Dairy Daze...and Now Beyond

Lately I have been having trouble with this computer; it wouldn't let me post anything. Very annoying. Anyway. For Christmas hubby got Ellen one of those little art easels; a chalkboard on one side and a dry erase board on the other. Ellen takes notions from time to time to draw on either side. Currently she loves the dry erase side. We have noticed that her drawings are becoming more and more sophisticated, as it were. For instance, if you squint and hold your head just right you can see that this face behind her actually has a nose, eyebrows, a mustache and a beard. The addition of facial hair is kind of puzzling because no one she knows personally has any facial hair. But she must have picked it up in some of the shows that she watches. I don't know. I just thought it was funny that she put it in there. I have a bunch of other stuff to blog about but it'll have to wait.

Recently I got the following comment from a vet student from Australia, on a post I did on the blind calf we got back in 2007. This is the second comment from Australia that I have had regarding this issue. I thought I'd post this since a reader of this blog has a son in large animal veterinarian training. Perhaps he would find it interesting. This post from back in 2007 on the Blind Calf continues to draw comments. (Follow the link if you wish to read it.) Apparently folks Google when they get a blind calf in their herd and my post comes up. I just wish folks would report back in on what happened to their calf. This particular one I blogged about never prospered, was always vision impaired, and was susceptible to infections. We took her to the sale barn when she was about 18 months old. Anonymous said... Hi - I'm a last year vet student from Brisbane, Australia. I found this site when doing research on a blind 1 week old dairy Swiss brown calf. This calf was reported blind...

I figured it was time to change my picture up top there. I took this pic out in the west pasture a couple of weeks ago. The grass was just starting to get green but the trees hadn't leafed out yet. In point of fact, the trees STILL aren't leafed out yet. Spring has been slow to develop here this year. But I am hopeful that at least it won't freeze them all off like the past couple of years when we had a really early spring. There isn't too much dairy news to talk about at this time. Well, let's see what I can come up with. The two new bulls we got a few weeks ago have settled in pretty well. So far the one with the milking herd is fairly docile; just lays down in the corral and chews his cud. They don't get super mean until they are a bit older, so we shall see. We moved 27 of 30 open heifers from their winter pasture here by the barns. They are now in Windyville. The other 3 are still here and need to be moved ASAP. And that's about it folks, for...

If you want yet another fun blog to follow; check out this one: Blabbin' Grammy A Grandma from Tennessee who blogs about life "back then" and now. Stop by and say hello.

It's going to hit the 80s today. I planted more radishes and lettuce this morning. The first little crop of radishes are coming along great. My mother in law said she heard about radish sandwiches; butter two slices of bread, cover one slice of bread with sliced red radishes, top with other slice of bread, enjoy. Hmmmmm...I will feed one to hubby and see what he thinks. Last week or maybe it was the week before we were working on getting the garden beds ready to plant. We had meant to burn them off to get all the weeds off, but believe it or not it was never dry enough, or not windy enough, to do so. So hubby just ups with the tiller and tills them anyway. (Now there's tons of ground up chickweed regenerating itself, but no time for that story now.) The next day I get out there with rake and shovel and pitchfork and start cleaning out the sod. As I am working my way along I see this "thing" up ahead, like a little old dried up melon; it had a stem on it. I kept workin...

Oh, dear. Yet again I am tardy in getting back to my blog here. "sigh* Well, here's but one thing we have been up to. The weather has finally improved enough for long walks. So last week I loaded Ellen up on the 4-wheeler and we went down into the creek bottoms for a walk. It was a lovely evening for a walk, but mostly Ellen wanted to throw rocks into the creek. As usual, it was hard to resist skipping a few stones across the creek myself. One fun part of going to the creek for me is seeing evidence of who else has been there. Here, for my convenient picture-taking, a turkey and a 'coon left some tracks side by side. I tossed in an AA battery for size comparison. And what trip down to the creek bottoms could possibly be complete without a visit to the boneyard to remember the dearly departed? Yes, we recycle here on the dairy; ashes to ashes, dust to dust, cow to coyote...etc. And now...owing to lack of time to continue my photo walking tour, I must bid you farewel...