Dairy Daze...and Now Beyond

The post in which I talk about how my RES was blind and now can see! ALERT!  CAUTION!   I am not a veterinarian.  I am not giving any treatment advice here!  I am only telling the story of my turtle, a common red-eared slider, or pond turtle.  We call her Turkle. I actually have no idea if this is a "he" or a "she", but I decided on "she" just to make things easier when I write about her. You can find the story of how I found her here: The Turkle" As of this writing I have had her about a year.  Feeding her has been a challenge; and this is the snag upon which hangs this tale. Unbeknownst to me the diet of the RES is about 75% vegetation, according to one website.  From the get-go she summarily refused anything but protein; wouldn't eat the pellets, wouldn't strike at earthworms even; just cooked chicken or dried shrimp or mealworms.  So for the first 5-6 months of her life that's what I gave her. Then Dec of 2016 as the temps ...

Yes, I am going to post twice today.  Because I feel like it.  A bit over a week ago I took the dogs for a walk out to the west of the house, just above the Faerie Spring...which I haven't been to yet this spring.  At any rate here are a few pics from that.  This, I believe, is a marker tree.  I think sometimes these trees a created naturally; but this one just seems too, I dunno, too perfect.  Apparently the Native Americans would tie saplings over to create these trees on purpose to mark trails, or some other landmark.  There are three of these, the other two are much smaller and may be just coincidence, but they are all along a ridge just above the Faerie Spring. Here's a panorama picture I tried out with my camera.  I wanted to get a shot of the dogwoods in bloom.  I always try to get blooming dogwood pics but they never turn out as breathtaking as the trees are in real life.  Another dogwood shot.  They have been ...

My husband is working on a new enterprise; he always has a project going on.  In any case, here is his newest baby: Some sort of gravel sifter.  It had to be delivered at night because it wasn't exactly road legal.  So the hauler showed up with it pretty soon after Gary'd started his milking at 5 AM-ish.  It was quite the ordeal getting this monster unloaded; they'd had to remove the wheels to get it on there.  So Gary had to use his backhoe and his bulldozer and I don't know what all to unload the thing. In the meantime though, guess who was pressed into milking duty for a few batches? It was all good.  These were some of the first batches of cows; the older cows.  I could tell because all I had to do was open the door and they'd file into the milk barn and take their places.  The older cows have worked out their own pecking order as to who gets to come in first, second, third and fourth.  Bovines love routines.  ...

So, from the beginning of my being "hired" on this operation (Meaning after we got married, as it were) I was put in charge of the calves.  So I am the "Calfkeeper" as it were. Well, here is a calf that I really messed up on.  A couple of weeks ago I noticed there was something wrong with this 6 month old heifer out in the weaner pen.  One hundred meaningless points if you can guess.  Though it might be difficult to perceive from the angle, but yes, yes there is something wrong with this heifer. I leave it up to your perspicuity to determine what it may be.  Haha....

Soooo...  I just can't finish the January 14, 2017 story.  I can't.  I keep putting it off and it never gets done.  There have been various stories I have wanted to put down but haven't because I haven't finished the J14,17 one.  But I am just going to quit and go on to other things now. Ellen is doing well.  She is struggling with the idea of doing her own lancing, let alone the injections; but she will get used to the idea and do fine.  She has to, else she's not going to get to go on the Silver Dollar City day trips or overnight trips with her aunt and grandma any more. HA She will learn.

After changing some sheets and washing a couple loads of laundry the dogs and I decided to take a break from our domesticity and escape to the wild side. Looking down the hill toward the creek bottoms you can see things starting to green up a bit.  We headed down to the pretty-much-dry creek bed.  The dogs romped around and had a splendid time.  We found one fairly large pool, which was handy and they worked up a powerful thirst.  Deuce, as is his wont, promptly waded out and laid down in it.  But was up too quickly to catch on camera.  He believes in total immersion while Bella daintily laps around the edges.   My mom is forever fascinated by "those white trees" so I took a pic of the gigantic sycamore down along the creek bank; leaning up against it and looking up.   On the way back we cut across the field.  Bella was fascinated by the mouse trails in the grass.  They wear little rodent highways from gras...

The last normal Saturday of our lives began as usual.  I got up at about 3:40 am-ish, got Gary up at 3:45 am, served breakfast, saw him out the door, went back to bed for a bit over an  hour, went out did chores for a bit while Ellen slept in.  Her last peaceful sleep in...for awhile yet at least. I told Gary out in the barn during chores that I reckoned I'd take Ellen in to the walk-in clinic in Buffalo and have them do a blood sugar test on her, that way I wouldn't have to pick her up from school on Tues and be late for supper and all.  He agreed that would be better. I naively made a shopping list and figured we'd stop by the library as well, so she could pick out her own books.  I think I had a couple of other errands to run, but I forget. Oh, weep for the best laid plans of mice and men which never come to fruition. There weren't many people at the clinic so we got in pretty quickly.  Ellen wasn't nervous about a finger prick, she was worried a...