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Showing posts from August, 2011

Birds, Bees and Bulls

August 20, 2011 Last Monday, I believe it was, Ellen and I were walking down over the ridge to get the 4-wheeler from where hubby leaves it after his round-up. As is usual, the bull was standing there in the trees, a ways behind the milk barn. (He follows the herd up the hill and then stands there while hubby shuts the gate on him. He later decides he wants to join the cows and pushes the gate down to get to them. But that is a different story.) Ellen has seen the bull numerous times. We have had many discussions about how cows have udders and give milk, but she’d never really thought about what the bull is for…until that night. As we were walking by she suddenly asked; “Mommy, what does the bull do?” Trying to keep it light and unthreatening (to myself, not to her) I replied: “He eats grass and sleeps all day.” “No, Mom,” Ellen wasn’t satisfied. “What does he DO?” GULP Weeeelllll… I jumped in with both feet and just gave her the truth, since she obvio

Little Black Cow

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A few days ago, on Monday evening right after milking, we looked up the road and saw a little black cow and calf on the verge of the road, sniffing over the fence at our herd. We knew she'd end up being trouble of one sort or another. We were right. We had no idea where she came from. We surmised she'd come from the little herd just behind the 12 acres across the road. But the owners live in Marshfield and we have no idea of their names or phone numbers. We hoped she'd go on about her business and find her way home. I didn't want to mess with her as she's a beef cow and they tend to be aggressive when they have a calf. A couple of people either stopped and told us about "our cow" that was out (Nevermind the fact that we don't run beef cows.), or honked loudly and repeatedly as they drove by. Finally, at about 8:25 pm, a car pulls in. It was the owner of the cow. She'd actually come from about 2 miles from here (hubby said the