It's been a week since I updated this silly blog, so I had better play catch-up with some assorted happenings. First, the cows. Most of my plans for the cows did not come to fruition, but isn't that how it goes with "plans"?
It was going to be so simple: Each cow would calve, I would buy some calves to place with the cow's own calf, and they would all do the milking for me, grow like crazy, and make me some money. HA! It actually worked that way with Grace, until I sold her own calf and the two that nursed alongside her. When I brought in new calves, she wanted nothing to do with them. So she gets put in the stanchion with an anti-kick device on her and is forced to let them nurse.
Then Penny gave birth to a dead calf. If I thought Grace hated the two calves she was forced to feed, that was NOTHING compared to the way Penny feels about her three "adopted" babies. The anti-kick device somewhat limits how hard and how much she can kick on her right side, but she can deal what would possibly be a lethal blow to the left and to the back. So I bring in the youngest calf and let him nurse one teat dry from the right side, boot him out, and let in the "two brownies" as I call them, who nurse side-by-side on the right and reach under to get to the teats on the other side. The original intention was to let all three nurse, one on each side and one in back, but Penny was able to put the fear in them pretty quickly when I tried that. Another plan, foiled. Seriously, that cow could kill a calf. Maybe one of these days I'll do a video, because you almost have to see it to believe it. Meanwhile, I can't leave our property for over twelve hours at a time, because I am the only one who can handle the calf situation. No vacation for me this summer.
I will admit it has been good for me to see all this action, because for most of my life I have put my trust in those "kickers" that I thought disabled a cow from doing any real harm. It's a wonder I wasn't killed. Never again will I assume I'm safe when the kicker is on the cow. Oh, by the way... both of my cows are sweethearts when I'm milking them. They don't lift a foot while I'm handling them. So there's that.
The garden! I don't care for radishes, but Cliff does, so I always plant some. This year I had a record crop, with radishes as big as plums. I took a picture of a gallon ice-cream-carton full of them and put it on Facebook, and my Russian (or Ukranian) friend, Meesha gave me the link to a recipe for pickled radishes. He's never made them, but says he eats them at a Mexican restaurant.
I like them much better than plain old radishes. As they soak in the pickling solution, the red outsides of them fade, and the white insides turn a nice pink color.
Because I just came in from the garden before I took this bite out of the radish, there is, indeed, dirt beneath my thumbnail.
My garden often shows me parables while I'm out there. The most common one has to do with weeds. I know Jesus told the parable of the tares and the wheat, in which he said to leave the weeds there until harvest. That might work with wheat, but not with my garden. Last year I let my garden go something awful, and weeds took over. Just like in your life, even though you might decide to change your ways and do things right this time, you are still going to have to deal with the problems last years' weeds left behind. Karma.
On the upper left you can see a couple of green bean seeds that just came up, but everywhere else you can see the tiny weed seedlings that are there because of last year's neglect. The worst part is that I just tilled between the rows five days ago, so these weeds have come up since that time. I intended to till again yesterday but was surprised by a rain that came out of nowhere and put me out of business. Our sandy soil drains fast, so if it doesn't rain today or tonight, perhaps I can get the tilling done tomorrow (but it probably will rain). Tilling is such an easy job: You just start the tiller and walk along behind it. There's no pushing or pulling, and practically no effort at all except to keep it going straight ahead. A child could do it. OK, it would have to be a tall child, because you would need to be taller than the tiller
I drove posts beside my larger tomato plants this morning. Cliff will have to bring the cages up from down by the ditch, then I'll put them over the plants and secure them to the posts. When I told him I was going out to drive the posts, he asked if I wanted his help. "Nope," I answered. "You know we get in a fight every time we go to the tomato patch together."
He agreed. So there will be no tomato wars this year. If you wonder what I'm talking about, just click HERE.
Here are Hope, Henry, and
Lazarus. I bought Hope and Henry February 27 after selling Grace's
calf and the two foster calves she had raised to the age of five
months; I needed them to milk her for me twice a day. When they were
a month old, I realized Grace was still giving plenty of milk for
three calves and purchased Lazarus, on the right, March 31. He is a
month younger, but the largest of the group (because that's how
Holsteins are). In this picture Grace appears larger than she is because she is on higher ground (and closer to the camera than Henry).
I weaned Henry, on the right, at six weeks of age. That's the youngest I've ever weaned a calf, but he has an underbite and was absolutely tearing up Grace's udder with those bottom teeth. He eats five pounds of calf starter daily and is about the same size as Hope, on the left, who is the same age and of the same breeding but still nursing on Grace. Henry has a little tendency toward a pot-gut, and isn't as "slick" as Grace, but he will outgrow all that and be just fine.
My first-calf-heifer, Penny, calved on the morning of April 25. Her calf was dead when he was born, so the same day we went to Holden and bought two brown Jersey-cross bull calves, because it was obvious that Penny was going to give even more milk than Grace. After ten days of them nursing Penny twice a day, I could see it was going to be quite a while before they would be able to take all that milk. So yesterday we went to Higginsville and bought another Holstein bull calf. I haven't named these guys, and probably won't. Even if I gave them all names, I would likely forget the names. None of them will be around more than five months anyhow, especially if we don't get any rain to grow the pasture grass.
The new Holstein calf didn't know what a cow was when I put him in with Penny. It took about ten minutes for me to get him to grab hold of a teat last night, and even then he kept losing it. Dairies remove the calves from their moms immediately after birth, so he had no way of knowing what was going on; he was looking for a bottle. This morning, though, I only had to show him once and he understood. I'll give him a head start on the other two for a few days, since he is slower at nursing than they are.
It was very comical when we introduced him to the pen with the other two calves. He was scared to death of them and they were afraid of him.
Penny had me worried for the first few days after the vet came and removed the afterbirth. She just didn't bounce back the way I would have liked. I kept her in the lot, close to the barn. She has finally started acting like her old self. She gives the kind of rich Jersey milk I love, with cream that stands up in the spoon. I haven't churned any butter yet, but I will before long. Grace, although she is probably half Jersey, gives Holstein milk, with cream that is no better than the half-and-half you buy in the store. I like thick cream in my coffee! (Hmmm, wonder why my cholesterol was high last visit to the doctor?)
Now THAT'S what I call cream!
