Dairy Daze...and Now Beyond

Here is the last post before I leave town for two weeks. I am going to the West Coast to visit family and friends; one week in Cali and one week in OR. This is my first flight with baby and I am dreading it like I'd dread a trip to have a tooth drilled. All the flight regulations are making me crazy; at least with regards to having a baby along. To top it off hubby's b-day is Sat, the same day I am leaving, so on top of packing, laundry, house cleaning, last minute gardening and cooking a two-week food supply for hubby, I also have to wrap gifts, make a birthday cake and host his family on Fri night. Well, that's not so bad, I guess. I can do it. I won't have access to a computer in CA, but maybe I will in OR. I mean, I know I will have computer access in OR, it's just a matter of time availability. At the moment I am having trouble confirming my flight status. I am going to have to log off and call the airline; Expedia is absolutely NO HELP and neither is th...

Hubby has a talent for coming up with these as he thinks of them...usually in regards to a certain subject. 1) He's going to fly high and light low. ( To be said of someone who's on a spending spree-he's flying high with his money now, but he'll light low eventually when it's gone. ) 2) He's got the wrong sow by the ear. ( To have made a mistake, as in: we got a call yesterday from someone who was wanting to know why hubby hadn't shown up with his skid-loader to help her out...well, she had called the wrong number.) 3) He's got to lick that calf over. ( To have done a poor job at something and have to do it over again .) Then there are the "poor" sayings. Here in the Ozarks to be "poor" also means to be thin, or skinny. That's what most of these are referring to. 4)Poor as a snake. 5) Poor as owl poop. 6) So poor you could do your washing on his ribs. 7) So poor you could hang your hat on his hip bone. 8) He looks like the ta...

Here is a picture of one of the venison sausages sliced: surprise...it's jalapeno and cheese! They aren't labeled so dunno how many of the 6 sausages are this "flavor." We gave about 3 away I believe, so hope they like them! Dairy news: It has been raining here at least once a week the past month or so, which has kept the creek up fairly well. Yesterday hubby let cows go down into the creek bottoms; not knowing that it would rain most of the day. So last night during milking he was really late in calling me to come out to help finish up. I got out there and asked: Was the creek up? "Yes." Were you able to get across it? "No." Were the cows on the other side of the creek? "Yes, that's why I'm so late." When the creek gets too high you can't get the 4-wheeler across, so you either have to use one of the tractors for round-up, get out your waders or just hope the cows come of their own volition and greed. He went ...

Yes, we are still here in Missouri...for now anyway. The tornadoes went south of us, thank God. But they are predicting more for tonight. Great! But we don't have anything to complain about in comparison to Myanmar and China. In other news: Here is a pic of my irises. Two years ago I took a couple of the roots from a patch way down the road by the dry cow pasture and planted them in on of the garden beds. They didn't do well there, so the next year I put them in this stump out front. Last year they didn't bloom, but I was startled almost 2 weeks ago to see this display. This is actually out front; you can see our Mid-Am dairy sign swinging in the breeze there and some dogwoods blooming in the background. Very picturesque. Sunday evening we had just finished milking at about 8 PM and had come in when we got a phone call; a neighbor told us one of his cherry trees had falled over the fence to our heifers in Windyville. He'd come home from the hospital and wasn't ab...

Whenever I am doing dishes, weeding the garden, mopping the floor or doing some other glorified menial household task I can always think of any number of interesting dairy things to post, but when I am sitting here at the computer my mind always goes blank. I need to start writing things down as I think of them. However. In the meantime; this farming magazine that we get had an article (that I incidentally haven't read yet) on "fainting goats." This sounded like something vaguely amusing and interesting to post about. So I went to trusty Wikipedia for more info: Fainting Goats A fainting goat is a breed of domestic goat whose muscles freeze for roughly 10 seconds when the goat is startled. Though painless, this generally results in the animal collapsing on its side. The characteristic is caused by a hereditary genetic disorder called myotonia congenita . When startled, younger goats will stiffen and fall over. Older goats learn to spread their legs or lean against ...

The turkey hunter was rained out yesterday, so we don't have a turkey to gut and butcher. For now I am just as glad, though I am always up for a new experience. It isn't so much the hacking up of a dead fowl that bugs me as it is the smell of the freshly killed carcass. My dad used to kill and butcher the odd chicken on occasion and it was always that newly killed smell that made me gross out. Anyway before the turkey hunter left he took a pickup load of fertilizer with him for his tomatoes. He spent about half hour out in the rain shoveling..umm, poop. The pile is out in the little heifer pen so he attracted an audience. They stood around the front of his pickup and sniffed the grill and gazed at him as he sweated and got thoroughly soaked. I would have taken a picture, because it was so funny looking to me, but I thought that would be testing the boundaries of friendship. He's a nice guy though. Just for a photo to post here is Ellen, konked out in her carrier. Sleeping b...

I have to type really fast here as I can hear a thunderstorm moving in. Yes, it has been wet and rainy here the past couple of days; typical spring weather. Yesterday in the rain hubby did his bush-hogging (mowing) up on the old homestead, then he spread some fertilizer. After about 2 hours of doing this he came back in soaked, but glad the job was done. While he was up there bush-hogging he found the remains of a calf fetus; apparently one of the cows aborted a couple of days ago. This happens occasionally. He figured out which cow it was and looked at his records; she was due in about 31/2 months. Her udder swelled up and she is milking OK, I believe. Hunter is back at it. He got two turkeys for himself, but he loves hunting so much that he's up here again. This time he told hubby that he's getting one for US! Great! Never having gutted or plucked any fowl of any kind, this ought to be an adventure. Maybe he'll be kind enough to gut it for us while he's dow...

Gee, Solomon, thanks a bunch! hahahaha. Here goes: Here are the rules: 1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. 2. Each player answers the questions about themselves. 3. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. 4. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer. 1) What was I doing 10 years ago? Hmmmm...ten years ago, believe it or not, I had just got a job as a county temporary worker with the Sheriff's Department and was beginning my illustrious career in Records. I think this actually would have been my second week of work 10 years ago. It was a great job, but God save me from ever having to answer the public phones at a jail again. If it wasn't some snarky attorney calling it was some pitiful gal wanting to know if her boyfriend was in jail because he went out to get a gallon of ...

Just out of curiosity, I Googled Redbones. They supposedly make a great pet, but like Dalmatians they are very energetic and need intensive training when younger. Wikipedia says they are great problem solvers, which can be an issue when they figure out how to get out of the fence or into the dog-proof garbage cans. They appear to be very attractive animals. A note about raccoon-hunting. One of hubby's cousins likes to come here and hunt coons in fur season. Believe it or not (and this was something I didn't know 'til I came here) there is STILL a wild fur trade here in rural USA. Yet ANOTHER of hubby's cousins deals in furs. However, a year or two ago there was an article in some paper that we get and it stated that the fur trade is pretty much a losing business as far as making money is concerned. The Redbone Coonhound is an American breed. It was developed in Georgia in the 1800s from Foxhounds and Bloodhounds . The name may come from an early breeder, Peter ...