Back to Barn Checks

After a couple weeks of peace after Etrain had that gigantic bull calf, it is back to O'dark-thirty in the morning excursions to the barn to check springers....springers are cows that are close up to calve. Right now there are three, my milking shorthorn, Broadway, a tiny little black Holstein named Magic, and arguably one of the nastiest cows we own, a largely-white daughter of Four-of-a-Kind Eland. We like our Eland daughters as a rule, but the less said of Crescendo the better. Still good or bad, loved or dreaded, they all get the same care and that means barn checks.

I can't tell you how comfy my bed was this morning. Soft, warm, peaceful...well except for the wind howling that is. And you can easily bear raging weather from the depths of fifteen quilts and afghans (well, maybe not fifteen, but you get the idea.) It is not quite as easy when you know you have to go out in it.

But I did. I had been dreaming of shorty calves all night. Milking shorthorns are not the most highly thought of in the dairy cow line...by some folks anyhow. However, we really like them. Our shorty steers grow up quite thick and sturdy and the only heifer we have milked so far, Broadway, gives as much milk as a Holstein. I value my B-Dub as I call her, and even if I didn't duty was calling loud and clear.

Sometimes a nighttime/almost/sorta morning barn check offers an unexpected beauty, clean white snow, sparkling stars, dazzlingly clean air blowing by, any of the other features of the thick of night may be present. This morning the sky was a muddy grey, the snow was worn out from yesterday's traffic and I was afraid of the damn fisher, which has been tracking up the creek every night.

Still I got er done and am back in the house, comfortably accompanied by that wonderful first cup of coffee. Everybody is fine, no calves yet though, so unless they all have them today I will be doing this again tomorrow.

Have a good one!