Dairy Daze...and Now Beyond

If there is one thing I love to do in the kitchen it's to try new things. After all, who wants to keep eating the same boring stuff all the time, right? Yes, well. There is this place south of town that sells discount groceries once or twice a month. I like to go there and see what they have; different produce, bags of flour, pasta...etc. You just never know. One day I found purple cauliflower: It makes a very colorful dish of vegetables, doesn't it? I loved it. Hubby was a bit dubious. He said it had an odd flavor. I will concede; it DID taste different, but not really so I could put my finger on it. Maybe a bit sweeter. Ellen liked it. She ate it right up. She loves vegetables. At .50 cents a head, if it ever shows up again, hubby had better be prepared to eat purple cauliflower again. That's all I can say.

My husband really ticked me off one day and this is what resulted... Ha ha...no not really... We had gone to Waynesville and Fort Leonard Wood one Saturday and came back late. I made little pizzas for a really quick supper. I always use spaghetti sauce instead of pizza sauce because it's easier on our digestion for some reason. In any case, I had a huge can of the stuff and was separating it out into smaller portions to freeze. Like a bonehead would; I got distracted and left a bag of the stuff propped up and still open on the counter. Well, as you might have guessed from the photo, it fell over and poured the better part of its contents all over my floor. Just so you know; spilled spaghetti sauce will really smell up the place for a bit. And it's not fun to clean up either.

Never, never, but NEVER let a friendly stray cat steal your heart. Especially a tom. Remember Boo? I think I blogged about him before, but I am not sure. Anyway. He showed up here on the dairy sometime in September; a stray, just a thin black streak in the weeds. He'd visit my garbage/scrap pile. It did not take long for him to realize that if he buttered us up he could get more and better food. He mews like a kitten and is quite calm and friendly. I did NOT want this cat. I wanted hubby to take him somewhere else. But Ellen fell in love with him: "He's my favorite color." (Go figure on that one.) However, he has weasled his way into my heart too, the little black wretch. He keeps me company when I do chores in the mornings; follows me around, scrambles into the feed buckets and eats the calf feed (see number 2 below.). He will even ride on the four-wheeler with me. He has two faults. Well, three. 1) He is the kind of cat that loves to wal...

The past week or so there has been a heifer up the road who was nearing her calving time. Yesterday she'd been off by herself, but nothing happened all day. Then this morning when I went to feed them I went in to check on her. She was lying down, with the hooves and the nose of a calf sticking out of her rear. I took one look at the calf and thought; "It's all over for that one." Its tongue was hanging out of its mouth and it just didn't look good. I whacked on the cow but she didn't move; just laid there with her chin in the mud. I was going to head back to get hubby, but then I saw something. The calf's chin twitched. I thought I was seeing things. I chucked it a bit and sure enough, it moved again. I whacked on the cow again, but still she would not move. I thought maybe I could herd her to the corral, but no dice. So I ran back to the 4-wheeler, got hubby's nice new rope, put it around one of the calf's ankles, dug in my heel...

My husband has all but accused me of being the above when it comes to Christmas trees. Here, in my own words, is my story: One of my favorite Christmas pastimes as a kid was going to get the tree. Depending on weather conditions and time we would either get one from the National Forest Service land a mile or two from our place, or we’d pack up and go for a long drive into the mountains. We lived in the Pacific Northwest, on the rugged North Coast of Humboldt County. Dad would pack up the old Ford truck, a couple of us kids would pile in and off we would go, further inland, higher up into the wild. Up, up we would go until we’d break through the coastal fog layer into the sun, the fog a roiling gray sea below. And still up we would go. Eventually we’d get to Willow Creek, a town whose fame has something to do with the Bigfoot legend. I remember every year we’d see the town’s life-sized wooden statue of the furry creature, and we’d speculate on the possibility of seeing him fo...

For those of you who aren't connected on Facebook. Here is the picture I WAS going to use as one of those photo Christmas cards to send out. Just imagine it with the caption underneath; "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!" Off and on all summer Ellen would drag this snowman kit out and try it on for size. She'd ask; "When is it going to snow?" "Argh," I'd say. "Don't rush things." We did get a dusting of snow last week, but it was too dry and powdery to make any kind of snowman, even a teeny one.

YAY! NaBloPoMo 2011! We did it! I DID IT! Ha Ha!!! If you have children who watch Dora the Explorer, you will recognize the above title as a phrase she sings at the end of each show. After they have completed their mission the characters all dance around and sing "We did it! We did it! Lo hicimos!" This time it went by faster and easier than last year. Maybe I am just getting better at it. ************************************************************************* In dairy news. On Monday, as I blogged, we got rid of one bull. Now we need to get rid of the other AND find 2 new young bulls. Hubby called one Holstein bull breeder, but he didn't have any at the moment. Hmmmmm.... Tomorrow we are going to take about 7 of our "extra" young, open heifers down to the Norwood Special Cow Auction. I think this is located somewhere past Mansfield. Hubby will drive the truck and trailer. Ellen and I will ride in the "chase car" in case h...