Calf the Second

Phil mentioned yesterday that Fern's bag had filled in a bit. Surprisingly, though, she had delivered already by this afternoon. That was fast!

Phil headed over with Shadow, who barked and presumably freaked Fern out. By the time the dog was tied up, Fern was dead set against Phil stripping her teats (once tied, she couldn't horn him, but she slashed out with her hooves, the rascal). Phil didn't see any teats, so he thinks the calf is a bull, but without a certain visual, there's a possibility the baby is not male. For the moment, the baby joins the older brother with an impressive moniker: first came Charlemagne, now Einstein.

The slush of yesterday made the ground so slick, Phil couldn't bring the tractor back upslope from delivering hay. Really, it was too slushy to do much work on the structure, so this was another indoor day for Phil.

With my 23.5 hours a day in bed, the boys have had to step up in responsibility. This is not actually very onerous: Jadon needs to cut bread for his brothers and slather butter, for example. Today, though, Joe said casually (with that typical 4-year-old casualness that means he knows what he is saying is a big deal), "I buttered this piece of bread myself."

And yesterday, he had gone through 4" of slushy snow, in his flip flops, to get to the RV for dinner. Phil was finishing dinner and was just going over to carry the littlest one when he showed up. He's growing up!