Snow! (Poor Tennessee Cows: What a Shock)

While Phil went to get a new hydraulic line, I had the good task of cleaning up my perpetually messy work area. I actually got just about all the way through all the papers on my "desk" (Phil's dresser) which is a wonderful, mind-clearing feeling.

On his return, Phil toughed out the chilly weather and borrowed Butch's rake (attached to the back of the tractor). We have a few fingers of cleared land jutting off the neighbor's clearing that he and Butch weren't able to seed: the area was so overgrown with small pines that, though Butch could bush-hog the area, the seeder could not handle the ground debris. So Phil worked on that until dusk, though he did stop to consider then why he was bothering: if we're planning to seed by hand broadcast, surely we could just step over any downed saplings. Hmm.

I was pleased to hear Bianca mooing at lunch. Unexplained moos can mean heat! She wasn't standing in her normal spot, either. I went to watch and saw her try to mount Fern, who moved away in annoyance. So Fern wasn't in standing heat, apparently, but that was the closest thing to heat I've seen from Bianca, and it is close to 90 days since she calved. Semen straws ship next week, so, should she behave oddly again December 26, hopefully we'll be ready (and Giovanni won't be out of town).

Good news, that, on all fronts. The month-long block from getting straws released finally cleared, at what appears to be just the right time. (We seriously considered getting a bull, but the $80/month in additional feed costs, the danger in having a heavy, testosterone-laden beast nearby, and the fact that then you have only one bull, one genetic line to use decided against it. I am hoping that it's better to have a bit longer than a year between calvings than to have a bull. But really I'm hoping and praying both cows will successfully breed with AI in the next month.)

The boys and I had a great time indoors. While I continued to wade through the pile of detritus on the dresser, Jadon went through an entire book of paper crafts that I had done as a child, diligently tracing each pattern so that I could someday pass it on to my children. Abraham said, "You copied the pages for Jadon. That was a good idea!" (Abraham makes me laugh without necessarily meaning to. Today he said that he would like "fried rice and pudding for lunch. Not mixed together.")

Then I went to the toy storage area and brought the boys long forgotten tops, Memory, a little wooden snow village that Phil had as a child (Joe liked that), and the greatly missed dominoes. Isaiah made elaborate Irish-like huts, and then asked to take photos "from all sides." I gave him the camera and sometime later looked up from the paper I was perusing to find him taking stop-action photos of his stationary tower.

"Isaiah! Do you know how long it will take me to delete hundreds of identical photos! Ack!"

He hadn't thought of that and was very apologetic. I laughed, though, when I looked later. Joe had, apparently, pushed a little bean or something into the corner of the photo while Isaiah was shooting, so a little dark object rolls up the frame and then back down. There was motion after all.

About 4pm, it began to snow, and Jadon waited as long as he could before suiting up and going outside to pack together large swaths of 1/10 of an inch snow into a snowball.

I doubt our Tennessee cows have ever seen snow before. Poor Bianca. I went to get her for milking and she practically danced away from me. She put her head down to lick up some molasses and snow fell on her nose and she snorted and immediately her milk dried up. I got two cups, and the rest of the rich milk, which I could feel through the bag, stayed high and dry.

And, finally, for something completely different.

After we had the motor home here a few months, it took longer and longer to fill up the 40 gallon water tank. The last time we tried, it took 13 hours. When the repair man came out, he found the line clogged with sediment, and since then, we've used filters to keep the motor home's water running freely.

Today was the time to install a new filter. Above you can see what the clean, new one looked like. Below you can see the one in use the last three months: tiny grey silt, packed around, with several tablespoons of silt frozen at the bottom. No wonder the water wasn't flowing easily!