Dairy Daze...and Now Beyond

Yesterday morning I went up the road to do the feeding and Rosie wasn't there with the herd. She gave me quite a scare because I didn't think her udder was big enough for her to be close to calving, but finally, after I'd driven all around the pasture, in the half-dark mind you, dodging limbs and stumps and all, I found them; Rosie and her calf. I was so relieved to see her standing up and with a live calf standing next to her I almost cried. Yes, it's a little heifer calf, and RED like her mother. A little bit darker red, but red just the same. Rosie doesn't have much of an udder, as you can see in the picture, so unfortunately she might become a cull later on down the line, but for now I am just happy she didn't croak in calving and that she had a red heifer that I am not going to worry about that. I couldn't get the camera to cooperate with me, so that is why Rosie has this demented gleam in her eye-the flash kept going off, but all in all the pic ca...

(OK. I joined NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month)-meaning I am supposed to post every day for November, but I haven't been doing a very good job of it. I joined late so I guess it doesn't matter for this year anyway.) Yesterday my husband had one of those Mondays. On Sun evening at milking time he noticed that our expectant heifer was acting funny, so he rounded her up and got her in a pen by the corral. At 2:30 AM he dons his boots and heads out to check up on her. Sure enough, she's got a calf, but somehow it has slipped UNDER the corral and Mama Cow is having a fit to get to it. So he has to drag the calf around, in the dirt and whatnot, and rearrange portable cattle panels so cow and calf can be reunited and not mix with the rest of the herd. In the process one of the panels falls down on the back of his leg. He comes back to bed and tells me nothing of what's gone on. At breakfast a couple hours later he tells me we have a healthy heifer calf, but, he says, ...