Dairy Daze...and Now Beyond

Let's see...where was I last? Oh, yes, on cutting ice. Well, let's go on and talk about hubby's chores in winter. At 4 AM he has to put on his 100 layers of clothes and then head out to do his chores. There is nothing like going out to do chores in the dark in a wind chill factor of 2 degrees that makes you cringe. The first thing he does is split wood to start a fire in the barn. Cows give off heat, but when it is 5 degrees out they just don't give off enough heat. Then he goes and rounds up the herd. One nice thing when it is frozen out is that you don't have to do as much clean up work on the udders because they don't have any mud to lay in. After milking he has to bundle back up and put out hay. This is a chore of 1-3 hours, depending on who all needs hay. The milking herd gets their alfalfa plus 2-3 bales of grass hay, then the herds up the road get a bale every 2-3 days, depending on how much they eat. For one chore hubby has to wait until later...

(this pic is from the ice storm last January...there really hasn't been many good winter photo ops for this year...and I am just as glad, too.) Anyone who lives out in the sticks and has livestock can relate I am sure. Doing chores in winter is such a drag. Hubby bears the brunt of it, especially now since I have the baby to look after. But I try to do my part. For starters you have to dress up like the Michelin man (he's this tire company's cartoon dude-all puffy and bulky looking) in about 100 layers of clothing, some of it insulated. I start off with just a t-shirt, then a pair of insulated coveralls, then a flocked hooded zippy sweater, then an old quilted chore coat. Then you finally add a pair of insulated boots, which weigh about a ton and give your legs a good workout. This process takes most of the morning and by the time you have the next-to-the-last layer on you realize that you have to go to the bathroom, so you go and then start the process all over again. When...

Here are some little pieces of farm advice I picked up from a homesteading forum... They are NOT mine by the way, but they are hilarious. *If you decide to use the "shortcut" and just throw the pig manure out the window on to the pile instead of using the wheel barrow, make sure it's not the windiest day of the year. *Never tell a child that yes, you COULD drink straight from a cow's teat. *Never worm livestock with skin penetrating wormer such as Cydectin without gloves....the poison control will laugh their hind end off at you. *Never look too close to a bulging bag of water from a birthing whatever, you might get a closer look than you think. *Never ride a horse after drinking- while still in a cast from the last run-in you had with the same horse- the doctor will be angry. *If you must gather eggs at night USE A LIGHT or risk having one of the eggs wrap itself around your wrist and halfway up your forearm when you grab it. This could lead to staving in the back of...

Oh, yes...here are some terms I forgot to include: Bobbies: the bull calves we get rid of. (Thank you Donna, for this one) dry cows: cows on vacation for a couple months until they come fresh fresh cows: cows that have just had a calf freemartin: a sterile heifer calf. These generally are the twin sister of a bull calf. We have had quite a few twins while I have been here, if the twins are a bull and a heifer we always sell them both because the freemartin isn't worth keeping to try and see if she will breed. I haven't been able to get on the computer much lately due to patchy internet service and I haven't really had much time to think up anything amusing to post here. Bear with me... Thank you!

I really haven't had time to think up anything amusing or interesting to post in here so going from a question from "moe," here are a few terms commonly thrown around in the dairy business: weaners: calves that have recently been weaned. heifer: young female bovine, usually not bred, but we also use this term for a cow that has only had one calf as well. open heifer: young, unbred, female bovine in: in heat springer: bred heifer whose udder is developing springing: the verb or adjective to refer to a bred heifer that is developing an udder three banger: a cow that only has three quarters of her udder functioning. Sometimes these can give more than a full-uddered cow cull: a bovine reject...headed to your nearest fast food restaurant or supermarket meat counter...usually as hamburger. I know there are more but the laundry is calling, the baby is squalling and it is hard to think anyway when it is only about 10 degess out.

Once again I haven't had much time on the computer lately. But here are a couple of pics I took last week of our open heifer herd. These are the gals who haven't been bred yet. Usually I go feed them in the AM when it is still quite dark, but on this trip last week I went during the daylight hours because we had to get 2 of them to take to the bull. There were 30 of them in this herd at the time, now, of course, there are 28. Here they are just coming around the pond: Almost here: Gotcha! The big ones we needed are in the corral. It's always touch and go to see if they will go in.

(OK, can you believe it's been a week already since I have posted?! Sorry. Our internet service has been down a couple of days off and on, then we had the stupid thunderstorm/tornado storm thingy come through (in which 2 people were killed-so I guess stupid is a weak word to use) and then various other things happened so that I couldn't get a chunk of time to be on the computer for long.) Anyway. This title sounds dramatic but it was my first impression of what I saw in the dark. Thursday morning, it was still quite dark, I was out graining the weaner calves and came up short one in my head count-or tail count, if you will. I re-counted a couple of times because sometimes a small one will get between a couple of big ones and you can't tell, especially in the dark. But, no, there were only 10 calves eating in the feed bunk. So I went trucking through the lot to search for the missing one. Looking for a missing beast is a job I abhore, especially a smaller calf. I alw...

By request here is the cake recipe.... For the cake, use one box dark chocolate cake mix (or, if you prefer, a from-scratch equivalent) and bake in 3 round cake pans. (I baked them for only about 20 minutes.) Let cool completely then level off the cakes. Filling: 8 oz cream cheese, softened. 1 packed cup brown sugar. Cream these together until smooth, then add 1 and 1 half cups thawed Cool Whip. Use this between each layer of the cake and smooth, smooth, smooth the edges. (This is what I did: I didn't know if this filling was just supposed to be used between the layers ONLY or to also FROST the outside of the cake so I put in extra whipped topping and frosted as well as filled the cake, because I am NOT good enough to make the filling really smooth on the edges.) Then you put the cake in the freezer for about 30 minutes. Chocolate Glaze: Melt 4 oz squares unsweetened baking chocolate (I used semisweet once, I don't think it matters too much) and mix well with 3 cups powder...

Dunno if there is such a thing in blog-land as a Saturday Salute, but it sounded good to me. At any rate I wanted to give credit where credit is due. When I left my job with MCSO in Portland they made me a cookbook of sorts. Everyone submitted a recipe, or several recipes, and they colated them into a binder. I have been working my way through them over the past few years (sorry it is taking so long) and finally have come to one I've wanted to try, but hadn't: Roger's Chocolate Torte Cake. I am sure this is not how it is supposed to look, but I get creative with my interpretations of recipes. Ha. It is laughably easy, though at first to me it sounded hard, and it's really good. I made one in early Dec to take to our annual church potluck. It looked just as good as this one. The funny thing is that I forgot to put the whipped topping into the filling. Husband says: "Well, I guess we are going with an empty plate then." I said: "Nonsense, they won...

Hmmm…it’s hard to know where to begin to discuss milk. I could begin with prices, or with how much we use personally or how to store it, or just the milk itself. I didn’t realize it was going to be quite this complicated to write about, now that I think of it. Maybe I will just make it in chapters. Let’s begin with pricing and production. We get paid per hundred weight; which means that for every hundred pounds we are paid so much. Back a few months ago we were only getting about $11 per lb (which husband says was about what he was getting 20 years ago when he started). That was when, I believe, retail milk was going for close to $3 a gallon. I think retail milk is in some places, close to, if not over, $4 p/ gal, but I am not sure since I don’t buy it and rarely ever price it. I believe at this point, since DFA (Dairy Farmers of America) has done some tweaking to the market, it has gone up a few dollars, but I am not sure exactly what it is as it tends to fluctuate. That what ...

Here's another old picture. A really, really, REALLY old picture. I am soon going to run out of old pictures to post for this Throwback deal because I have no scanner. Hmmm...I will have to ask for one for my birthday. I wish I'd stayed this cute! I have also realized that I have neglected to blog about the obvious; milk. On a dairy farm it's what brings in the green, as it were. So I shall discuss milk in my next blog.