Not much to say

My sweet old dog is blind, deaf and drunk all the time now. His old dog disease causes him to topple over often and at random. He is better in full light, but it is still getting dark at night around here, and even in the house he can't get around much then.
He is sweet about it.
I leash walk him and he appreciates the support of the leash and my leg so he doesn't tip over. He appreciates lots of biscuits and eating people food while the others scarf dog food too. Been a long time since he needed to be walked, but he has always loved the leash. Gael obligingly came in season just now. Very helpful. She is a terrible flirt, and despite being neutered he thinks she is just dandy. I have been keeping him in the kitchen, since it is hard for him to be in his crate and in his current state he isn't going to get in any trouble....except what she cooks up for him. Nick is miserable. He is intact. However Gael is his mother. The weather is cold and rainy or he would be spending some serious time out in the run. I feel like I am juggling dogs twenty hours a day with him inside.

We need to ship a couple cows today. I really hate selling the one, old Marge. She is something like fourteen (if it was daylight I would get out my pocket herd book and check). We had talked about letting her finish her life here on the farm as we all like the old girl. However, now there are those darned drags to pay for and she is only giving twenty pounds of milk and isn't bred and isn't going to ever get bred again...(just too old I guess). The other one is Soir Noir and although Liz likes her, she is the most vicious kicker we have. I have never put the milker on her...she hates to be milked and kicks so hard. She keeps getting mastitis and we can't use the quarter milker on her because she would kill us. I won't miss her.

I have to go wake everybody else now (except Liz who has already grained the cows, checked the two springers and gone to work.) It is a drive Becky to school morning and we have to get started. Have a good one.

DA Surgery

(And no, the district attorney wasn't involved.) My Citation R Maple daughter, England, has been not quite right since she had a calf a week ago ( black heifer we named Egypt). Yesterday, she was not eating or acting right and she had a tell-tale fullness in the big triangle in her left flank. We called our vet.

The doctor confirmed what we thought. A displaced abomasum, one of the cow's four stomach compartments, Sometimes that part of the stomach flips over and then the whole digestive tract fails. Surgery is indicated to empty excess gases, flip the stomach back up and sew it in place. The poor doctor injured her back the day before, so it was rough for her but she got it done.

England was still feeling pretty sorry for herself last night, but she did chew her cud a bit and eat a little hay. Hopefully she will be livlier this morning.

Liz is milking so I can have a morning off. In answer to a question from a friend, she will be interning until May 30. Most of spring...feels like years.

One of those days

Busy. Interesting. Springy.
Right after milking the boss left for the crop center to get a spreader wagon to spread some fertilizer, seeds (alfalfa, alsike clover, timothy, brome, trefoil, field peas and barley), which is how we plant our hay crop. As soon as he was gone Beck and I saw the heifers working the fence. We threw them some hay to keep them quiet as we didn't have time to do anything else with them.

I drove Beck to school and on the way home saw a massive column of smoke to the north. It looked like an F5 tornado looks on television with a massive, swirling base and a column of smoke that could be seen for at least thirty miles. I couldn't pull off anywhere to take a decent photo...these were from our front yard. It was a mill complex in Johnstown, just a tiny distance from where my great-great aunt used to live. Biggest fire there in decades. I give a lot of credit to firefighters who got it knocked down fairly quickly. Alan's school was filled with smoke and the pricipal took quick action to close air vents to prevent outside air from filtering in, He also called the fire companies about whether toxic chemicals were burning so he could close school if needed.




Although I couldn't stop to get fire pictures, I was able to pull off the highway to move this lady (I saw lady because she was probably a fifth of a mile from water and headed for the woods..going to lay eggs maybe?) off the highway.
Anyhow I carried her to safety . Another much larger turtle had already been hit and was struggling with a badly broken shell.


I believe she is an Eastern Painted turtle, one of my favorites. (Chrysemes picta)
She didn't seem too thrilled to have her picture taken, even though she did have all her bright red and yellow makeup on.



There were some little tennis ball-sized painted turtles loafing on logs at Lykers when I stopped, but they were quick to slide into the water...too quick for photos, (unlike the fish, which are still swirling around the culvert opening). Big bull frog tadpoles there too, also too swift for pictures.


Back home, there wasn't a person to be found. Liz was visiting her boy friend. The boss was still at the plant. There were no heifers to be found either. The yard where the four of them stay was bare and empty. I changed my shoes and headed out to find them, (flip flops being lousy for running after cows). Luckily I found them locked in the barn. Later I also found out why my garden pond was down several inches. One of them jumped the fence and drank until she looked like a barrel. Liz put them all in the barn after that. They need to go to pasture. Dry hay just doesn't cut it when there is green grass to gobble...and tasty garden ponds to tipple.

The boss planted his seeding and cultipacked one of the two fields. The second will be done today. I planted dahlias, lilies of the valley, cannas....wild flowers...and lots of other stuff and cleaned the stock tank and figured out how to teach Beck to drive without anyone being killed by the fact that she can't steer. Killing two birds with one stone, in fact...she will drive the garden tractor mowing the lawn. Alan is too busy to do his traditional chore...and she can't steer, throwing those of us who ride in the car with her into paroxysms of terror on tight corners. The lawn mower plan seems brilliant to me. She learns to drive, albeit on a small scale. Alan is free to drive bigger tractors doing bigger jobs. And I get my lawn mowed to boot!

New Chicken House

A story that began when Alan was nearly struck by lightning and bent the barrel of his brand new shotgun has nearly reached its conclusion.... He set a lot of stock in that gun (no pun intended) and felt really bad about bending it when he threw it away from him to roll down the hill and miss getting struck. However, he couldn't quite scrape up enough money to buy a new one.

Enter big sister Becky. She had the money and she hated hauling hay.
And she wanted a new chicken coop so she could have more chickens.
Therefore she bought him the barrel last fall in trade for taking hay to the horses all winter and for building her a chicken coop. I suggested that it would make more sense and be infinitely cheaper to clean out and remodel an existing building, instead of new construction, so that has been the plan.




For the past couple of weeks Alan and I have hauled out ancient harness, an old shop vac, campaign signs from the boss's tenure on the school board, brooders, a seat for a horse breaking fore cart and any number and variety of other trash and junk to make way for this....the ultimate low-cost hen house.



Alan scavenged the door and nest boxes etc. from my old hen house, wire from everywhere it could be found and paint from a long ago project. Lumber came from some we had lying around and parts of the same old chicken house.

Chick Pea, the Buff Orpington hen and Satan the evil-tempered Americana rooster aren't quite sure how they feel about it yet, but reaction is mostly positive. Now we need to find a few more hens and we will reach my ultimate goal in the whole affair...our own egg supply.

Hey (hey) You (you)

Get offa my pond!

Hmmmm.....I think I can.....

Yup, Here I am, right in the center of the pond, plumb handy to those yeller fish down there

They look tasty too!

Hey, come on up, the water's fine

Sinopa and Teak

The only smart-but thirsty-one (Max)

Not content with breaking my headlight and crumpling my fender

The deer are now coming right into the driveway after my car (photos by Alan...out the living room window at three in the afternoon! The white spots are those infamous bullet holes.)

Cobleskill Dairy Fashion Sale

The destination for the day. (Same drive different parking lot.) You can view the online catalog here. It is pdf and takes a while to load, but it looks as if there will be some real fine animals there.

******Home later with lots of pictures. The sale has been held down by the old cow barn as long as I can remember, but this year they placed it up by the new barn. Wa-a-a-ay up on the hill. The new building is very nice and makes it much easier to display the cattle well. (The shuttle ride was something to write home about though.)


This cow caught my eye within a few minutes of entering the barn. I didn't even look at her pedigree because I had my driving glasses on. However, when we went outside a fellow we show against over at Altamont pointed out that he and his son had bred and owned her dam. They came to the sale determined to buy the young cow and did so. She was lot number 46, Pineyvale Power Tessy VG, and brought six thousand dollars. She is of an age to show against our Lemonade and there isn't much doubt about who would take home the ribbon in that match up. We have to content ourselves with showing home-breds, which isn't really a bad thing. We might not win as often but it sure is sweet when we do.






This heifer is pretty special too. Alan spotted her and dragged me over to see her right away. Lot number 10, Welcome Velvet Saratoga. She was offered for sale to benefit the Kristy Peck Memorial Scholarship. Ms. Peck, SUNY Cobleskill graduate, was killed when the Thruway bridge collapsed and the scholarsip honors her memory. Auctioneer Dave Rama began his chant as she walked into the ring,called one single bid of $4300. and banged his gavel down. I looked up in astonishment as we were expecting prolonged bidding on such a fine animal for such a good cause. However, all was immdiately explained. A syndicate, including the Rama family and a number of others put the heifer right back in the sale, thus contributing her first cost, with the second buyer, Ransom Rail Farm, taking her home for $3500.



Here is one Liz liked, a Roylane Jordan daughter, lot number 44. She brought $3100.


We didn't stay for the whole sale. The tent was cold, the seats were hard and we were hungry. Did we buy anything? Well, yes. Alan bought a hamburger and I had a donut. There were a couple of new little calves we would have liked to see sell. He might have invested some of his college savings on one if we could have stood to stay that late. However, they were way, way down in the sale order and the tent was cold and the seats were hard. Liz stayed so I guess we will know what they brought anyhow....probably more than we wanted to spend.

It was a dark and foggy night

And as Beck and I negotiated the twisting, narrow Catskill foothills roads deer began to cross the road in front of us. They were crouched so low they were going UNDER the guardrails. It was very dark. Very foggy. I slowed down as much as I could, but there was a car flying at me from the rear. (Why don't people drive within the scope of their headlights? ). I wanted to come to a complete stop, but because of the rapidly approaching car I couldn't. For a second there were no more deer. Then one leapt out of the woods right into the side of the front fender. I couldn't even stop then because of the maniac behind me and had to pull ahead into the end of a little road a few yards down the road. I think he hit one too, as he stopped as well, but I couldn't see.

We are fine as I was going very slowly. I really don't know if the deer was fine because it was too dark and foggy to even see it. The car...mmmm not quite so fine. No high beam headlight and it is loose in its socket, so I don't know how much damage was done there. Bumper is loose. Hood is sprung a little. They make cars nowadays to crumple easily to absorb impact. Yup they do. I feel pretty bad about this particular little bit of crumpling. I am quite fond of this particular car as it is the first thing I have ever owned that does the driveway without getting me stuck about twenty times per winter. Bah humbug.

Trusting your hunches

Has its costs. Last night one of my cows, Mento, looked like maybe calving in the night. She also had the shakes when she stood up. Liz wanted to give her a bottle of calcium in case the shakes were milk fever. I had a feeling that the shaking was a sort of hereditary tremor that Holsteins sometimes have. She has been showing just a touch of it all winter when she stands up. I don't know what it is called, but it occurs in varying degrees of severity, from barely noticeable to virtually crippling. In Mento's case, so far it has presented as just a ripple of the muscles in her hind quarters.

Normally in such circumstances we would give the calcium just in case, but Mento's skin was warm, she was eating like there weren't going to be seconds and I just didn't think it was needed. Neither did the boss.

However, when you make a decision like that, come morning sleep can be elusive. (You always wonder...is the cow really okay or did I just want to get out of the barn before nine?)
Today is not tanker day, Becky's class is late and there are (hopefully) no inspectors lurking around the corner, so I could have slept until almost six without guilt, However, worrying about Mento...and Consequence, who is also due...and Zinnia who calved night before last....I got up just after five to go out and check. Liz was already up though, just leaving for work because it is SNOWING AGAIN...so she took her phone and went over and checked. Nothing...all well. I am glad but now I wish I had taken that extra almost hour and got some sleep.....oh, well, glad the old girl is all right and expect we will get a calf today.

(Not) my cannon*
Photo by Becky (I was driving)

*Earl: What kind of fuse is that?
Burt: Cannon fuse
Earl : What the hell do you use it for?
Burt : My cannon!

The day the Internet died

Or night actually...last night Frontier net went down in two area codes, including ours. It was still out this morning so... no Farm Side this week, among other things. However, here are some pictures from yesterday's road trip, which would have been yesterday's post, but for fatigue and technological failure.

A beaver house in a swamp on Corbin Hill Road.
There are two of these within perhaps thirty feet of each other.

Left side of Goldman road

We call this Lyker's Pond, although it probably has another name. The two sections of the pond are connected by a large culvert under Goldman Road. As I stood looking for nice shots (and praying against ticks) there came from behind me a booming sound, like someone heaving a bowling ball through the bushes and onto the ice. I must have jumped three feet. It was a BIG boom. I crossed to that side of the road and peered down into the woods. No bears, no maddened lumber jacks. No teen-aged mutant ninja deer ticks. Nada. I went back to taking pictures. (I love this place, so close to farms and houses and yet so remote-seeming and lovely. I will try to stop back as spring shows up, hot on the heels of all those geese (we hope) and take more pictures. It should be interesting to watch the ice melt and the plants green up.)

Then the booming erupted from the side I had just left. What the heck? It was an elusive sort of sound...seeming to come from everywhere and yet nowhere at once. Then it arose from UNDER the road. That is when I figured out (I think) what was going on. The ice itself was making those thunderous sounds as the sun rapidly warmed it after a night in the low teens...There were certainly pressure lines scored across it that weren't there the other day when I visited (You can see them in the right and left photos if you click). And if there were bears or bowling ticks or a train going off the tracks, I, at least, couldn't see them.

Right side of Goldman Road, where the first bowling tick sound originated

We were inspected yesterday and I guess we did okay, although we will probably never know. Liz was there when the inspectors came for which I am very thankful. That way we at least know they have done us and moved on to other victims.



The low tech method of gathering maple sap. This is adjacent to the big sugar bush we pass and is probably part of it. This is the hard way of getting the job done, but these pails seem to be nicely full of sap.

*****If you want to get a look at the incredible goose invasion that is sweeping over New York, visit my other blog, where I dump photos that don't fit here.
****

A little birdie

Tipped us off that there is most likely to be a federal rating inspector checking on all the farms in the cooperative to which we belong sometime during this week. Federal ratings are a challenge. (That is a nice way of saying horrible, nightmarish, hard as heck.) Everything must be perfect. Hah! This is a farm. Fifty cows and forty heifers and two men who never pick up after themselves conspire with muddy Mother Nature to make immaculate walls and floors and cows and properly organized shelves and suchlike things to dream about. And baling twine. What is it with that stuff anyhow? It has a life of its own. Then when we do get everything spic and span keeping it that way for a week...Arggghhh!!

So we thanked God that Liz had Saturday off and we all pitched in and cleaned and cleaned and cleaned. Because I am Queen of the Pressure Washer (having worked on a dairy where I washed the whole parlor down with one every day) I did the milkhouse. Everyone else moved things and swept them and put them in the truck for the landfill. Although it was hard work, most of the job was done by Saturday night, so we were free to share the celebration of Easter yesterday with the dear folks who are giving Lizzie her internship position.

Last night it came down to getting calves out of the manger. We had a couple of them tied in front of loving new mamas who were not exactly happy to see them moved. However, calves in the manger is a major no-no, so they had to go to new locations. Holsteins are usually led on a halter.. Jerseys don't need to be. There are other ways of moving Jersey calves.

Put me down! I want to run up and down the alley

Then last night we came in to enjoy leftovers from Easter that we brought home from dinner with us. I looked up at nine to realize that Alan had not come in from the barn yet. He is often last one in as he feeds out the last hay and fills the stove nights. Still nine was too late so I booted up...my feet that is...and went out to see what was going on.

He was just turning off the lights when I got there. He had scraped and re-swept every bit of the barn walkways and spread a coating of lime on every inch...on his own...without being asked.
It looks terrific and I am grateful. And it is time to head over and milk and clean up whatever messes the cows and cats managed to make last night......

Everyone's an art critic.



I love you, mama

Twins and tough calving

A couple of years ago we had an amazing spring with not one, but three pairs of heifer twins born here. (Guess the nutrition situation was especially good). Twins are not exactly aspired to by cow farmers as it is tough on the cow to carry two and the babies are smaller as a rule and less hardy. It came to me yesterday that this had been proved out by the six born that spring.

The last of the six calved for the first time yesterday and had a terrible time of it. The calf was by the shorthorn bull...we have had very few problems with his babies, but this bull calf was big and FAT! Liz delivered it and it was pretty compromised by the time she had it out. The poor heifer was just exhausted. The boss got a bottle of calcium on board and we got her on her feet, but she just didn't want to stand up and lay right back down. She was eating good though so maybe she will be okay...no way to be sure yet. She has a beautiful udder and is out of an exceptionally good cow so I am hoping.....

Anyhow I realized that only two of those six twin heifer babies are still here at the farm. One was injured kicking the skid steer bucket and although we kept her, she never bred so we beefed her a while ago. Another freshened with no openings in two of her teats...kept her too, but she never bred so she is also gone. Twin Rex daughters from my good cow Eland both were sold to pay taxes because they were absolutely insane and kept attacking the kids and the boss (can't really blame that on twinning but neither of them bred up quickly either). The only ones left here are the one that calved yesterday, Frosting, and her twin who has been fresh a few weeks, Poptart. Neither of them is particularly hardy or tough acting or looking. Guess I would rather get one healthy heifer calf than two not so rugged individuals.

Weather

As I click around my favorite blogs and talk to my friends at It's Your Turn this morning, the weather seems to be a common theme. While what is happening outdoors as far as wind and clouds and precipitation makes headlines on the news, it also makes inroads into our lives. Here in the Northeast we haven't seen the sun in so many days even the faintest glimmer in the sky is cause for rejoicing. I don't have exactly a full head of steam on cloudy days, which is why posting has been both lame and lean.


Out west many folks are calving cows. My heart goes out to them, having to be outside night and day in the kind of rough weather this winter has brought. Here at Northview we mostly calve indoors in winter and only let the cows have their babies outside in summer (that is when things go as planned, and Toots to the contrary). This does make life a little easier for us than if we lived in the west and raised beef. On the other hand dairy babies are nowhere near as hardy as beef calves and dairy cows are not generally as good mothers...if they had to calve outside I don't think they would do very well. Even calving indoors is tough enough because cows have to be checked on at whatever hour you think they might give birth. It's an inexact science, but after a while you get half way decent at thinking (sometimes even accurately), "yeah, she'll probably come in around midnight...." or, "Not for another few days.."


They still fool ya. Often. I have walked into the barn to find a calf toddling around and wondered where the heck it came from...or on the other side of the coin found a cow that had obviously calved and no baby. We spent the whole milking one morning looking for a little half beef baby that we finally found curled up all snug in a pile of feed bags behind a bin...those little beefers are smart indeed!

Right now I am dreading the first of March as if I was going to get an involuntary, no anesthesia, quadruple root canal and have to go on a 500-calorie a day diet, both on the same day. Liz starts her internship then. She will go to another area farm and do what she does here....plus probably learn some new things and have some fun. It will be good for her and is required to finish her last degree requirement. Still....we have just gotten used to having her home...helping. And more than helping, taking a hold and doing what needs to be done and doing it with the fresh vigor of youth and the benefit of a college education. Four months is going to be a long time to do all her chores. She has the cows up about five hundred pounds of milk every two days and doing good otherwise.

And worst of all, she willingly, eagerly, and with great enthusiasm, calves in the night cows for us. She is good at it and rarely needs help. I don't know how many babies we are expecting in March, April, May and June, but it is a bunch and I am not looking forward to a single one of them. I am getting too darned old for this.

Name the calf

Time for a name that calf contest.
As always, all suggestions are welcome. Names submitted (in the comments please) are put into a hat, one is drawn, and the winner gets to name the calf.

Your exciting (????) prize is to have a purebred Holstein heifer go through life with the name you chose on her registration papers. Previous names chosen this way have been Hattie, one of our best Jerseys, Bama Breeze, Veronica and a couple of others I can't think of just now. This girl has potential as a show heifer so her name could be up in lights so to speak (well, really, just up in a little picture frame over at the show but....)

The particulars on this baby...her mama's name is Frieland LF Volcano. Her sire is a Select Sires young bull, Kingdom. This baby is a bit special as she is only the second red and white Holstein female we have ever had here at Northview. The other one is her half sister, Magma. You can see a rather bad photo of her here.

Have fun....the name chosen will definitely be one that you submit, as we are plumb out of names at this particular time. Happy naming!

Milking Shorthorn Holstein cross calf

Here is one we had born a couple of weeks ago. (I wanted to take his coat off, but it is pretty cold this morning.) As any of you who visit here regularly know, for the past three years or so we have kept a milking shorthorn bull to breed heifers. It has worked out quite well, but the boss has taken a good deal of flack from folks who are puzzled by our choice. It is not common in this area, although many people keep Jersey bulls and black Angus bulls for their dairy heifers. We have done so in the past, but wanted to get away from those breeds because of temperament issues (here in the east Angus tend to be mean as stirred up snakes) and the low value of half-Jersey calves.

Then I saw the our bull on the internet. I fell right in love with him. He was a beautiful mahogany color with little white snowflake-like spots all over him as a baby. It took nearly a year, but we got him bought and brought him home.

We just sold him a couple of weeks ago and actually got more than we paid for him. Now we just have to go up to Vernon and pick up the semen from him, then we can AI the pen of heifers we are breeding now. The calf in the picture was a terrific surprise though. Most of the crossbreds have been black or mostly black, with only two other red ones in all the time we had him. We had no idea that Licorice, his mother, was a red carrier, but it is kind of neat. We are keeping him and he will be raised for beef for our freezer.

Anyhow, I have mentioned the shorthorn cross thing in the Farm Side a time or two over the years....and, just the other day, the boss was driving by a farm in the area covered by the paper where they run beef bulls with the dairy cows (don't ask) and there, in place of the usual gigantic Hereford, was a milking shorthorn bull. Hmmmmm

We just had a crossbred heifer born this morning and she was up and walking around the barn when we got in at 5:30. Surprising since the boss checked at 11:30 last night and nothing was happening. The new one is plain black though. Guess Pop Tart probably doesn't carry the gene for red.

I am very nervous

We have to load the pigs today....I'll let you know how that turns out.....


****Update....here we go...

The bait

The arrangements for moving from home trailer to travel trailer.

Don't wanna

More bait

Done

Then, right across the driveway...

For some reason the pigs look small and cute in these pictures. Blame it on the camera, because really, they are much larger than they seem. Meaner too. They bite and try to knock you down if you are in charge of feeding...which we were when the boss was hurt. their tenure here has been fraught with pig induced peril to the point where they were the stars of two Farm Side columns when they got out and ran through the cows, down to the road....and just about everywhere else.

Today, two loaded quite well. The third...not so much. He wouldn't come out of the trailer for milk or corn or coaxing. The other two were barking and squealing up a storm in the front half of the travel trailer, which didn't calm him down either. We were under an unexpected deadline as the guys over at Nichols were only going to be there to take them in for an hour and we didn't know it until just before we started the loading process. I am very grateful for Martin Luther King Day, which, besides closing schools, afforded us tons of help, mostly used for gophering. (Gopher corn. Gopher string.)

Finally the boss tried the time honored method of moving a reluctant hog. (Gopher a bucket). He put a white pail over the pig's head and backed him out of one trailer and over to the other. Even that took a few interesting turns as the pig ran between his legs (big pig...almost a disaster), lay down in the pig feeder, and generally made his opposition known. Eventually we had them loaded though, along with more corn for getting them back off the trailer, the trusty white bucket in case they get stubborn and don't want to get off and some sand, since the driveway at Nichols is always icy. Now I am just hoping the trip goes well.

Sarpy Sam Obama Animal Rights

(How's that for a string of words?)

One of my very favorite bloggers, whose opinions I have come to greatly respect, has a rather frightening post today about Barack Obama's stance on animal rights. Sarpy Sam says it better than I can, but Obama's position illustrates a classic farmer/rancher dilemma. We probably understand our animals better than anyone who isn't a farmer or a rancher. After all, we live with them and their very lives depend upon our good care. We wouldn't work at such a challenging job if we didn't love them. Yet every Tom, Dick and Harriet in Hollywood and Washington wants to tell us how to do our jobs.

Kitties on the garden pond two by two

Wait a minute! There's Max, but where did Teak go?



******Update-there she is!

Not much

Because not much is happening of interest. It is getting cold again after our mini thaw. Another storm is predicted for tomorrow. It is winter after all.

We have been selling a few head to pay the property taxes, which tend to be the bane of any and all property owners in NY. So far we sold Rip Tide, a yearling heifer which developed the unacceptable habit of sucking other heifers (ruins the udders). Sometimes we put a prickly plastic tab in their nose, so if they suck they get kicked and stop. RT also kicked out behind real bad so....

Then there was Fitty (number 50, AKA Beech) Fitty kicked. Pinned people on the metal post in her stall to try and crush them. Killed her calves as soon as they were born if she got to them first. Had chronic mastitis (udder inflammation) so we fed all her milk to the pigs for three years. Got loose last week and tore up the barn and beat on baby calves (bad timing.) She still made it to ten years old, which is old for a dairy cow. Can't say as I miss being scared spitless if I got stuck milking her. (The boss usually did it, but he tends to wander off.) 187, another heifer. Had either an udder injury or some other serious infection and lost a quarter. Too bad, she was pretty gentle, and very well bred.

And by far the worst, old 49. Veronica. Daughter of Juniper Rotate Jed. Super high producer in her younger days, but almost 11 and not milking so great any more. One of Alan's cows, an old standby. A bit of a kicker but we all liked her. She loved the broom and would moo coaxingly at me whenever I was sweeping cows or currying them.

No one wanted to sell her but we couldn't get her bred this year and she was only giving twenty pounds of milk. If not for the tax man we would have made the not-so-businesslike, but after all this is our farm isn't it, decision to keep trying on breeding her. Let her hang around another year. We liked her. It hurt to put her on the truck and of course, she went sweetly, just walked right on the trailer. Alan swept her off and curried her a lot the night before and asked me to do the same yesterday morning. Of course I did and no doubt she was the best groomed cow at the auction barn. There are two more to go next week, Aretha, chronic mastitis, also feeding pigs right now, and 471, Marge, 14 years old and going downhill. (She could die on the farm and be buried here, but for the tax man.) Imagine selling SIX cows to pay just one of the two sets of taxes (that is just property taxes, school and county) on this place (and they will not pay the whole shot by any means.)

I wonder if the legislature in Albany, when they dump unfunded mandates on local governments and schools know (or care) that a nice old cow died early to fund their overspending. The other three would probably have been sold anyhow....maybe not Rip Tide (who will grow up to be a dairy cow on some one else's farm), but Fitty was long overdue before she killed somebody. Not 49 though. The poor old girl was taxed to death.

Bull Jacking in Nashville

I usually leave the rodeo stories to Liz (and she will probably report on this in more detail when she gets in from the barn...two new calves in two days, much excitement.)

However a story about some maniac carjacking a 28-foot trailer-load of PBR bucking bulls with the owner's wife sitting in the cab, and taking off in downtown Nashville was just too amazing to pass up. The bull jacker eventually ran out of diesel, but he ate Mrs. Newcomb's sandwich on her.

Imagine stealing a truckload of this!

Cory Melton signing autographs

Mike White rides one

***Photos from PBR Enterprise rodeo at Vernon Downs last June