Taking in Afghans

We have kind of an empty nest here on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.  It's just Tricia and I.  Our daughter has a career in a city an hour and a half from us.  Our oldest son has a career in a city 30 minutes from here and our youngest son is a junior in college.  He lives in an apartment there and works there as well.  The house seems quiet now that they are gone.  We have lots of room now that our little birds have flown from the nest.

At one time we talked about adopting or maybe fostering, but haven't really talked about it much since then.  We're still pretty busy around the homestead.  So imagine my surprise when I came home from work this week and learned that Tricia had taken in a couple of Afghans!  We didn't discuss it.  There was no agreement.  No planning or preparation.  I come home and there are two Afghans now living in our home, sleeping on our couch.

Tricia and I had a long talk so that I could gain an understanding of how this had come about.  She told me that she had received a call from our dear next door neighbor who asked my wife to go over.  Tricia walked next door.  We live close enough where you can walk right over.  Well, they visited for a while and then Mrs. Joyce gave Tricia two Afghans.  Here is a picture of them sitting on our couch:

This post went in a different direction, didn't it?  The blue one is the one Mrs. Joyce made for me and the fall-colored one is the one she made for Tricia.  Tricia asked how long it took her to make one.  She told her that she timed it one time and it takes about 40 hours to make one!  That is such a generous, kind gesture.  Can you imagine?  80 hours of work went into that.  Tricia said that she told her that she's made about 300 Afghans over the years.  That is very impressive!

So here is a close-up of mine.  Blue is my favorite color, so I really like it.  It will come in handy this winter.

And here is Tricia's:

Tricia's is fall-colored and can be decorated.  Above the functionality and beauty of the Afghans, it's the neighborly actions of Mrs. Joyce and her family that really makes me happy.  We didn't know them at all 20 years ago, but they've always been so good to us.  I hope we've been the same to them.  One thing's for certain, we'll take good care of the Afghans and give them a good home.

Belle is a Lot of Trouble

Our Great Pyrenees dog, Belle is something else.  Believe me, she is a sweetheart, but she has not yet proven to us why she has the "Great" in her breed name.  She has been a great menace.  She is supposed to be a livestock guardian dog, but she eats our laying hens.  Predators eat our chickens when she is in the vicinity and she doesn't so much as bark.  I think Belle and the predators are in cahoots.

As I drove up this afternoon, Belle was in the garage.  Beautiful.  Now I have to park outside the garage and far away from her.  The last time I parked close to her she chewed through my brake lines on the car, emptying the brake fluid and leaving me without brakes on a scary ride home.  Not only did this empty my brake fluid, but it emptied my wallet paying for the repairs.  

Back to today - I asked Tricia why Belle was in the garage as I had repaired her kennel.  Tricia informed me that Belle escaped her kennel.  We had her in the pasture with the reasoning that she would 'grow into her role,' getting to know the animals were her charge.  Good thought.  Belle had other ideas.

She jumped over the barbed wire fence and escaped leaving 'fingerprints' at the scene!  

We don't want her roaming around the neighborhood.  Although we live in the country, we still have neighbors.  We don't want her to get hit on the road.  We also don't want her to get pregnant.  As I type, I hear her barking in the garage and we're wondering how we teach her to do right.

We rescued an old stop sign from a ditch in the country.  I mounted it on the wall out in the barn after using a Sharpie to add a lyric from the Supreme's 1965 hit to the sign:

I wish Belle would 'stop in the name of love, before she breaks our hearts. Think it over, Belle.  Behave!

Got Milk? Elsie & LuLu's answer is "Yes!"

He answereth and saith unto them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise.  Luke 3:11 KJV

It is good to share.  Our Lord encourages us to be generous and to love one another.  In fact, He makes a point to tell us to love our neighbor as ourselves. That begs the question, "Who is our neighbor?"  The Parable of the Good Samaritan answers that question.  Our neighbor is anyone we cross on our path.

I noticed a good example of that this weekend in the Animal Kingdom.  We share the milk with the calves.  I've mentioned it many times before.  During the day, Elsie and LuLu have full access to their mommas' milk.  All day long they can drink it at will.  However, at night we separate the calves from their mommas.  The milk the mommas make at night from that miracle they do of converting grass to milk is ours!  Why here is Elsie and LuLu cordoned off from their moms in the barn.  They watch us, expectantly, impatiently even.  When I finish milking Clarabelle, I open the gate.

With much flourish and fervor, Elsie runs through the gate and latches on to Clarabelle's teats.  By this time I've milked most of the milk out of her, but cows are uncanny about 'holding some milk back' for their babies.  Elsie sucks, slurping noisily, banging on Clarabelle's bag to make more milk fall.

LuLu does likewise, rushing out to suck on Rosie's teats, well three of them, at least.  We're hoping that changes soon.

Both Rosie and Clarabelle stand dutifully while their babies are nursing.  Everyone is getting their fill.  You will note that Elsie is growing.  Won't be long before she'll be as big as Clarabelle.  She's a big galoot.

Elsie is finished with her breakfast much sooner than LuLu.  Watch what happens.  Elsie moves over to Rosie and says, "LuLu, you gonna eat all of that?"  Then she proceeds to take a seat at the table.

LuLu is sharing with her neighbor, Elsie.  Side by side in harmony.  Dwelling together in unity.  Loving one another.

If only humans could take note and follow this example.  They might live in a land flowing with milk and honey.

Redneck Engineering - Making a Squeeze Chute

I've mentioned in a previous post that we needed a head gate for over a decade.  Giving shots to cows, working on their hooves, milking some unruly cows in the past, and random doctoring on animal over the years can be described somewhere between a rodeo and a stampede.  Not fun.  We did install the head gate.  We realized shortly after installing it that we should make a makeshift squeeze chute.  Even if the head is secured, trying to work on a cow's body is mighty hard as they can move their entire body from side to side (AND KICK!) if you don't have some means of securing their body, too.

A squeeze chute is expensive.  We found a remedy for that.  We'll make our own using a swinging gate on one side and a fixed, but adjustable rail on the other.  We'll show you the completed design below.  The wise old owl on the roof, by the way, discourages hawks from killing our chickens.

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On the left side you can see that the gate is hinged off of the 4x4 which anchors the head gate.  On the right side, we have a 2x4 that is bolted, but hinged off the 4x4 in the front.  It has pegs in the back 4x4 that allows you to lift it all the way up when milking, as it is now, or put it down level to keep the cow stationary and from kicking.   

This photo shows the chute from the left side.  If the cow is in the head gate and chute and you don't want her moving, you simple close the gate against her body and pull a rope from the end of the gate and tie it around the 4x4 you see on the right side of the photo.

This photo shows the railing in the 'down' position.

But the proof is in the pudding.  Does it work?  Well, we have the perfect specimen to try it on.  Yep, we are still working on Rosie's teat that she ripped open.  We milk out that quarter every afternoon.  She kicks like a bucking bull.  She displays her displeasure and pain by trying to get away.  If ever there was a reason for a squeeze chute, this is it.

We coaxed her in the head gate with a bucket of feed and closed the head gate after we had put the rail down.  Then we closed the hinged gate and tied off on the 4x4 in the back, squeezing her tightly.  We installed a boat cleat on the bottom of the back 4x4 that we use to hobble a back leg to keep her further immobile.

How did it work?  She still kicked, but she could not move out of the way.  Milking was easier, and it felt safer, too.  It works!  We like it!  Veterinarians making farm calls to doctor on the cows or palpate them will be pleased as well.  Redneck engineering.  A cheaper alternative that gets the job done.  

What Can You Learn From Cowlicks?

Do you have a cowlick?  Cowlicks are spirals in your hair where the hair grows in different directions than the rest of the hair - usually straight up!  They are hard to control.  I have two on the back of my neck. Cowlicks are caused by genetics.  Lots of hair gel or other hair care products can hide a cowlick, but not for long!

There have been lots of opinions about humans, linking temperament to hair color (sorry red-headed folk!), but nothing related with cowlicks.  Until I read THIS ARTICLE about cowlicks in cows.  Interestingly, cowlicks in cows are called 'whorls,' and there is some research on them as whorls relate to temperament.

The study shows that in selecting breeding cattle, it might be a good idea to pay particular attention to the relative position of the whorl on the cow's head.  The brain and hair patterns develop at the same time and they theorize that whorl position is important to how docile or gentle will be.  The study involved observing 1500 cattle being run through a squeeze chute.  Here is a summary of the study:

"The observations were conducted in a commercial feedlot during routine cattle handling for vaccinations and ear tagging. The person observing the animal's reaction in the squeeze chute was positioned so that he could not see the hair whorl on the animal's forehead. Cattle with spiral hair whorls above the eyes were more agitated in the squeeze chute compared to animals with whorls below the eyes. The cattle came from 14 different ranches, so it is unlikely that our findings are due to previous handling experiences. Hair whorl position significantly affected temperament rating during exiting from the squeeze chute. Cattle with spiral hair whorls high on the forehead appear to be more likely to panic during restraint compared to cattle with low spiral hair whorls."

Interesting.  It made me go look closely at our cows' whorls.  Here is Clarabelle's.  Notice the whorl is even with her eyes:

And here is old Rosie.  Her whorl is even with her eyes (and not high on her forehead).

And then here is little Elsie - my favorite.  Her whorl is a little bit lower than her eyes.  That means, according to the theory, that she is very gentle.  She is!  The thing that will make her possibly agitated, however, has nothing to do with the position of her cowlick, but the position of that horse fly you can see on her head.  If that booger bites her, she'll be agitated for sure!

All of our cows are gentle.  We have had bulls that were not.  Some of our bulls have gotten downright scary indeed - so scary that we rushed them to slaughter, but I didn't notice the location of their whorl before "putting them in the freezer."  We'll tuck this bit of knowledge away and see if the theory holds true for additional cows on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.

Mystery Scat in the Barn

 Well, we have an uninvited guest that sleeps overnight in our barn.  Very secretive and mysterious.  He (or she) leaves behind a 'calling card.'

Either in the feed troughs or in the hay rack or on top of the hay bales, the critter is not shy about pooping.  This is not good.  The cows and the goats eat that hay or they eat out of the feed trough.  We can't have this kind of thing going on.

So I got out our trusty cage trap.  A trap I've used numerous times to catch more possums than I can count (and even the neighbor's cat).  It's a simple trap to use.  I bait it with dry dog food and set it.  The bait is placed in a bowl just beyond the pad.  Once set the pad is in the up position.  Once the critter enters the cage and walks toward the bait and steps on the pad...  Well, the trap is sprung, closing the door behind it. 

Except for the fact that despite setting the trap many times, the critter is too smart and the trap never catches it.  The door never closes.  This weekend I will re-double my efforts and set additional traps.  Hopefully I'll be able to catch the varmint and report next week the identity of the puzzling pooper.

Good Time in the Duck Blind

Every year at this time, my buddy Gary and I get together for some duck hunting at the farm in Oberlin.  Last weekend teal season opened.  Teal are a small migratory duck that fly a LONG way.  Several years ago I killed one that had been tagged in Canada.  I read somewhere that they winter in South America.  They certainly put in a lot of miles on their wings.

Gary and I meet at 6 am, right before sunrise and park on the side of the road.  We're both in camo and have our shotguns and plenty of shells.  The previous weekend, Gary had put the decoys out to attract the ducks.  We walk down the muddy road whispering to each other and then walk down a grassy levee and take a seat on turned over 5 gallon buckets.  We are hidden from the pond by tall grass.  Gary takes out a can of OFF and passes it to me.  It's a good thing he remembered because the mosquitoes are atrocious.  It is hot and humid.  We are concerned about all the rainfall we've had.  Despite getting a free flood on our pond, there is plenty of water everywhere for the ducks to land.

As the sun rises above the fog, the view across the pond takes shape.

The pond is actually the bottom cut of a rice field.  There is a gully immediately behind us, and we can hear the rush of water flowing out of the field through the drop pipe as the rainwater makes its way over the weir.  

We hear shooting in duck ponds around us and see lots of ducks flying.  Teal fly faster than most ducks.  Wood ducks fly in front of us in spitting distance, mocking us, seemingly knowing it is not wood duck season.  Pretty soon a teal flies by and we take it down.  Then two more fly in and we harvest those.  Only three on Saturday morning, though.  We always do a lot of visiting in the duck blind and miss a shot here and there when 'swarms' of teal fly past us.  Here is Gary with two of the teal that flew into a hail of steel shot.

Gary and his daughter went Sunday morning to see if they could add to the pot.  I texted him after 8 am and he told me they got four.  We'll try again Saturday morning.  It will be the last weekend of teal season.  

So you can tell why they call them blue-winged teal, can't you?

I always find it interesting when cleaning birds, to cut open the gizzard to see what they've been eating.  In this teal's gizzard, there was a little sand and a lot of rice with an assortment of small seeds.

This teal had lots of pin feathers and was time consuming to clean.  After gutting the teal, I froze them.

It's the beginning of a gumbo.  I hope to add to the pot next weekend!  Gary and I already have plans to meet.  Looking forward to it!

Here's One Thing That is NOT on my To Do List

This weekend I read an article that made me laugh, although the author is very serious.  You can read it by clicking the following link:  The Moo Loo

The headline states, "Scientists Are Potty Training Cows with the New 'MooLoo' to Protect the Environment."  Oh my.  

Image Credit

German scientists have taught cows to urinate in a designated area in order to save the environment.  In only 15 training classes, 11 of 16 cows were successful in walking down a hallway, pushing open a door and doing #1.  (They didn't mention their success rate with #2 in this article.)  They gave the cows treats when they controlled their bladders, using positive reinforcement as you do with toddlers.

"Normally, it is assumed that cattle are not able to control their defecation or urination," Dr. Jan Langbein, an FBN scientist, said in a release. "Cattle, like many other animals or farm animals, are quite intelligent and capable of learning. Why shouldn't they also be able to learn how to use a toilet?"

Cow urine is very strong. We try to get out of the way when they arch their backs and lift their tails. It contains nitrate which can contaminate rivers or pollute the soil if not managed, scientists say. By toilet training cows, scientists believe that they can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a significant amount.

I am in favor of protecting the environment as much as the next guy.  We compost most everything.  We re-use containers and generate very little trash.  We want to be good stewards of the land that God created.  Not doing so would be not honoring to God or His Creation.  However, we are drawing the line at potty-training our livestock.  This practice will not be implemented at Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.

We don't have a feedlot.  Our cows and goats and chickens roam free.  There is plenty of space and no over-crowding exists.  The animals all urinate and defecate in the pasture.  That waste does not run off into waterways.  It goes into the soil, breaks down and becomes fertilizer to build the soil and aid in new grass growth in the next growing season.  That is the beautiful cycle that's been going on since the Garden of Eden.  We'll continue to use that time-honored tradition here.  In other words, the construction of the "Moo Loo" will be shelved.

The Results are In!

In our post from back in August you can read by clicking here: a2a2, we talked about how we took samples from both of our calves' tail hairs to determine if either was A2A2.  To make things simple A2A2 cows' milk is more easily digestible than A1A2 and is sought out by milk drinkers for that benefit.  People ask for A2A2 milk specifically.

Our cow Clarabelle, is A2A2 while Rosie is A1A2.  So back in our early August post, we had taken tail hair samples, pulling them out with roots attached.  We sent a bundle of 20 hairs from Elsie and a bundle of hairs from LuLu to the American Jersey Association where they do genetic analysis to determine the verdict.

Well, the answer came in the mail.  May we have the envelope, please.  (Drum Roll)

LuLu is A1A2.  Elsie is A2A2!

Should we decide to sell them, they are both registered Jersey cows.  That's desirable, but Elsie being A2A2 is an added benefit.  Rosie and Clarabelle are getting older, so we'll likely at some point need replacement(s), so we likely wouldn't sell both of them.  We've talked about it and think that if we were to sell one, we'd sell LuLu and keep Elsie.  She is gentle, very tame - overall a very loving heifer.  LuLu, on the other hand, is mischievous and wild as a March hare.  I need to do some work to break her.  I'd better get that done with the quickness, too.  It gets to be a harder job the older (and bigger) they get.

Wide Open Spaces

I stepped out on the front porch and took a photo looking due north.  The immediate front yard is pitch black.  The only light you can see 10 feet out is the backlight from the inside light.  I can recall when we moved in twenty years ago really liking the fact that you could see stars at night, that there was a sense of calm and quiet, other than occasional cars on the highway you could hear hoot owls in the oak trees, hauntingly hooting.

The bright lights in the background emanate from a recent real estate development.  A developer bought some farm land and has put up a master planned subdivision with 88 units on 18 acres.  The houses went up quicker than poop through a goose.  Most of the homes built are either occupied or sold.  

On the weekend we like to sit on the front porch in rocking chairs, drink coffee and look out over the wide open spaces, watching neighbors passing by and waving.  The farmland across from us was formerly planted in soybeans.  Then it laid fallow for a number of years before becoming a prime spot for picking dewberries for jelly-making.  In the late summer to early fall the field would be solid yellow from the goldenrod that grew thick in the open field.  The honeybees that inhabit our column would visit the goldenrod and their honey would take on a distinctive and strong smell of the flower.

Here's the view.  It is a little hard to see in the photo, but right above the blacktop road, running parallel with it is something white.  Can you see it?

It is a six inch pvc water main.  We understand that the same developer that purchased the land for the subdivision in the background that you can see the roofs of bought the land in front of us.  That wide open field may soon be filled with homes.  Does this make us sad?  Of course.  We like living in the country.  We would rather the field be agricultural land, or better, just a field.

Years ago, we attempted to buy a few acres of that very field across the road in order to graze cattle on, but the land was way, way out of our price range.  It would have been nice to have a buffer between us and further development, but it was not to be.  We do have neighbors to the east and west of us and we know them all and get along well with them.  They help us in times of need and we try to do likewise.  They don't mind the sounds and smells of our cows, goats, and chickens.  We're hoping that our new neighbors to the north of us will feel the same.

Harvesting Crops You Didn't Plant

Most crops involve a lot of labor.  It's been that way since the Fall in the Garden of Eden.  Man had to toil by the sweat of his brow.  The story continues to this day.  You work the ground, prepare the seed bed, you sow the seeds and water them in, you weed, and you (hopefully) harvest.  It is a painstaking process fraught with difficulty.  When it all comes together, though, it is worth it!

There are other 'crops' that plant themselves, so to speak.  God takes care of the rest.  Today we'll talk about one such crop.  Right outside our kitchen door, if you would walk thirty feet due north in the St. Augustine grass, you would find our "honey hole."  We discovered Chanterelle mushrooms!  The beautiful, delicious mushrooms come up time and again in the same vicinity.  All we have to do is keep our eyes open for them.  We walked out and picked a mess of them in the colander.  We picked even more a few days later.

Chanterelles are a bright yellow/orange color and they really stand out on the forest floor.  They have ridges which are a little different than gills and they run down the stem.  They grow in the dirt - NEVER on wood.  They are abundant after a summer rain.  People say that they have a fruity scent, like apricots, but I can never smell that.  My sense of smell was never very discriminating, and I still haven't completely recovered my ability to smell a lot of things since Covid.

The cap of the chanterelle is irregular.  The coloration is a show-stopper.  It's hard to miss this on the ground.  In the past before I knew what they were, I completely ignored them.  Or I kicked them over.  What was I doing?!  Wild foraged chanterelles go for $25 per pound at farmer's markets, I noticed.

One thing we wanted to make sure of when getting started is that we didn't want to eat any toxic mushrooms or eat any mushrooms that would send us into a hallucinogenic trip.  There is one toxic look alike called the Jack-O'Lantern mushroom.  It is an orange color, but it grows out of wood and has gills instead of ridges.  When you know what NOT to pick and you check and double check the characteristics of the desired mushroom, you can feel confident to enjoy the fruits of your forage.

Enjoy them we did!!  Weekend breakfasts are the best.  We always enjoy fresh-picked eggs, but today's eggs were going to be kicked up a notch or two.  Tricia sauteed the chanterelles with onions and peppers in butter in a cast iron skillet.

Then she added a half dozen eggs to the veggies and chanterelles and buttered some homemade toasted bread.  We ate like I would think kings and queens ate, enjoying every morsel until the plate was clean.

Rain is in the forecast and it is still hot and muggy even if it is almost mid-September.  That means more chanterelles will spring up on their own.  You can count on the fact that we'll be patroling the honey hole where the chanterelles grow.  Harvesting a crop I didn't plant almost makes me feel guilty.

A Tool We Needed 10 Years Ago on the Homestead

The recent ordeal with Rosie's torn teat finally lit a fire under me to purchase a tool we've needed for a very long time - a head gate.  A head gate firmly secures the animal so that they can be worked on.  You pull their head through the gate, pull a lever on top, and a bar slide toward the animal and locks in place.  The cow is then unable to move backward or forward.  Shots can be given, hooves can be worked on, the animal can be milked, etc.  

When you are dealing with a 900 pound animal, just tying off their halter to a post doesn't isolate the animal.  They thrash about.  They fall down. They pull so hard they break the chain on their halter.  We NEEDED this thing.  We shopped around and found it and it was delivered to the house last week.  This weekend installing the head gate was on my to do list.  Here we are pulling Rosie through it for the first time.

Tricia decided that a roof over-hang needed to extend over the head gate area so that we could "doctor" on cows even if it was raining.  I fashioned together a roof extension with some scraps of lumber and tin we had lying about.  I also stapled a piece of a cattle panel beneath the head gate so that goats wouldn't be able to escape the corral.

Here is a view from the 'cow side.'  One critical problem we found immediately is that I will have to alter the head gate.  If you look at the photo below, you'll see that when the head gate is fully closed, it leaves an 8" opening.  We measured the cows' heads.  10 inches wide.  Well, somehow the cows are able to twist their heads and pull out.  

I think I can fix this by cutting a 2x2 or a 1" pvc pipe, drilling holes through them as well as the vertical pipe on the head gate, and bolting the 2x2 or 1"pvc pipe onto the vertical pipe.  The would reduce the opening from 8" to 7 or 6 inches.  That would render the head gate escape-proof.  

Obligatory goofy pic of my wife in the gate.

As well as one of me.  Wouldn't it be embarrassing to get stuck in there and not be able to reach the lever to release it?

Here is one more photo from the back.  We have actually milked outside 3 afternoons now.  It is working great!  We put a food bucket in front, Rose steps forward, we hobble her back leg to the 4x4 that is anchored in cement, and Tricia works on her injured teat and milks her safely secured.

One more project that we will do to improve this set up.  We'll make the head gate a full squeeze chute by putting a 10 foot swinging gate that pivots on the 4x4 above Rosie's left shoulder above.  If we need to isolate not only her head, but her entire body, we would swing the gate toward her body and tie it off tight to the 4x4 behind her right back leg.  She would be totally immovable to allow for safe veterinary work.  Ten years to late, but having this set up will definitely be beneficial in the future.

A Summer Thunderstorm

As I was driving home from work on I-10 (kids, don't try this at home), I took a picture of a rainbow.  If you look closely, you can see it is a double-rainbow.  That rainbow has deep meaning.  In Genesis Chapter 9, right after the Great Flood, God tells us that the rainbow is a token, a sign, a reminder of a covenant that God made with Man and all living creatures that He would never again destroy the earth by flood.  

As I drove eastward, the skies were increasingly dark.  I was hoping that the rain would hold off.  I had things to do and that put a damper on my afternoon plans.  Have you noticed, by the way, that the days are getting shorter?

I quickly changed out of my work clothes and put on my 'farm' clothes.  Tricia and I quickly walked out to the barn to do the afternoon chores.  It was about 6 pm.  And then, the bottom fell out.  It rained cats and dogs and possums and nutria rats.  The wind blew like a hurricane.  The thunder rumbled and the lightning popped too close for comfort.  All of a sudden the lights went out in the barn.  The fans grinded to a halt.  

She is very hard to see, but Rosie is waaayyyy out in the rainy pasture.  We had to go get her.  I ran back to the house to get my rain jacket.

We were protected from the rain by the tin roof.  Raindrops falling on a tin roof is a very relaxing sound.  If I had a hammock, I could have fallen asleep.  We gathered the eggs and killed time waiting for the storm to pass.

And then.  It did.  The ferocious summer thunderstorm passed on by, bringing its torrential rains and winds to our neighbors down south.  The thunder still rumbled in the distance, but the clouds began to clear out and the fresh scent of rain and wet leaves and broken branches filled the air.  The sun, with a last gasp of effort, cast its rays over the rain-soak landscape as if to bid farewell to the hot summer day. The chickens rushed out to find bugs and spiders that the storm had blown out of the trees and onto the ground.

Rosie tried to make up her mind whether she wanted to walk through ankle deep mud to go out and eat the wet grass.

She finally made up her mind to trudge on out there.  The storm dropped the temperature to a reasonable level and she was able to enjoy the cool air and eat lots of grass before it got too dark.  We made our way back to the house, but the electricity was still out.  In fact, four hours later, went I went to bed, the electricity was still out.  Tricia told me that sometime during the middle of the morning, the power came back on.  She got up and went to turn out lights.  I slept right on through it.  

Three Weeks Later...

Tonight an update on Rosie.  We discussed her terribly tragic torn teat three weeks ago.  It is a painful story to tell.  Our cows loathe summer time.  The sit in the shade and lay in the mud in order to cool themselves.  They only eat in the early morning and late afternoon.  They lose some weight during the dog days of summer.  

Rosie is like a pig.  You can see her below in all her muddy glory.  Well, the best we can figure, after laying in the mud all day, it was time to get up.  She reached her back leg underneath her and lifted herself up.  Except her hoof was on top of her teat.  When she stood up it tore 1/4 of her teat off, exposing the 'meat.'  It didn't help matters that we had just trimmed her hooves so they were sharp.

Now, before you scroll down, I want to warn you: the photo below is graphic!  It shows the injured teat a full 3 weeks after the event.  She doesn't allow LuLu to nurse on that quarter - only the other three quarters.  Each afternoon for 3 weeks now, to prevent mastitis, Tricia and I are engaged in a bit of a rodeo.

We catch Rosie, who is VERY reluctant at this point to come into the barn, and we tie her up, pick off the scab that covers the opening in the teat, lubricate it, and milk out all of the milk, emptying it to prevent infection and save the quarter.  Rosie is not happy with any of this.  She expresses her displeasure vehemently and vociferously.  Once we are finished, we spray the teat with iodine and set her free.

HERE IS THE PHOTO:

I warned you, didn't I?  That makes me feel really bad for the old girl.  Our hope is that it will heal (SOON) and she will allow LuLu to nurse down the injured quarter.  This would eliminate the need for our afternoon routine with Rosie.  Up to this point, however, LuLu is promptly kicked away when she tries to nurse on the hurt teat.  We will keep doing what we're doing and try to learn more fully the virtue of 'patience!'