Cleaning Pens

I'll bet Scotty is dreaming of summer just like we are.

Perhaps not the most fun job in the world, but it is nice for the girls to have clean, dry beds. Of course they would rather not cooperate by staying where we put them. Booth's daughter thought it would be fun to nearly run over me several times, sometimes bringing the rest of the bunch along with her.

All done now though, and they are enjoying their tidy digs and gobbling hay like it was their job...oh wait....

Happy First Day of Spring

One end of the bowling green

I used to wish we could flood the bowling green in winter so the kids could skate. They loved to do so and spent hours down in town on the public rink. It seemed such a shame to have this perfect depression in the ground, just begging to be filled with water and frozen, where they could have had a serious amount of fun.

Part of the other end

However, we pay for our water out here and it isn't cheap. So it never happened.

Fast forward to the ridiculous winter of excess, 2013, 2014. Kids are grown and all gone but Beck and she is way past too busy to skate.

Now the silly thing is full of lovely ice just begging for speeding blades.

Oh, well.

Harbinging his little heart out.

And why a bowling green you might ask? The boss's dad built it as a young man, using horse and scoop blade, for former owners of the place. It is really a nice sort of place, despite the complete and utter absence of bowlers.




And last night the kids brought the therapy baby down and let me hold her, sleeping sweetly, on my lap for several hours. She is a cuddler, content to snuggle in whatever arms are warm and handy. Thanks guys.

Visiting her great grand aunt from who she takes her second name

 Have a wonderful first day of spring! 

Listen

Can you hear that? Yesterday a robin was tentatively clearing his throat with just a handful of translucent water notes. This morning he is in full song, the first robin song of the year.

And that wild whistle from the locust tree? The Carolina wrens are still with us.

Birds all around, testing phrases from the songs they will soon be singing, light up the morning all the brighter. 

How not to love a golden dawn, laced with early bird song, and edged by glowing contrails? Guess morning is my time of day, and spring, however belated, my time of year.

We've got storms coming in I guess and plenty more of winter. But I heard the first red-winged blackbird yesterday, a true harbinger of better.

Look who's nesting in the snag right behind the barn.
Hope the wind doesn't take his condo down, because I sure can't wait to see his family,

A Symbiotic Relationship

I get to laugh, no matter how bad things get. Every day. No matter how little there is to laugh about.

 Every time I put my wool socks on. Every time I throw my old sneakers on to go outside for whatever reason. And sometimes just at random.

Daisy gets to roll around between my feet, doing her best to slow me down on my trip to the barn, rooting around in said socks, grunting and groaning and stealing lots of pets and ear and tail tugs. It takes me a lo-o-o-ong time to get my socks on. 

And Daisy gets to bark at me, "Hurry up! Hurry up! Woo, woo, woo!"

And to clatter around the floor, bundle of bolting, silly-joy-joy, happy, happy, happy, at the mere possibility of going outside where there be bunnies.

 I get a little 12-pound toaster muffin snuggled tightly between my bare feet in the kitchen as I type.....don't move, mama, you might step on the little one.

And Daisy gets to share the big, thick sleeping bag I drape over my chair to keep me warm and give me a place for those bare feet. She has her own bed, but it doesn't have pre-heated feet in it so.......

You see....symbiosis at its finest.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

A foggy full moon

Lots of Irish in our background....Great Grandpa McGivern came from the Emerald Isle himself....but no green to be seen just yet.

Varmints, though, we surely seem to have those. The kids both saw a big grey fox in the yard, in Becky's case in broad daylight, Saturday. 

Then Saturday night, Alan came back from taking his fiance home and sat in his car, just outside the back door,  for a few minutes. He heard something right behind the car, and turned his rear lights on to reveal six coyotes right there in the driveway behind the house. I mean right where we walk, right under the kitchen window over the sink.

Yow! Becky and I had been hearing them nights, and they did sound close, but surely not that close.

I don't know if I've mentioned it here, but over the past few weeks I have several times thought something was following me to the barn at night. Before the time change we were still going over after dark and I heard little rustles in the dead, dried weeds, and little crackles in the snow.

I tried to convince myself that it was the wild grey tom cat or maybe bunnies, but it prickled the hair at the back of my neck and disturbed me enough to mention it to the family. It just didn't sound like a bunny at all. They tend to quick bursts not sneaky slinking. And the cat is terrified of me.

Now I wonder if maybe I had reason to be nervous. Sure am glad the days are getting longer.

However, corned beef and cabbage are on the menu for tonight.

And a little bit o' green

Plus a link here to a story about what our Irish ancestors put on the menu, back before the potato was imported from Peru. It explains a lot about our occupation.....

Sunday Stills...the Letter L

Lots of Ls this week.......

Leather...
Magnum's old bridle. Nobody uses it any more, but he looked through it for many miles

Lacing

Lines

  

Liquid, 
a couple of pails of Scotty's milk being saved for the babies

For more Sunday Stills.....

Longing.....
Athena wishes all that milk would come to her!

And what would life be without......
Love!

Got Bunnies

Beaucoup de bunny tracks

If anybody is missing their Easter bunny I think I found him...and him...and him...and quite a few hers too.

Daisy and I were out patrolling the lawn yesterday and found a veritable highway of bunny tracks under the old swing set. Could it be because we cleaned out the freezers and put elderberries and some old dried up apples out for the robins? I'll betcha.

They are Driving Miss Daisy.....plumb nuts.

Got Ice?

Never seen anything like it. We have had ice like this since November and it gets worse all the time. Actually almost all melted last week, but the new storm brought back plenty. It eats up sand and salt like quicksand.....It is slowly devouring the horse trailer....

Can You Stand It?

Yeah, we had pretty much the whole family under our roof for a while last night... Good thing that baby is too little to understand how to exploit being the center of attention.

Talked to mom yesterday too. She is working hard at rehab and proud of making progress at hopping. Only my mom could be in rehab for that awful ankle break and be gathering computers so she can do taxes and such. What a woman.

And I promise I won't drive you nuts with baby pictures......just this once, ok?

The Plague

Was that the flu? Hit me like a truck. Being sick and a dollar will get you a cup of coffee, but it won't get you time off from milking cows here. Or at least not when three people are doing everything. To be fair, Becky offered to do all my chores but she has  been sick too.

However today I woke up able to cogitate at somewhere near the normal level, which is welcome indeed. No fun being so far out you don't know or care about much of anything. The bird feeders got filled for the first time all week and I picked up some of the accumulated junk in the kitchen.

And there is a new baby...Scotty had a little heifer calf yesterday. I gave her to Becky for the way she has stepped up and done so much over the past few months. She works in town, milks every single milking, feeds all the calves, helps get the hay in, takes care of the ponies and chickens, and way too many other things for a young lady who should get to have some fun once in a while.

She named the calf Donna after a Doctor Who character. Hopefully she will stay out of trouble and live and thrive. Excuse the lousy photo...taken with a cell phone and a flashlight.

Now to kick this darned bug far enough out in the field to be able to go see Peggy and give her some serious spoiling and help Mom and Dad in some way. I am not much use but want to do what I can.

Thanks btw for all your kind thoughts and prayers. You can't imagine how much they mean to me. When I was at the hospital praying all alone for Liz to be able to have the baby and for both of them to be safe and well, I wished so hard that I could ask you good folks to help me with that task. Then I found via a phone call later that a dear friend had a feeling that prayer was needed and was pulling for them the whole time....

So Glad it's Only Rain

So far at least, although the snow is expected to follow. I cannot possibly thank you all enough for your kind words and prayers. Especially the prayers. They mean so much to us. I will thank you each and all individually as soon as things calm down.

Yesterday evening, little Miss Peggy was allowed home from the hospital to snuggle with her daddy and mommy. Of course we all have horrid colds down here, or I would be hoping she could come spend some serious cuddle time with grandma too.

And Ren is eating again. During the second hospitalization she refused to eat anything. Last night when Liz and the baby came home she gobbled everything in sight. Nothing like  a loyal doggy.

Mom has been moved to rehab where she will continue to need good thoughts and prayers from anyone who can spare them. I am one who tends to pray a lot,,,but lately I have been plumb wearing it out, I'll tell you.

Anyhow, thanks, hope you are all well and safe and out of the storm.

Don't Know What to Say

Our baby is back in the hospital with jaundice and my mom broke her ankle. Prayers please.....guess that's the important thing. Thanks

Orion Wore a Kilt of Clouds

She looks a lot like daddy
and a little bit like Great grandma Peggy,
which is pretty fitting I'm thinking

As seen from midnight stairs the umpteenth time....

Kind of fluffy for a guy like him, but  he looked good in it, step dancing out there, on the heifer barn roof.

When I came down again at dawn, droves of robins queued up to take a turn bathing in the big rut in the driveway.

Festooned with frosting, the trees were trailing veils of gauzy mist...the whole river was shrouded in it, the geese like mysterious strangers hiding from the unfurling sun.

I thought to take pictures of it all to save to show her what her first day looked like, someday when she is old enough to see them.

But I didn't, because I was too darned scared.

We were all scared and it was a long and worried day.......but worth every fearful second.

At the end the young family was increased by one, and the new parents knew a bond like no other.

And the new grandparents shed a couple of buckets of tears of pure, deep, elemental joy, that can only be engendered by the birth of one so loved.

Welcome to the world, Miss Peggy Ann Marie Schultz. We love you baby girl.

The Lights went Out Last Night

And dang! It was creepy for a minute there. We had just finished milking and I had run a short rinse through the pipeline before it got its main washing.

The boss and I were feeding out the round bales in the barn. Beck had gone to the house and Alan was off....with my flashlight....hunting rats in the heifer barn with his new air rifle. (Which by the way is one of the coolest guns I have ever shot. Ever. And I am here to tell you, as lame as I am these days, I hit the old cooler he was using for a target, dead center, first shot.)

A-a-a-and....the lights flickered and darkened. No moon. It was dark as a pocket in that barn and the boss had just stepped through the stanchion line with a great, big, core of a round bale for the pen heifers. I was kinda watching him, waiting to help fork it out.

Did I mention that it was dark? The barn is as familiar to us as any room in the house.
We spend a lot of time there after all. However, take away the light and it is an echoing alien canyon filled with big, rustling, beasts, into which you would rather not stumble.

Thankfully I had my trusty little phone, which gave a faint, but trusty little light. We clambered out to the milkhouse, and I texted our boy that I needed my flashlight. ASAP.

Then they flickered back on. We rushed to get back at our chores.

Out again.

Dagnabbit.

And then on again.

We spanked through the rest of the chores, and hurried inside to celebrate National Pancake Day. You have to pick your holidays you know....and picking that one...well, yeah, it was good.

Any Day Now

The next generation will arrive to sleep in this cradle my dad made when Liz was born.

We are nervous and excited and filled with loving anticipation.


We got the cradle out today and polished it and put it in the living room.....

Read the Research Day

You know you just can't wait to find out what's happening in Ag today.

The governor's new task force

USDA addds yogurt to WIC

Proposed rule on importing beef from Brazil

Go comment on the rule here  Seriously, read about this issue and then take the time to comment. I did. The USDA has extended the public comment period and this is a golden opportunity to make your feelings known on a potentially devastating decision. 

Brazil is an endemic Foot and Mouth disease country. Should we allow uncooked meat from that nation to be imported here, potential economic damage could be staggering and possibly permanent.

Just as a refresher, Foot and Mouth can spread on the wind, wild animals can carry it from farm to farm, as can tires, clothing, and it can even be carried in the nasal passages of people who travel from an infected farm. imagine if the animals in a petting zoo were infected. We don't need Brazil's beef bad enough to let this rule be finalized.

More on FMD

The Tea Party and Me

Another day, another Tea Party. No not the political party, although that is another story.

Nope, this is the cow tea party. Check out the photo above, of Broadway lunging into the manger after hay, rather than waiting three seconds while I fork it in to her.

 What do you see wrong with the photo....besides the whole feet in the manger thing that is?

Bingo, you nailed it! The water bowl she shares with Dalkeith is full of hay. Actually, that is just a tiny bit of hay. If I don't clean that thing out twice a day, with my cold, bare, hands, one or the other of them will pack it so full of little bits of hay that I don't know how they drink.

Becky thinks it's Dal, but we really never see them doing it. It isn't accidentally dropped there either. No it is soundly crushed into the bottom of the bowl, layer upon layer, until if I don't get at it quickly enough I drag out a football-sized lump of wet, soggy, stems and bits. I clean it either when I'm feeding them or when I'm milking them.

I don't know why they do it though.

Either the culprit likes to dunk their food, like a kid with milk and a doughnut.

 Or they want to rinse their food before they eat it....like a raccoon. 

Or they are just making tea. Either way, I can't wait until they go to pasture in the spring....

Sunday Stills.....Cows and Bulls

For more Sunday Stills.

Day of the Woodpecker

I took the camera out after a robin......

 But other creatures came 

And eventually, a robin

Hey March

In like an Icicle, out like a palm tree....right?