate is immediately thrust into the first lesson of the morning…any more or less than four udders on a cow and there may be a problem!

As Kate soon finds not only do cows appendages come in all shapes and sizes, but may also provide a warm but still rather unexpected shower for the unwary.

After motoring through the first 50 cows, the thought of only another 850 still to go may be less of a thrill than Kate was hoping for. The cows are also a bit on edge, perhaps the proximity of a girl from the land of latte has something to do with their unease?

As Kate and her new friends enjoy the first rays of sunshine heralding the new day, Lex has just been told that the four-day-old bobby calves that she is contemplating are watching what may be their last dawn.
This causes Lex to reflect on the cruelty of life, but her spirits are somewhat restored by the handsome truck driver who has come to take the calves away.

At Presto’s farm, Lou is proving to be a dab hand at calf treating, with the tube going down the little one’s throat and out again in record time.

Next task for Lex and Paul is to feed 400 very hungry calves. Lex is not greatly impressed by the odour that their milky meal gives off, but Paul seems to enjoy the smell…beauty is definitely in the nose of the beholder!

Lex has to deliver the concoction to the waiting calves, but this is probably not the best time to learn the fine art of reversing a trailer, and the crowd is growing restless. Every father should instruct his daughters on this most vital skill!

Lex has adopted a calf and wants to take “Stella” to the pet day at the local school…after the demise of Moses, Summer and Lucky, perhaps changing species will lift the City Girls pet curse!

As the exhausted Kate recuperates, the other four City Girls set off to the pub to show the locals how pool is played in the Big Smoke, and they seem to be blending in nicely with the regulars…who would have thought?

Presto can see that three weeks of life on the land is changing the girls, and the mammoth job of docking has tested their strength as never before, but they have come through with flying colours . They are anticipating a well deserved break when Matt spoils their dreams with the news that Wilbur the pig needs to have a ring stuck through her nose, and guess which lucky girl gets the job of doing it? Mmmmm…Kristy!

With Kates support ringing in her ears Kristy ventures over to where Matt has customised a wool pack that should make things easier for both City Girl and pig…hopefully. As Lou compares Wilburs pong unfavourably with the aroma of bacon, Kristy approaches Wilbur with a plummeting confidence level, a feeling that Wilbur returns in spades. Another successful mission and the City Girls take time out to mull over their docking experiences…overall the consensus is that of pure exhaustion, but after a good hot shower each is feeling much better. What better way to unwind than to take the local Young Farmers Club up on their kind offer of a pistol shoot? Here’s hoping that Lex will fare better than she did against the clay birds!

No such luck…it would seem that deadly weapons and Alexa do not make good companions. As it turns out Kate is just beaten for the best score by Lou. As Fate would have it, it falls to the least gun-inclined of the City Girls, Lex, to put an ailing cow out of its misery...with a lot of encouragement and instruction she edges a rifle close to the beast and then dispatches it with a tug on the trigger. Afterwards the deed really hits home, for Lex has never had to end the life of anything before, but she can appreciate the necessity of being humane to a suffering animal, and demonstrates real courage by putting the welfare of the beast before her horror at inflicting pain on another Creature. Well done Lex, City Girls are made from strong stuff!