Another Day

Liz and Becky both took off farm jobs over the past couple of weeks, which kind of leaves everybody scrambling to get things done, but we are getting it done. Glad they started in springtime like this when I can conjure up at least a little bit of energy to take up some of the slack. Writing projects are finding themselves kind of on the back burner though...sorry about that.

Yesterday we shipped a cow and a steer over to the sale (with special thanks to my brother and family for the loan of their bigger truck). Alan stopped on the way home to pick up the check rather than waiting for it to be mailed. Cow brought almost sixty cents a pound, which although not spectacular is better than it has been. We are wondering about the weigh scale over there though. We sent one of the biggest cows we had a couple of months ago and got paid for an eleven-hundred pound cow. We kinda wondered where the rest of her went. This cow wasn't near that big and weighed the same, leading me to wonder...not for the first time. We got cheated by a trucker a few years back, who switched the auction tags on our big cows with his little ones, until we caught him and fired him. Reason why we truck our own despite our lousy trailer and having to borrow a truck (as soon as Alan gets a tire on his he can go back to hauling for us.)

Then the boss and I trimmed a hind foot on a lame cow, my old Citation R Maple, England. She had been getting progressively lamer and needed a pedicure and some medicine and a nice, thick bandage. He did the real work while I just held the rope that held her foot off the floor. Unlike horses, most cows will not hold their foot up while you work. However, she was quite blase about the whole affair and continued to eat hay while we worked. When the trimming was over she was standing much more comfortably. Since we have been feeding this product our cows have had amazingly improved foot health, and I think the last cow we had to trim was this time last summer, when this same one got her feet done before. We feed this too, in our trace mineral mix. It is such good stuff for those living on this selenium depleted soil that I take a human version of it every day with my own vitamins. A proper balance of minerals and vitamins as important to cows as it is to us, so we have to use carefully formulated feeds for them.

Despite the freezing weather, which may not bode well for the apple and peach trees, the flower gardens are a delightful tapestry of texture and greenness. I love the way the spears of the irises offer spiky contrast to the fringed lupines and the tassels of the tiger lilies. The many varieties of variegated hosta turn the bed into a painting in green, with just a few flower highlights to set it off. (Thanks to the God Awful winds there isn't much left blooming.) Liz BF mowed the lawn again and he is a plumb adventuresome lawn mower person. There is smooth green grass in places that just used to be brush. Thanks guy....

Birds are busy, grackles like fighter planes seeking everybody else's nests like Darth EggVader. Mockingbirds fending them off like angry bomber bees. Chimney swifts came back the day before yesterday, but although other folks have swallows I have yet to see one. The kestrels are sitting on eggs, and the Mrs. sure doesn't want Mr. joining her under the eaves. She sends him packing no matter how hard it is raining. Due to lack of youthful farm help I put the cows up the lane yesterday and enjoyed a short interlude with a questing robin. No matter how common they are I love the way they tamely come close and sing as sweetly as the thrushes they are. This one was foraging almost at my feet and I spent a few minutes just watching him. It was probably the most peaceful moment of the day and I thank him for it.

Anyhow, what with a fence yet to finish, finances requiring daily management by the bookkeeper (yeah, that is me, alas) garden to plant, and so on etc, including hay starting as soon as it dries out and some crops left to plant. I apologize in advance for missing some days here. Hope spring is treating you right.