Tax Time

Nuff said

Vet Check Day

This year's last poplar leaf

Spent almost all of yesterday in the barn feeding cows and letting them in and out. (We used to have a power feed cart, but it passed away last winter).

Now the guys feed with wheel barrows, which doesn't really take that long, but it is tedious. I figured that this year it would get done faster if I "manned" one of the barrows and so I do. Figure in a couple of weeks I will either be pretty fit or pretty dead. So far the trend is towards fit.

Had a relatively new (to us) veterinarian do some preg checking and it went quite well. She was competent and fun to work with. Most of the cows we thought were carrying calves are in fact and a couple we were pretty worried about surprised us in a good way. Dear old Zinnia gets to stay another year, which made my day. Nobody likes her but me, but I like her a lot. She doesn't even belong to me...is Alan's cow...and she steals other cows' calves and guards them even from us...but I just like her.

However, thanks to NY State's exorbitant tax rates for land, somebody has to go to pay some bills (we spend nearly two months income paying county and school taxes on our land) and it leaves us looking for income outside the milk check after we get done being fleeced.

Unfortunately Blink, a sweet old retired show cow and Cider, not so sweet, and in fact downright mean, will go to the auction today. Nuff said.