Never Will the Rocks Cry Out in My Place

This past Sunday was Palm Sunday.  We planned a skit for the kids to do in which they basically re-enacted Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on a donkey.  We opted to not bring a donkey into the church.  However, palm fronds seemed to be a necessary item to have on Palm Sunday.  So I got the ladder, leaned it up against the side of the palm and climbed up the tree.  When I got to the point at which the palm fronds were, I took the Harbor Freight foldable pruning saw out of my back pocket and began sawing.

As I sawed, they dropped to the ground below.  I sawed about 10 of them in total and then climbed down.  It would be best if each child could hold a palm branch and say, "Hosanna!  Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the LORD!"

Here's the thing with our palm branches, though.  They have these huge thorns that stick out and cut you.  I never can prune this tree without shedding blood.  I had Benjamin cut off all the thorns with some pruning shears so the little kids would cut up their fingers while waving the branches.

While I was brainstorming how to do this skit, I figured just having palm branches wouldn't alone capture the feel of Old Town Jerusalem.  We needed something more!  I figure Jerusalem probably was a bustling city with street markets with vendors trading their wares and probably... Yeah, there were probably goats bleating along the streets.  I'm sure there were baby goats, too.

So the kids carried palm fronds and some carried baby goats.  The kids (and adults) enjoyed the skit.  I'll admit that I was straining, hoping that the goats wouldn't make a mess (#1 or #2) on the carpet in church.  Fortunately, they didn't.

"Hosanna! Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the LORD!"

The climax of the drama to me at least, was when the Pharisees told Jesus to stop the people from praising Him as if He were God.

In Luke 19:40, Jesus answered: "I tell you," He answered, "if they remain silent, the very stones will cry out."

God's Will will be done.  He is sovereign.  If we are reluctant to do His Will, He will work his will through another willing vessel.  How sad, though, that rocks could take the place of His Creation in praising Him?

Some of those people praising Him, however, days later were yelling, "Crucify Him!"  How fickle we can be.  How we can allow the prevailing winds of the world sway us back and forth!  May we remain faithful to Him.  As we prepare for Resurrection Sunday, may we be thankful for the indescribable gift of Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross that reconciled us with the Father. 

An Update on Luna

Luna, our youngest Jersey just lost her baby calf last week.  Its head was positioned in a way that made it impossible for Luna to go into labor and deliver.  Our veterinarian made a farm call and pulled the calf.  Luna was in bad shape too - just utterly exhausted.  Dr. Fontenot didn't think she was going to make it, but so far she had defied the odds.

She is eating each day, but is moving real slow.  She's also lost a lot of weight.  Last night we smelled a foul odor and we think she has an infection inside of her.  We took her temperature and it was 103.5.  101 for a cow is normal.  So the fever confirmed our suspicions that Luna has an infection.  The discharge on her tail is also evidence of this.  I would assume this is normal.  The dead calf, the invasive pulling of the calf, bacteria getting inside of her...  All of this could cause her to get sick. 

Tricia went to the vet today and got 5 syringes of antibiotic that we are to give Luna subcutaneously for the next 5 days.  Tricia also did some internet research and came up with an idea to try to help Luna out.  if successful, this procedure should help clean some of the infection out.  Tricia purchased an enema bag and mixed 1 teaspoon of salt for every liter of warm water and mixed it in the bag.  She took petroleum jelly and lubricated the end of the tubing.

Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman

Then for the uncomfortable part, she inserted the tube into Luna's vagina.  I know this is not pleasant talk, but we're trying to save poor little Luna.  I'll admit I cringed a little watching this.

Then by holding the bag over Luna (at about eye-level), you let gravity do its thing.  Pretty soon, all the contents of the bag are emptied into Luna.

After just a little while, a thick, blood tinged discharge began pouring out.  It did not look pretty.  It did not smell nice.  We'll repeat the syringe of antibiotic tomorrow evening and will repeat the vaginal enema and check Luna's temperature again.  Hopefully, we'll have a good progress report to give you in a few days.

2018 Meat Birds - Three Weeks Old

Well, I'll have to get a better photo in the daytime.  For some reason, I was convinced that I had pictures that documented us moving our chicks from the brooder in the garage out into the chicken tractor in the back yard.  At about two weeks of age, the chicks began really stinking up the place.  It seems no matter how much wood shavings that you put down, they cover them with poop quickly.

It was nice to move them out on grass.  I promise to post pictures of the chicken tractor.  Here is a photo that I took at night with the chicks in the tractor eating chick grower and drinking water.  Eat, drink, sit, poop.  That's pretty much what these birds do.  I still have heat lamps on them because it has been cool at night and a little breezy.  You want to keep them comfortable.  Uncomfortable birds don't eat, and birds that don't eat, don't grow.

As I do each week, I reach down and grab an average-sized bird and bring him (or her) into the garage.  Notice the feet on this monster!  Just holding this bird, you can feel the body heat that it puts out.  You can also feel how solidly built this bird is.  I would say that this is about the size that a Cornish hen is when you eat it.  We'll let our bird grow for at least another 5 weeks.

I had to work with the bird to keep him still on top of the scale.  He did not want to cooperate.  He jumped down from the scale and pooped on my workbench.  Uncouth, I think.  Finally, I got him on the scale.

Here we go: 
This week - Week 3 - the bird weighed in at 1 pound 10 ounces.
Last week the bird weighed 18 ounces, giving him a weight gain of 8 ounces.
In week 3 of 2017, they weighed 1 pound 9 ounces.
In week 3 of 2016, they weighed 1 pound 15 ounces.

We haven't lost any more birds since we moved them outside.  They seem to be very comfortable and I'm pleased with their growth rate.  I think they are right on schedule.  Now we do have chances of rain on Wednesday and Thursday of this week.  That is always an interesting time, wondering if the birds are going to be safe in the storm.  One of the first years we started doing this, we lost all 25 birds in a rainstorm to hypothermia.

We will report in next week!

Cycling the Cows Through the Yard

In early spring we try to not mow the grass for as long as we can.  If we lived in the suburbs, this would not fly.  We'd have angry neighbors and the president of the HOA leaving letters on our door.  We don't do this because we are slothful.  We don't do this because we don't care what the yard looks like.  We do this because our cows love the to eat the winter grass and white dutch clover that fills the yard.  There's no sense mowing it when the cows can clean it up.

To cycle them through the yard, we have portable fencing and I'll move it around the yard each day, making several paddocks.  This is accomplished by an electric fence system that is powered by a battery.  The one in the pasture is solar powered.  If you mistakenly touch this thing, it will make you yell uncontrollably.  It's kind of funny after the shock has worn off.  The cows have all touched it and they respect it.

Once they have completely eaten all the grass down to a level height, it is time to make another paddock in the yard and move them.  But I have three cows and it was just Tricia and I.  I was busy making the new paddock and so there was only one person to hold 3 cows.  The math wasn't working.  So what to do?  With one lead rope, you can clip it to one cow and run the rope through the rings of the other two cows' halters.  Then I can pull down the wire in the existing paddock and quickly build the new one without worrying about the cows running away.

Tricia thought of that idea.  It seems like she's over-seeing a chain gang!

It is a win-win situation for all involved.  The cows eat the grass, delaying my obligation to do it.  They are able to enjoy the grass in the yard to allow the grass in the pasture to come up without being eaten down to the ground.  The cows also poop in the yard, fertilizing the soil.  When April comes around I will mow the grass, leaves, and poop into rows.  Then I'll rake it all up and incorporate it into the soil in the garden.

Cows make great lawn mowers!

A Tough Day for Luna

Springtime means lots of babies around the farm.  We have two bull calves born less than six months ago, 51 two-week old chicks, the triplet goats born on March 3rd.  We've also posted about Luna, our Jersey heifer who was expecting her first calf.  In fact, just the other day we were posting about how it was going to be any day now that she would calve.

Well, she never went into labor.  Her udder was swollen and dripping milk.  Her vulva was swollen.  However, things just didn't seem right.  She stopped eating and became lethargic.  Tricia had intuition that things weren't quite right.  Yesterday morning Luna was laying on the ground groaning, but no baby was coming.

Tricia called our veterinarian to come do a "farm call."  He arrived quickly since his office is only a mile away.  Luna was worn out.  Dr. Fontenot was concerned about her.  He quickly began pulling the calf.  The calf was positioned correctly with the front legs poised to come out first, but the calf's head and neck was turned at an awkward angle and our veterinarian had to re-position the calf's head to deliver it.

Unfortunately, Luna's little calf was dead.  It was very strange in that the calf was a 100% registered Jersey and it was mostly white.  It was a little bull calf.  All of our calves this year have been bulls.  Tragically, this little fellow is dead.  We buried him in the garden.  Although very sad, our attention turned to Luna.

When I got home last night, Luna was in trouble.  She was down way out in the pasture and could not get up.  I brought a bucket of alfalfa and a drench syringe full of molasses diluted with water.  Pretty soon, we had Luna up and walking back to the barn.  I was able to milk her out and we saved the colostrum that would have gone to her calf and we froze it.  It is always good to have some colostrum frozen as "insurance" should you have a calf that didn't get any from the momma.  It is crucial that the calf gets it.

This morning before daybreak, I went out and checked on Luna.  She was down and groaning and was unable to get up.  I moved her to the sitting up position and was able to get her standing and eating some feed and hay.  Things are 'touch and go' with her right now, but I think she's made a good turn for the better today and I was able to milk her again this evening.

We will continue to observe her.  Sadly, we didn't get a calf, but if we can keep Luna healthy, at least we've got fresh milk.

Covering Your Tracks

After months of mud, muck and mire around the barn and in the pasture, things are just starting to dry up.  We are all happy.  It is so much more enjoyable to do chores without having to trudge through the mud, stepping out of your boots and getting your socks muddy!  I even think the cows are happier.

They've left their footprints sunk deep in the ground as reminders of the monsoon season.  Here's one hoof print right here:

Here is another that is sunk even deeper.  Some people's cows actually get stuck in the mud.  Fortunately ours did not.  There were mornings, however, that they did not want to come into the barn due to the thick mud.  On other mornings, Tricia had to give the cows a bath before milking them as they were so very muddy.  We have on our "to do" list to build a loafing shed or 'wings' off the southern side of our barn to give the cows somewhere to go to get out of the inclement weather. 

I was thinking about the cow tracks all over the pasture when coincidentally, I read a very interesting story about cow tracks.  It seems that back in the Prohibition Days (1924), people making moonshine were intent on not getting caught.  Revenuers, or those government agents trying to find the people making "shine" and destroy their stills, came across some very crafty people.

Since the moonshiners were making the moonshine in the hills, mountains, and countryside, they didn't want the revenuers to see their footprints and follow them to their still and destroy it.  So they made for themselves, "cow shoes."  These were attached to the bottoms of their shoes and the bottoms were made of wood and carved to look like cow tracks.

Image Credit

When the revenuers would come across the cow prints, they would think that they were following some cows and not be suspicious and thus, not go down the trail.  As a result they wouldn't get caught.  The cow shoes were simply attached to the bottoms of some ordinary shoes!

It is said that the moonshiners got the idea from a Sherlock Holmes mystery entitled, "The Adventure of the Priory School" where a similar scheme was hatched.  Sherlock figured it out and evidently the revenuers did too!

2018 Meat Birds - 2 Weeks Old

Another week has passed and our Cornish Cross Meat Birds continue to change.  We've expanded the size of the brooder to accommodate their growth.  We have had them on game bird ration and they have responded to the high protein.  We are going to back them down to an 18% ration.  If you leave them on the high protein feed, their body weight can outpace their skeleton's ability to support the weight.  For the most part, with the temperatures warming, we've turned off the heat lamps.  Their body heat keeps them warm enough.  They are eating a lot and pooping a lot.  As a result, it is virtually impossible to keep the brooder clean with fresh shavings.  As soon as you put fresh wood shavings in, the birds soil them.

We did have two more fatalities this past week, unfortunately.  One of them was expected.  It was a runt that was just smaller than the others.  We tried separating it from the others, and it would respond well.  Then we'd put it back with the others and it just couldn't hold its own with the larger more aggressive birds.  In the end, it died.  Survival of the fittest.  The other loss was a nice-sized bird.  We speculate that when we had a few nights of cooler weather (50's), we must not have had the heat lamps positioned low enough and over-night the birds piled up on one another to keep warm and one suffocated.

About out of space.  Time to move them out to the chicken tractor in the pasture in 6 days...

So let's go weight them and see just how much they've grown.  I picked up an average-sized bird.  He (or she) feels hot.  They generate a lot of body heat.  It is a fat little creature.  I put the bird on the kitchen scale and he promptly sat down.  Except for his head, all of his fuzz has been replaced with white feathers.

So let's see what the scale says:

At two weeks old, the bird weighs 18 ounces.
Last week, he weighed 7 ounces, giving him a 1 week weight gain of 11 ounces.
At two weeks old, the 2017 birds weighed 13 ounces.
At two weeks old, the 2016 birds weighed 18 ounces.

Looks like we're right on track!  We'll have another update next week.  Stay tuned.

Luna The Runt

Luna is our youngest Jersey heifer.  Something went wrong in the genetics I guess and Luna just never grew.  She is a runt.  She doesn't know she is a runt, though, and is very bossy, just like her mother.  Well, the runt is an expectant mother now.  The best we can figure, her due date is somewhere around the first of April.

We noticed the other day that her udder is beginning to swell up and that is one of the first signs that the big day for little Luna is approaching.

A few days later we noticed that her udder, while small in comparison to our other Jerseys, is swollen.  Not only is her udder swollen, but so is her vulva.  When they near their time to calve, the vulva becomes "flabby."

Here you can see Luna in the foreground and her mother, Daisy, in the background.  Daisy is much larger than her, but other than that, they are clones.  Luna is Daisy's 'mini-me!'

Even though Luna is a runt, I've been told that this doesn't necessarily mean that her calf will be a runt.  We'll have to wait and see.  Lots of babies around here this spring!

Trying a New Fruit

In THIS POST from 2016, we tried different strange and exotic fruits.  It was a fun and adventurous thing to do.  Last week Tricia brought home a fruit that we don't normally get to eat here.  She found it at Wal Mart, believe it or not.  Although it is indigenous to Africa, it was introduced to Mexico by the Spanish and Portuguese colonists back in the 16th century. 

We've always eaten the fruit in the form of a Mexican candy shown below that we get when in Corpus Christi.  It is spicy and tangy and they are delicious!

The fruit I'm talking about is tamarinds and this is what the package looked like that Tricia brought home from the store:

The fruit are in the form of pods - bean-like pods that hang from the tree.  They are brown and the outside is dry when ripe.

To enjoy, you simply crack the outer shell of the pod and expose the fruit.  There are a few 'strings' that you remove before eating.

The fruit itself is sticky and sweet and tangy.  Some say it tastes like a sweet tart.

But you must be careful.  There are several 'beans' underneath the sticky fruit.  The beans are hard and quite large.  You'll want to spit them out.

But the seed is the only part you'll want to spit out.  The fruit itself is really good as evidenced by the fact that all of our tamarinds are gone!

Clarabelle's Feeling "Under the Weather"

After the livestock shows, we were ready for things to settle down to normal around our little farm.  The rains came and never stopped falling, however.  The cows were all mired in knee-deep mud and were just miserable.  Then, all of a sudden, Clarabelle got sick.  She just began looking very lethargic and week.

Tricia called me at work one day to tell me that Clarabelle had fallen down in the milking stall and Tricia was unable to get her to stand back up.  Tricia got a saw and screwdriver and took the stall apart and was finally able to get her back on her feet. 

Sickly & Weak

Then she stopped eating her dairy ration.  She lost her appetite and the only thing we were able to get her to eat was alfalfa mulch and hay.  Clarabelle began rapidly losing weight.  You could count her bones.  Dairy animals are bony anyway, but this was alarming.  We were worried about ol' girl.

On Friday, Russ was off work, so he and Tricia loaded Clarabelle into the trailer and brought her to our veterinarian.  He's located about a mile away, so it is very convenient.  Our veterinarian put on rubber gloves and got a fecal sample.  Then he put it in a solution and waited for "things" to rise to the top.  He then looked at it under a microscope.  He diagnosed her with a high load of parasites.  Worms.

Worms are easily treated, but there are some medicines that cannot be administered to dairy animals or there is a long period during which you cannot drink the milk.  Due to Clarabelle's condition, he advised us to "dry her off" (stop milking her) and wean her calf, Astro.  During her sickness, her milk production had dropped to almost nothing anyway.  The vet gave us meds to give her that hopefully will help.

35 cc's by mouth should do the trick.  We administered it by using a syringe without the needle.  We held her head, stuck the syringe in the side of her mouth, and slowly pushed it down her throat, ensuring that none leaked out of the side of her mouth.

All we could do at this point was wait.  Tick, Tock...  I put up the temporary electric fence in the yard and she picked around at the winter grass.  Amazingly, she wouldn't touch the white dutch clover.  Pretty soon, she was ready to go back with the other cows.  Things weren't looking good.

Yesterday, I began to wonder if perhaps she had a virus and was running a fever.  I got the rectal thermometer we keep in the barn and lubricated it with Vaseline and then took her temperature.  It registered 100.5 at its highest.  A cow's normal rectal temperature is 101.5.  So no fever.  Perhaps we just need to be patient and let the meds work.

At last night's feeding, Clarabelle began eating.  Not a huge amount and not fast, but it was progress.  We fed her as much as she'd eat.  This morning, she didn't eat as voraciously, but she still ate.  This afternoon, she ate a little better.

Get Well, Clarabelle!

I think she's turned the corner.  Hopefully, she'll continue to get better and make a full recovery.  She has a lot of weight to gain back, but we'll keep working with her.  Get Well, Clarabelle!

2018 Meat Birds - 1 Week Old

We're one week into this year's edition of the on-going experiment of growing our own poultry.  We learn something new each year.  Sometimes when we try to incorporate things learned, we solve old problems and new ones crop up.  Here's a brief narrative of what has transpired in the last week:

The fowl (err... foul) smell emanating from the brooder lets you immediately know that the little boogers are eating a lot.  We add fresh shavings to the brooder, but it doesn't take them long to soil the fresh shavings.  The portion of cattle panel over the top of the brooder is a semi-protective measure that we added to help dissuade our cats from eating our birds.  In the first two days we lost 8 birds and then one more on the third day to bring the death count (so far) to 9.  Not good!

Since last week, we've added a gallon sized waterer in addition to a smaller one and a second feed trough.  I would think that we'll be adding a third trough and perhaps a second waterer as the chicks need for feed (and water) increases.  Although not captured in the photo below, we've expanded the size of the brooder.  Maybe I'll illustrate how we did this later this week.

I randomly selected an averaged sized chick and put him on our kitchen scale.  First, a sat a scrap piece of paper on the scale to protect it from poop.  The chick is at an awkward stage of growth with his cute fuzz being replaced with tiny feathers.

He weighs in at one week old at 7 ounces.
2017 birds at one week old weighed 7 1/2 ounces.
2016 birds at one week old weighed 8 ounces.

Although the weight is a little off over previous years, I'm not going to worry about it.  We have some time to make that weight up - about 8 weeks, to be exact.  Oh, I wanted to show you the baby feathers I spoke of earlier:

Here they are, the first white feathers growing out on the wing tips.  We will post again next week and compare notes on growth and the life and times of a meat bird.

Spring is Splendid

For the last two days, the weather has been gorgeous!  They gloomy grey skies broke and were replaced by blue skies, sunshine, and drying out ground, assisted by a north breeze.  Spring means babies and Tricia was able to let the triplets out of the barn and out into the pasture where they soaked in some sunshine and took a nap.  They were nestled in a little pile.  We checked on Luna, our next Jersey that will be calving.  You can see her udder beginning to swell.  She is due in early April.

Kids in a Pile

One of my favorite parts of spring is the fragrance that is in the air.  I'm talking about citrus blooms!  I know that I talk about this every single year, but orange blossoms are a truly heavenly scent.  At dusk, if you walk outside and inhale deeply, the sweet scent of orange blossoms fill the air.

Navel Orange Blossoms

Our citrus trees are located on the south side of the house and this somewhat protects them from the cold northern winds of winter.  As soon as the cold days fade, blooms fill the trees.  Below are the blooms of a tangerine tree.  Many of these flowers will turn into fruit.  Some will, of course, fall off the trees as the trees simply could not carry all of the fruit to maturity.

But these are not the only flowers around.  Although they have no fragrance that I can detect, the blueberry bushes are filled with blooms as well and these will turn into blueberries that we will be picking this summer.

Our inventory of blueberries in the freezer is quickly depleting, so we will be very happy when these flowers turn into berries.

This weekend if the weather cooperates, we will be outdoors enjoying spring and perhaps planting corn, beans, cucumbers and squash.  The list is always longer than the hours available, though!  Get out and enjoy spring!

Triple the Trouble on 3/3

On Saturday, March 3rd, Russ called me to the barn.  "Annie's in labor," he said.  Annie is our Nubian goat that we had been watching closely for over a week as her due date had come and gone.  As I looked in the stall, nestled in the hay, Annie was most definitely in labor.  She was groaning.  Trouble is, she was right next to an old deep freeze that we store chicken feed in.  I pulled her to give her kid(s) room to be born.

Wouldn't you know she stood up with two feet hanging out!  She seemed to stop having contractions.  I began to wonder if I should pull, but my better judgment won out and I let nature take its course.

Annie began to push and pretty soon the baby goat's back end was out...

Then everything but the baby goat's front end was out...

Plop!!  In a very unceremonious entry into the world, the baby hit the ground.  "It's alive," Russ said.

In a minute or two, Annie began straining again, only to deliver ANOTHER baby goat.  She went to work cleaning them up by licking on them.  Wow, twins!  Annie wasn't even that big.  How could they both fit in her?

I walked back to the house, leaving Tricia in the barn for a minute.  When I returned, she looked through the window and said, "Rosie had a third one while you were gone."  Amazing.

Just like in her previous kidding, Annie has delivered two little doelings and a buckling.  She was being a good momma, taking care of them and making sure all three of them were tended to.

It didn't take long at all for the babies to struggle to their feet on wobbly legs and start looking for some milk.  Tricia helped them find what they were looking for to ensure that they got colostrum - a necessity for a good start.  Annie patiently (for the most part) let them nurse.  A goat has 2 teats and there are three goats.  The math doesn't quite work out, but the goats seem to get enough milk.

Baby goats are the cutest thing.  They make Tricia happy just to watch them.

I put them atop the deep freeze to get a good look at them.  They don't have as many spots as Annie, and one has a mostly white face.  They are curious creatures.  Curious looking, too.

Tricia keeps really good records.  She came outside later and informed me that two years ago ON MARCH 3RD, Annie gave birth to her first set up triplets!!  What are the chances that she would deliver triplets again exactly two years ago to the day?!  Goats have a high probability of giving birth to triplets or twins.

It will be fun watching the babies grow (we haven't named them yet), but we are running out of space on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm and we will be looking for buyers for Annie's triplets from two years ago.  Hopefully we'll be able to find a good home for Buckwheat, Darla, and Jane.