Dairy Daze...and Now Beyond

Today is Ellen's first birthday, but in light of current events I thought I would blog about what happened this morning. We got up and were having breakfast at about 4:15 AM when we saw a firetruck go by. Dear Husband runs to the window to see where it is going. It stopped at our neighbor's house; the mule breeder. Dear Husband saw sparks and ran to get his coveralls on (it was well below freezing outside) I ran to the window to see. DH said maybe it was just a shed; but not from what I was seeing; whatever it was just took off. In the two or three minutes it took for DH to get his coveralls and boots on and go out to the yard he then just turned around and came back in and said it was the house and it was hopeless. But he got the truck and went up there anyway; neighbor's house is maybe an eighth of a mile from us on the opposite side of the road, not far at all, with a bunch of trees between us. I went out and stood there with tears freezing on my face and watched t...

I haven't been doing too well on saluting or throwing back...ha, that sounds indecent, but anyway, I will keep trying. Here's a salute to my pen-pal Daniela, in the Czech Republic. We have been pen-pals for over 12 years now. I received my first letter from her December 1995. How time flies. For putting up with me for so long she deserves a salute of some sort. We have had fun over the years exchanging stories and info. She and her husband do lots of traveling all over Europe and she writes great stories about their adventures, I travel vicariously through her letters and emails. I know we'd be great friends in person if we'd been neighbors because we both love to garden and hate to dust. We both also tend to have a wry sense of humor in our writing and love to write long letters and emails. So anyway; Daniela, here's a salute to you! Thanks for your friendship; it's meant much to me over the years! I haven't been much of a correspondent lately, but...

Such is life. My rechargeable batteries for the camera went kaput; or else it's the charger that won't work, I don't have any AA batteries on hand. So, there goes posting any more recent pics for awhile...at least until I can get to the store and get some. Oh, well. What has been going on here? It's icy. Well, yesterday we had a day of sleet, which partially melted and refroze, leaving a sheet of cement/ice that requires great care to walk on; especially if you are carrying a child. It-the sleet-didn't start 'til mid-morning, so husband and I were able to do some fetching and hauling. On Wed evening hubby came home and noticed a calf up to the dry cow pen. Then when he put hay out Thur (yest) AM he saw another cow up there calving. So we waited a while then went up and checked out the situation. Yep. Two healthy calves. Unfortunately the first calf was a bull. Why "unfortunately?" He was another little red calf. I think his mom came from the ...

Just some random thoughts. The weather has been up and down the past few days; ice, snow, sleet, sun, wind...a bit of everything. Last week schools were closed 4 days because of ice. The only way this affects the dairy is that when I make my runs up the road to do the graining in the early AM there aren't any kids out by the side of the road waiting for the school bus. Not that I have anything against them; I don't know them at all, but I feel like an idiot on parade going back and forth on the 4-wheeler, waving to them. At one place the parents take the kids to the bus stop in the car/truck and sit and wait. And that doesn't really bug me either much except for the fact that they only see me in my grungy chore clothes, never in anything nice. Also, I have started calling the 4-wheeler "Cyclops" because one headlight is out, so I feel even more stupid. I was raised to watch my language, and as a Christian I don't have a problem with not swearing, even in...

Just checking in for today. Wanted to clue you in to this cool site that C mentioned in her Random Musing blog. Go to this site: Free Rice and test your vocabulary skills. For every word you get correct you have donated 20 grains of rice to feed the poor. It's easy and fun. Not to mention addictive. Hey, improve your vocabulary and help people while doing it; how much better does it get? I tried to add a banner with a link to it, but I have yet to develop such a skill on here. Any suggestions? It's cold here on the dairy. Still icy from the "storm" a couple of days ago. They are saying snow flurries for tomorrow. Sigh. Not a good day for taking pictures outside for the virtual tour. Thanks for visiting.

It was suggested that I do a "virtual tour" of the dairy here. I am not sure what all you will want to see, so if there are any suggestions, please let me know. I haven't got around to changing my email addresses so I will try and check the one here if you email to it, instead of make a comment. I'll just start with the quick story of the beginnings. Dear husband began this dairy back in the mid-late 80s (when I was still in highschool, or just getting out) from scratch. He bought up some land next door to his folks, about 5 acres, and he and his dad built the barn. (The one you see on this main page here...whatever you call it.) Then he got 4 cows and started milking. He rented fields around the area until he could buy more land as it became available. From there, over the years, he bought more cows and made more improvements as he could. All of it he paid cash for, and still does, so he owes no one anything. Most of the equipment is quite old dated as he bought it...

Events of last week gave me little time on the computer to blog. Here is the story of one reason. On Friday Husband decided we needed to go look at a trailer he had found on Craig's List, I think. He has been looking for a trailer long enough to haul his backhoe in. Anyway, said trailer is in Kansas; Fort Scott, Kansas, which is about a 2-3 hour drive from where we are. Since I am always up for an adventure I decided to tag along. Of course the baby had to come too. So we got everything packed and headed off to KS. The weather was overcast so it was rather nice, though we ran into a few showers in KS. We went through a series of little towns; just little wide spots in the road. I always like going through these little towns because they have these signs with the town name and the population on them; little towns you'd never find on the map whose names I can't remember now, but one population notation was: 249. Some towns we go through make you wonder what the orig...

I was looking through my photos I have taken since I came to the dairy and found this one above. This is a female cardinal that took a header into our picture window. She was on the ground and I picked her up and put her on the deck for a photo shoot. Isn't she pretty? She recovered quickly and flew off. Usually in the winter I put up a bird feeder out in the front of the house. I found it fun the first 2 years because I was able to see any number of different birds that I'd never seen on the West coast; especially the cardinals. This year I didn't put up the bird feeder because I learned that it makes a great smorgasborg for Matilda the cat...witness this picture: For one thing the feeder is on a really short pole, but it doesn't matter because many of the birds, like the snow birds (junkoes), feed on the ground and Matilda sneaks up on them somehow. It is annoying to see puffs of feathers around and know that I am providing the cat with an easy meal. GRRRRRR.....

Last night we got about 4 inches of snow. This means that, although it hasn't been cold enough for the ponds to freeze over and need chopping, it means that we have to shovel the snow out of the feed bunks before putting the feed in. This can be hazardous because you have any number of anxious bovines behind you crowding and shoving and pushing around to get to the bunks; whether you have put feed in there or not. They figure that since you are messing around in there you MUST have put something in there for them. If you are so lucky as to have charged into the corral and closed the gate before they came up you are doing well. Fortunately this morning the open heifers weren't up at their corral yet when I was shoveling the snow from the bunks, I was able to close the gate on the bull heifer corral before they showed up and the dry cows (there are only 8 of them instead of 27 or 28 and 17 respectively of the others) aren't that big of a problem. The neat thing about when...