A Few Good Butternuts

I am entirely astonished that Bethany has not yet delivered. Her udder and backend continue to swell (or at least so it appears). How can this be, without any relief for her? I don't know.

Baby Beatrice remains a bit skittish, though I sat next to her today while she was resting and she let me pet her like a puppy. Delightful! (I do know that if we have a bull calf that I will not be physically affectionate with him at all; somehow it makes them think butting is good when they grow up.)

When we first met Beatrice, she would caper about, with her exuberant tail flung up over her back. So undignified, but so adorable. I haven't seen her prance like that for the last few days, and, sadly, I didn't capture such antics on camera.

Mother Bianca, always the most vocal of the cows, now has a new call that she uses to soothe Beatrice. When Bianca first came, she would call, deep in her throat, MMMMMMOOOOOOOOOOOO. When she tries to comfort her daughter, she says softly mmoo. It's like Old MacDonald Had a Farm, which is sort of a relief, because I've wondered if the person who wrote that song ever actually heard a real cow. Apparently he had.

I was petting a cow when I noticed a chicken swimming in the watering trough. Thankfully it wasn't quite dead, but had apparently flown into the tank (thankfully not put in by a boy experimenting—I asked). I pulled out the bird, convulsively shivering, and put it under a heat lamp with the broilers. Last I checked, it was eating broiler feed with a good will. Another chicken's life spared.

I spent some time in the garden. I'm about ten days too late for many things, but I decided to put in lettuce, turnips, kale, and radishes again anyway. When I planted in early August, just about nothing came up. Maybe now something will.

Out of my large bed of pumpkins and butternut squash, I ended up with about five small butternuts. I peeled one today, and ate some thin slices raw. They seemed quite delicious, so I checked their brix level with the refractometer. (Be impressed: I managed to squeeze juice out of the squash in order to measure, and that was not easy, even with the vise grips!)

Poor squash has a brix of 6, and excellent has a brix of 14 or more. My squash measured 15.7! Yippee!

I wish I had managed to grow more than five pounds of squash total, but I'm happy that those five pounds will offer good nutrition and taste.

Phil has been wrestling with the truck's power steering for a week or more. Stubborn bolts, incorrect parts, lots of grease, and an unusable truck have made for a fairly unproductive week for him.