It's spring

There's no babysitting this week, since the company Cora's dad works for is between jobs.  It isn't that they don't have any jobs, it's just that none of the jobs are ready for them.  So I've been doing some garden tilling and playing around with my cows.

My new babies, Henry and Hope, are doing great, and Grace is being a wonderful foster-mother to them.  It may be easier for her now, since we hauled her last crop of babies (Whitie, Gypsy, and Moose) to the livestock auction.  With her natural daughter gone, she is liable to bond to these youngsters better.  

It was a rather sudden decision, to sell that group, but honestly, our place (or I should say, the grandson's place, since he is the owner now) cannot support as many cows and horses as we had living here; those five-month-old babies were eating as much as full-grown cows.  It will be interesting to see how much money the Holsteins brought, because I only know what beef cattle are worth, and dairy stock isn't worth nearly that much.  I watched a lot of the sale online, live, and saw that the beef cattle prices are hanging in there.  

As I told Cliff, I have the two new babies.  As long as I have a milk cow and a couple of calves to play with, that's all I need to keep me happy.  

This is Penny, who is due to have a calf around the first of May.  She is overweight, although this picture doesn't show just how MUCH overweight she is.  She was such a typey, dainty little thing when we bought her on March 14, 2013.  It's a shame that her appearance was damaged by an injured ear, too.  When Cliff put dehorning paste on her horn buttons, some of it got on her ear.  The stuff is very caustic, and that's what destroyed the end of her ear.    

I took suggestions from my readers for names for the new calf, and then we took a vote.  And that's how Penny got her name.  She will have a black calf, since she is bred to an Angus bull.  She was somewhat halter-broke and tame, but because I haven't handled her much during the past few months, she wasn't as friendly as she needs to be, if I'm going to milk her.  So I've been letting her in and out of the barn, putting her in the stanchion, and grooming her, and handling her udder, just to get her used to the human touch once again.  A little sweet feed goes a long way to convince a cow to be friends, and I'd say she is now ready to be handled when the big day comes.  

My intention is to keep the little Jersey bull long enough to breed Penny, and then the grandson is going to have him butchered.  I'm hoping the fellow whose bulls we used on Grace and Penny the last time will still be willing to allow us to take our cows for a visit when the need arises, but of course what won't be until this coming winter.  

Not much has been happening around here.  I got in quite a bind with my book-reading:  I put several popular books on reserve at the library some time back, and about five of them came due within a seven-day period.  So I've been reading up a storm.  I just finished "All the Light We Cannot See", which I enjoyed immensely, and have just begun "The Girl on the Train", which I'll probably finish quickly.