Dark

It is. Still. The clock says six, but my brain says five. Everyone is asleep except Liz, who already left for her new job/internship and me, who got up early to see her off. We would normally be milking by now, but everybody is tired and cranky from the stupid time change...so I haven't called anyone yet. It isn't tanker day, Liz already checked the springers (cows close to having calves) and the cows won't care because they are still on Eastern Standard time. Let the poor souls, both bovine and human catch an extra half hour. It isn't going to hurt a thing. Liz is talking about sleeping when she comes home between milkings for her midday break and I am going to encourage her to....she is already weary with four months to go.


We sure have a mess of cows due to calve and have already calved four I think. Probably closest is my Crunch cow (her mother's name was Cookie, by a bull named Plushanski Thor Cutter, so how could I not). Crunch nearly died as a two-year old when she got into the manger in the heifer barn and fell down with her head turned under her. We missed her at about dark that day and went in to find a nightmare. She probably weighed 1100 pounds and was wild as an eagle, stuck down and thrashing wildly. During the course of getting her up Liz got dragged around the barn and Alan took a beating too. With some of us pulling her on a rope halter and someone holding her tail to balance her so she could stand we got her on her feet and walked her outside. As soon as we let her go she went right back in and fell again. We made her comfortable and let her stay there. It took weeks of hand carrying water and feed to her and helping her to her feet every day, but the kids, (mostly Becky and Alan doing the hauling) saved her. She is due now for her second calf and bred to Four-of-a-Kind Eland. I am grateful to the all kids for their hard work back then, getting her out and keeping her going. Cookie was my all time favorite cow and I lost her to a clostridial infection and then her only other daughter, Cedar, was electrocuted. I still have Cookie's sister, Eland and her niece, Egrec, but I would really have hated to lose Crunch.


When the whole affair was over, Crunch had a couple of ropey scars on her legs where she cut herself but she was tame. We figure she turned wild as a calf because the anesthetic for having her horns removed didn't work quite right. She was fine and tame up until she was dehorned and got up the next morning hating us all. (We have our veterinarian dehorn the calves; they receive both general and local anesthetic for the operation...horned cattle are dangerous to themselves, their herdmates and us working in close quarters with them as we do.) Now, she is a sweetheart and was top milker on the farm two months last year. I would love to get a heifer calf, but I will settle for getting her through calving in good shape.


Besides Crunch, we have Liz's baby Jersey, Hazel, her old Jersey show cow, that was reserve champion Jersey at the fair, Heather, Egrec, Mento, (both mine) and others I can't think of this early in the morning.... all gearing up to have calves. So far most of them have been calving during the day, which is a nice bonus...hope they continue in that style.


Sorry about rambling, but I am just not quite awake yet.

**Update, the boss just got up and turned on the news to find that the Cumberland Farms store just across the river from us was robbed yesterday. That is too close...just too close.... maybe a mile and two tenths from the bottom of our driveway. And they wonder why we want to stay armed and able to protect ourselves from stuff like that. Since 911 sent vast numbers of folks moving north from the big city, a veritable crime wave has followed right in their footsteps. Used to be mostly in Schenectady and Albany, but now our banks are being robbed and our stores hit right close to home. Dang.