Little Frisky Betsy

It's around 8 pm Sunday evening and we're about to go separate Betsy from her Momma, LuLu. First, we let Betsy drink as much milk as she wants. She needs to fill her little belly, because overnight she'll be in the stall, while LuLu is out in the pasture. At 6 am we'll go out to milk LuLu. This will be our milk. Then we'll put them together and LuLu will have the opportunity to drink her momma's milk all day long. Then we'll do the same thing every single afternoon.  This is how we share the milk with the calf and both parties are happy!

So far you've only seen still shots of little Betsy, but tonight I have a home movie for you.  Click the red arrow below to see Betsy in all her glory.

Getting into A Good Routine

Life contains routines.  Since we are limited by a finite amount of time, it becomes important to become efficient in what you do.  It is true in a work setting, in personal projects, and even things on the farm.  We were already milking two goats twice a day.  Adding in milking LuLu once a day, as we share the milk with Betsy, her calf, and that's a lot of additional time to daily chores.

We milk LuLu in the late afternoon.  So far she hasn't gotten into the routine of coming to the barn to be milked.  But she will.  Right now we have to call her and walk way out into the pasture to get her and walk her to the barn.  Betsy will follow her on some days.  Most days, she's spirited and will run around and go exactly where you don't want her to go.  She hasn't figured out the concept of walking through an open gate yet!  It normally takes two people to get them both in the barn.  You may ask, why even bring Betsy into the barn at milking time?  It's important to have Betsy beside LuLu in the barn as LuLu will get nervous if her calf isn't beside her.  Furthermore, she won't drop her milk for us. 

In the past several afternoons, we haven't had to walk quite as far out in the pasture and Betsy has become more of a willing participant.  They're gonna get it.  It's a function of showing them that there is a reward for them doing what we want them to do.

The second routine is milking.  Even though a cow has been milked before, they have to get back into practice.  First thing, in the photo below, you see Betsy positioned by LuLu's head.  That way it comforts LuLu.  She's not worried about her calf.  She's a good momma.

Once we have LuLu in the milking stall and Betsy in place, we hobble one of LuLu's back legs.  This keeps her from kicking.  We pour the feed in the trough and start milking.  To hand-milk, it generally takes about 20 minutes.  This presents a problem, because LuLu is impatient.  If she finishes her supper, she backs up in the milking stall, making it hard to finish milking.

Over the past several evenings, LuLu has settled into a groove and stands still when she finishes eating.  It has to feel good and relieving to have her udders emptied from all the pressure of a full bag.  Routines are a part of life and as we go, we fine-tune the processes to see if we can make things better, more efficient and timely.  Some things we try and it doesn't work.  In that case, we revert back to the old routine.  But we're always looking for a better way.

I know you may be thinking that a better way would be to purchase a milking machine rather than milking by hand.  That day may come as we're getting older, but what we find is that any time you save by milking mechanically, you gobble up that time saved on the back-end in sterilizing the equipment.  For now, we'll stay with hand milking.

Talking About Hives - But Not Beehives

I awoke Sunday morning to a rash on my inner thighs.  Weird!  Itching like crazy.  By late afternoon, the rash had advanced to previously unoccupied territory like an invading army coming to bring its wrath and destruction upon unsuspecting people.  

When I tell you I was at my wit's end, I'm not exaggerating.  I took a box of Benadryl, popping another tablet as soon as the 6 hours was up.  It made me sleep a lot, but didn't really do anything for the rash.  I took numerous hot baths with epsom salt and baking soda.  This actually calmed things down momentarily.  When I got out, well, it was on again.  Maybe at some point this will get better?

I thought to myself, "It will be better on Monday."  It did not get better on Monday.  It had worsened, encroaching to my private parts.  I felt like I was on fire.  On Tuesday, I expected a respite from my enraged skin.  Alas, it did not happen.  The rash was literally from the top of my head to the soles of my feet!  My lips had swollen.  I began to think that this must be the like the pestilence that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse brings in the end times.

On Tuesday afternoon, my wife made an appointment with Telehealth.  You connect with the hospital portal via computer and a Nurse Practitioner listens to you, looks at your condition and assesses the situation.  She was able to see my "rash" and said, "That's hives.  It's your body reacting to something you ingested.  A food.  A spice."  I began to rack my brain.  What kind of torture did I bring upon myself?

You know what?  We have guesses, but I still don't know what it was that caused it.  That means this could all happen again if I eat the culprit again!  In the meantime, the NP told me to go to the pharmacy and get some Zyrtec and Pepcid and begin taking that (filling in with Benadryl, if needed).  She also prescribed me some Prednisone, a steroid.  I've begun taking all the meds and fortunately, I'm finding some relief, but at the end of the dosage, it starts coming back!  How long can this last???

Hives!  I'll stick with the beehives instead.

Random Topics on a Monday

First, an update on Mom.  Some of you have asked about her and have been praying for her and we so appreciate it.  Mom was released from the hospital and sent home.  She continues to regain strength.  The UTI had gotten into her bloodstream and really did a number on her.  After two weeks of antibiotics, it has cleared up.  The bleed in her stomach that was repaired is holding.  Mom's hemoglobin counts are rising and holding steady.  She'll be getting physical therapy to help her get back to where she was.  Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!  Thank you for your prayers.

Just to the south of our purple hull pea patch, right next to the honeybees, I planted some zinnias.  The bees seem to like them and they're pretty.  Tricia has been picking the blooms and making fresh flower arrangements for the house.  They look nice.  In all it's about a 30 foot row of zinnias, and when they are done, we'll save the seeds from the dried flowers so that we can beautify the garden next year.

While many plants in the vegetable garden are waving the white flag, several crops are really coming into their own - like okra.  Okra has a big beautiful flower as well:

We're picking okra daily, now.  They grow so fast that if you skip a day, many of the okra pods get tough and woody and must be thrown out.  We're eating a bunch of them, though, making oven fried okra, curried okra, okra stewed down with onions and tomatoes.  I'll have to check our inventory in the pantry of pickled okra.  We may have to build back the quantity of pickled okra in the pantry.

Oh, and while we are talking about jars in the pantry, our salsa inventory was running a little low, so Tricia made up a batch of salsa with our homegrown onions, tomatoes, and jalapeno peppers.

It rained six inches today at the house, making it impossible to get anything done outside.  Maybe tomorrow will be a better day?

The Good Stuff

When a calf is born, the momma's udders are filled with colostrum.  Colostrum is truly the good stuff.  It is filled with antibodies and nutrients needed for growth.  It is so important that baby calves get this into their system.  It's God's elixir of beneficial goodness giving the baby a good start on life.  It gives energy and promotes health.

It is vital that the calf gets this.  We give the momma and the calf a little space while the calf figures out this new world that they are now inhabitants of.  Betsy stood up on spindly legs, wobbling this way and that and instincts took over.  She ambled toward LuLu and began looking for the teats on the udder.  She started at the wrong end and we tried to guide her.  When she almost had it, LuLu moved.  We opted to bring them both to the barn and give LuLu some sweet feed and alfalfa while we positioned Betsy on the right end and tipped a teat toward her mouth.  Betsy got after it with a sucking reflex.  First slow and then vigorous! 

The next morning we saw what we wanted to see - colostrum poop!  It is a bright orange-yellowish gooey poop.  That is evidence that Betsy got the good stuff in her.

We found more evidence on the ground and this signified that she got a good amount of it.  She no longer needed our urging or assistance, finding the teats on her own and sucking the udder down.

The udder looks big and swollen, but LuLu's milk hasn't come in until a few days later.  The first days, the milk supply comes in.  For right now, it's primarily colostrum.  That's what Betsy needs.  Before the colostrum supply dwindles as it's replaced with milk, we always milk out the colostrum after Betsy has enjoyed her fill.

We take the colostrum in that is strained through a filter and into a stainless steel bucket.  Betsy got hers.  Now we'll borrow a little from her for our use.

Colostrum is good for the calf, but it's good for humans, too.  It's filled with good stuff -immunoglobulins to help keep infections at bay.  So many benefits that it is marketed to athletes for a number of things like endurance and muscle growth and repair.  We've tried to drink it straight, but to be honest, I don't like the taste and the consistency is "oily" to me.  We pour it into ice cube trays and freeze it.

We'll add it to fruit smoothies with cinnamon and drink it down until we've exhausted our supply.  Sometimes we'll save some to bottle feed calves to make sure they get the good stuff so that they have a good start.

We'll Call Her Betsy

On Monday morning the alarm went off at 6 am, and I headed out to the barn to feed chickens, open the nesting boxes, feed and milk goats, and feed the cows.  I got everything done and was in at 6:30.  Tricia and I normally start our day in the sun room with a cup of coffee while we read the Bible.  We're almost all the way through the Psalms and will start on Proverbs in the next day or so.

After reading, I headed out to check on water and glanced out in the middle of the pasture.  What was I looking at?  Immediately, I knew.  I ran inside to tell Tricia, and then I went out to the pasture to check on the new arrival!

Fresh from the Farm

LuLu was standing by her little one.  She must've calved overnight as she had already eaten the placenta and the calf was licked clean.  She stood lowing for her calf, being a protective momma as we admired her little one.

LuLu

One of the first things I do is lift a leg and check to see what type of 'equipment' the calf is blessed with.  Here we go.  There is no male apparatus and four teats are clearly visible.  It's a girl!  We narrowed down the names to Opal and Betsy and settled on Betsy.  Since she was born pretty close to the Fourth of July, we were thinking it would be a fitting tribute to name her after Betsy Ross.  Perhaps we can put a stars and stripes bandanna around her neck?

A little Jersey heifer

Betsy got up on wobbly legs and plopped right down in the grass again.  You can tell that the grass is mashed down right where they are standing, evidencing where she went into labor last night.

Before the day warmed up, I picked up Betsy and carried her to the shade on the southern side of the pasture by the barn.  LuLu followed very closely behind, requiring repeated assurances from me that her baby was fine and I'd be giving her back shortly.

There was  whole welcoming committee in the shade.  Tricia was there, the roosters and hens, Elsie and even an appearance by Nicky, Betsy's daddy.

After a little bit, LuLu sat down in the shade by her little one.  It was a long night for sure.

Little Betsy lay low in the grass, napping all day.  She's a cute little thing, there's no denying that.

It's important that we get some of LuLu's colostrum in Betsy quickly, so we're about to get her up and interested in nursing.  We'll show you some of that tomorrow.

Fishing in a Foul Pond

 

Image Credit

For more than twenty years, I was a cub scout leader.  I started volunteering for a cub scout pack when we lived in Houston and continued being a Webelos leader when we moved to where we currently live in Louisiana.  It is interesting to run into my former scouts in town and see how they've grown up and see what they've done with their lives.  

Each week we'd meet and work through their books, learning skills and earning badges to commemorate their achievements.  So many fun activities and learning skills that stay with you throughout life like citizenship, scientist, forestry, fitness, cooking, camping, hiking and outdoor achievements.  We'd build our derby cars and race them in the Pinewood Derby.  Same thing with our sailboats that we would race in the Raingutter Regatta.  The Fire-building Race was always fun.  It involved stretching a nylon string across two sticks.  Each team would race to build a fire.  The first team to burn through the string would win.

One of the highlights of the year was summer camp.  Our camp was called Camp Edgewood in Gillis, Louisiana.  What fun we'd have at that camp!  Archery, B-b gun shooting, canoeing, fishing, swimming, hiking.  Running obstacle courses, building and firing off rockets, orienteering.  It was so much fun for the boys!  There was a campfire where boys would put together skits and sing songs.  We'd go back to our campsite and cook over a campfire.  Food somehow tastes better cooked over a campfire.

I passed in front of the camp the other day and saw the Camp Edgewood sign.  I began to reminisce about all of the good times and memories made when my boys were young and we'd venture out to the camp.  There were even "Mom & Me" camps that involved Tricia camping with the boys.  I smiled as I thought of the things my guys learned and joy we all experienced at camp many years ago.

Then I remembered a memory that wasn't so joyous and happy - for me, anyway.  On this particular night, Benjamin and I were camping.  He had won 1st place overall in the bb gun competition that day.  The pride on his face made my heart happy.  We attended the campfire and sang loudly.  I remember they lit the fire in creative fashion that night by sending burning embers in a bucket down a long rope on a pulley.  It struck the base of the campfire and erupted in flame and the boys went wild!

Over the course of the night I developed a headache.  It was a really bad one.  I strained so hard to get better, but late in the night, Benjamin and I packed up our belongings and headed for the parking lot.  I had to get home and get some medication.  These headaches I would get would be debilitating.  My eyes hurt.  Lights and sounds would aggravate the issue.

A little context for this story is needed before finishing: When I was in college doing stupid things, I fell off of a friend's shoulders on an asphalt road, splitting my upper lip wide open.  It required a trip to the ER for many stitches to try to put my face back together.  Unbeknownst to me, it damaged my front tooth.  In later years, my front tooth had root damage from those college shenanigans and had to be pulled.  So that I wouldn't look odder than I already look, I wore a retainer that had a tooth in the front that closed up the gap left by the missing tooth.  I could pop the retainer in and out to clean it.  You'd never know I was missing a tooth.

Back to the story.  Many times the headaches would get so bad, they would make me nauseous.  I would throw up uncontrollably due to the pain.  On this particular evening, walking back to the Explorer, apologizing to Benjamin for ruining the campout with my headache, I began feeling like I was getting sick.  Fortunately, (or unfortunately) there was a bathroom right near the parking lot.  I could see the lights from the latrine beckoning me like the sirens from Homer's Odyssey.  I should've just thrown up by a pine tree, but hindsight is 20/20.

I rushed into the bathroom, ran into the first stall and violently vomited, emptying the contents of my stomach into the toilet with such force and so quickly that I didn't see the toilet.  This toilet was vile.  Someone prior to my visit had diarrhea.  The toilet was plugged.  In addition to the contents of my stomach, the toilet was also filled with someone's foul, fetid, feces.  I was gagging.  My head was spinning.  My nostrils were filled with malodorous mayhem.

I exited the bathroom, stumbling outside gasping for fresh air.  Once I had somewhat gathered my wits, Benjamin and I resumed our trek to the Explorer in the parking lot.  And it was then that I had a cruel realization - my retainer with the front tooth on it was gone!  I rubbed my tongue in the toothless gap in my top teeth.  Apparently, the force of my projectile vomiting had dislodged the retainer and it had gone into the toilet with the rest of my campfire supper.

What to do?  The retainer was the only thing that kept me from looking like a toothless hobo.  I would be embarrassed to go to work or to church missing one of my front teeth!  I did the only thing I could do.  I mustered my strength and forged ahead, reentering the bathroom that smelled of rotting roadkill and death.  The good news, if one could call it that, is that the toilet was stopped up.  My retainer was somewhere in that slurry of sewerage.  My objective was to fish it out.  This was not a job for the faint at heart, and I'll spare you the details of my fishing expedition.  In the end, I was successful!  I found the retainer, raised it in my hand in victory and popped it right back into my mouth.

I did no such thing!  We drove home in silence, horrified at the night's turn of events.  I seem to have blocked most of that night out of my memory.  I don't remember exactly what we did with the retainer, but I did use it again after sterilizing it by boiling it for a long long time, if memory serves.   Speaking of memories, scouting with my boys fills my head with so many great memories.  That evening was one memory I'd like to forget!