Dairy Daze...and Now Beyond

Here is the newest picture I have of Anne-Shirley.  If you are new to Anne-Shirley's story, well, she is our little genetic hiccup; a red Holstein born to black and white parents. Her mother was a 2-banger, so we had to cull her; which made me very sad as it would have been nice to see if she'd drop another red calf the next go-round. Since all the other fall calves were, well, born in the fall and Anne-Shirley's dam calved in February there is a marked size difference.  She hasn't really made any new friends with these larger calves, but we have a smaller calf to put in with them in a day or two; maybe Anne-Shirley will take her under her wing, so to speak, and they can be buddies.

I need to be posting more dairy stuff.  Here goes... It is March.  And March frequently means high winds.  We have had two bouts of high winds here, both of which ended in dead trees across the same fence. The first time a neighbor stopped in and told me we had two cows out up the road.  We went up there and sure enough, farther down the road between the bull/heifer field and the dry cow field there was a tree across the fence.  Why only TWO of the 18 of them got out we will never know but will be ever grateful for.  We got them back into their field and Gary got the fence fixed. Then 2-3 days ago it happened AGAIN, except Gary happened to be up there and caught it BEFORE any animals escaped.  You can see them gathering at the fence on the left. Here they are inspecting his repair job.  They are quick to spot anything new and take advantage to go exploring. While I was up there I snapped a shot of the Wall...

Yesterday; March 8, 2018, I went into the hospital and had my gallbladder removed.  It was not fun; but it could have been worse. A wonderful lady Jane, from church, who is also my neighbor down the road, drove me in, stayed with me and drove me back home.  It went so fast that Gary wasn't even done with chores yet before I was home.  I was scheduled for about 7:30 and was at home before 11 AM.  They gave me pictures, but I will spare you and not scan and post them.  LOL I have 4 holes in my abdomen and am rather sore, but generic Percocet is a wonderful thing so I am doing OK.  Gary is having to do all of my graining chores for the next week or two though.  I feel bad about that; but at least there is only one bottle calf for him to worry about. The odd thing about the whole ordeal is that I wasn't too awfully anxious about it, except for one thing.  The whole anesthetic deal.  Coming out of it they say you don't remember much and co...

Sometimes things happen that make me say; "This is totally God."  Others may call it coincidence, but I believe that coincidences are Spiritually influenced.  In 2005 we got a little red heifer; which I blogged about after the fact: Genetic Hiccup.  She was born before I started this blog, so I didn't get her in here at birth.  But here's Rosie's picture: Here is Rosie with her red calf, which was a bull I believe, I can't even remember.  Either it was a bull or it turned black eventually.  I strongly believe it was a heifer that turned black. A bit before Rosie calved we had this red heifer calf come along:  However you can see the black markings on her nose and around her eyes.  I wish she'd stayed like this but she eventually, over the course of 7-8 months, turned a solid black with just a red tinge in her ears and on her udder.    Rosie herself died of some mysterious malady a few years ago; back when Ellen wa...

My mom was born in 1929 in Blackshear, Georgia.  Her family moved to S. California back in the mid-30s in search of work. When she was in her late teens or early 20s, I am not sure and she probably doesn't remember either, she got a job at a fish cannery down there.  Yeah, she worked in Cannery Row. She can still tell tales of being called in the wee hours of the AM to go to work at the cannery because a fishing boat had come in to port.  She remembers about the gutters and the packers and how they had to put the fish into cans and send them on down the line. She was a packer, I believe. She remembers the stink of the fish.    Not even dementia can take that memory away.  Haha When I was growing up on the coast of Northern California; Humboldt County I distinctly remember that even though we were on the coast where fresh fish was readily available, it was rare that we had it.  My mom's memories of the stink of fish in the cannery overpow...

The Faerie Spring is an enchanting place to visit in the spring; flowers, laughing water, fresh green leaves whispering in the wind, cheery birds...you get the picture. But the past couple of years since I discovered it, I have wondered what the Faerie Spring is like in the winter. This past week Bella and I took a long walk to find out.  I had piles of laundry to do, but I took one look into those brown eyes and went to get her lead.  We trekked on down there. It was well below freezing, maybe in the mid- to lower-20s.  But interestingly enough at the head of the spring the water was yet flowing freely.  The leftover leaves of fall clogged the flow, and the mossy rocks were a determined green; so it was still a wee bit enchanted. We went further down, finding evidence of how life is hard in the wild.  This fellow didn't make it to see another year. As we went on we saw white ahead.  Random patches of ice. Then long stretches of ice, ...

Yesterday Bella and I decided to leave life behind for a bit and ramble.  We headed off down the hill to the creek bottoms to see what we could see. As we walked along the tree line the sporadic crash of bounding white tails startled us.  But we were both too wise to give chase; those waving white tails let us know we'd be out-bounded in no time. In winter it seems eerie down in the pastures, abandoned.  The wind sighs across the field, and Bella chases field mice through their grassy tunnels, her butt up in the air, tail wagging.  Her joy in the simple pleasures of life always make me smile.  For all that I did not want a dog, I have learned through her to enjoy the tranquility of the moment.  The bone-white upper limbs of the sycamore ghost over the meadow; seeming to float through the leafless wood.  Winter is their time to glow, to outshine their companions.  And I think that no matter how stark and haunted life should become, perhaps th...