My Good Boys

Phil walked next door today to check on how the grass is growing. It looks nice and green from here, but will it be ready to graze soon? He had two little companions, Joe and Abraham, walking with him and keeping him company.

Jadon has been wishing for pizza. Yesterday he decided he would make some. I pulled out the ground beef this morning to thaw, and at about 5:30 he headed out to mill the flour and get started on the dough.

Sometime later he showed up with his ball of dough, wanting to see if he had kneaded it thoroughly enough. He remembered to oil the pans before he put down the crust. He used the stick blender to blend the chopped tomatoes to make the sauce.

He showed up, almost in tears, because the ground beef "was falling apart." I reminded him that pizza topping is supposed to be crumbly. His visible relief made me smile. Nothing like the panic of disaster fading to the knowledge that all is going well after all.

He made the pizzas extra cheesy, and we all ate with gratitude.

I was in fourth or fifth grade when I made dinner for my family for the first time. I made pizza pockets. Jadon is in good company.

Phil returned from next door as enthusiastic as I've ever seen him. "Do you remember the pasture walk we did about two years ago? Think night and day difference!"

Two years ago, we had seeded next door, but nothing much had come up. Last spring, the ground was more covered, but we turned the cows in when the grass was six inches tall or so. It looked lush, but it had no staying power.

Phil had last delivered hay next door about a month ago. The road was clearly visible, and any grass quite short yet.

Today, he said that the grass was up to his waist. The road, at best, had 6" of visible driving, and the rest was overgrown. "It looks like a pasture! There is great coverage, without earth showing." He plans to start grazing tomorrow, pleased with his increasing knowledge of grazing and grass.

She Kicked the Bucket

Belle unexpectedly put her hind foot in the milk pail this evening, halfway knocking it over as she did so.

Obviously the death kind of "kicked the bucket" is more severe than the loss of some milk, but it did make me smile to think of some crotchety old coot equating the two forms of loss on some farm long ago.

Somehow the milk didn't get too muddy, so I poured it out for Elle, went to rinse the bucket, and returned to finish the milking.

I have had some good days lately. Grocery shopping and picking up Phil on Friday. I cleaned up some long-time messes, and emptied the entryway of towels, cutting board, toaster, and gloves that had all been waiting to return to their proper places for two months. Abraham has been wishing for the Playmobil to come out, so everything I couldn't put away I stacked on Phil's dresser (my "desk"), my folding chair, and under the chair. I vacuumed the carpet and Abraham and Joe spent a happy day setting up small scenes with their favorite Playmobil pieces. I did dishes! I bathed boys!

Phil was stunned by this sudden change. (So was I, frankly.) It was so nice to feel normal!

Sunday morning I felt pretty much fine. So I went to church for the first time in nine weeks. How delightful to have happy hugs and waves and smiles and greetings. How marvelous to visit for an hour and a half after church. (What do the boys do during Phil's and my extended visiting? Jadon realized a few months ago that CarTalk replays on Sunday at noon, so as soon as church ends, the boys all head to the van to listen to Tom and Ray. Jadon has already heard each show on Saturday morning, but he's a huge fan. After that hour, they listen to Adventures in Odyssey. It is nice that they occupy themselves so well so Phil and I can have friend time.)

I probably should have planned better and brought myself some food. By the time we got home and I whipped up some homemade mac and cheese, I was shaky and really at the end of my strength.

It is so disappointing to go from feeling normal and happy to feeling wiped out and ill. Especially since that icky feeling continued all day today.

But I have had a few hours of normalcy; oh, is it wonderful!

Phil is keeping busy. He has plenty of office work to finish after his trip; he had to bring hay and get hay; we received an 800-lb. shipment of seeds and minerals today. How pleasant to have forks for the tractor—the last time we had such a large shipment, we unloaded bag by bag, racing to get it all off the truck before the delivery time expired. Now it was a simple offloading intact. Add to that the laundry and fixing an electric fence energizer, and it was a productive day despite some rain and grey skies.

Halter Training

Phil was working hard—in Colorado—this week. He was due to land around 11pm on Friday night, so I planned to milk Belle and feed the calves, then head up to the grocery store before it closed. There's a Trader Joe's now in Charlottesville, but I haven't been there yet. They had a closing time of 9pm, so I figured I needed to leave by about 7:30 to get there in time.

I was eating my dinner when I happened to look out the window. Belle had escaped again (we think because her line was not electrified, she just stepped over it and went her merry way). She had been grazing mostly up near the housing complex we have, but had gradually worked her way further down the finger. She stood suddenly, head up, body taut, fully alert.

I remembered then that I had opened the lower pasture fully for the other cows. They were just down a little hill from the finger, munching and mooing.

As I watched in horror, Belle started to trot downslope, then run. Her horns were the last part of her to pass out of sight, and she was gone.

I asked the older boys to try to bring her back. When I finished my burger, I figured I should tie her up on the outside of the pen and milk her there, then let her enjoy some company overnight. Phil could deal with her in the morning.

That would have been a great idea, except for one thing. She wouldn't let down. Fifteen minutes and six cups later, I realized I would have to bring her back up slope, lest I have a horrible mastitis case on my hands. (She had mooed loudly throughout my milking: I suspect she thought her baby was down with the others, and kept calling to summon Elle.)

And so began the tug-of-war. Step by step I tugged. She would resist, or list from side to side, but I managed to keep her from bolting downslope. Back at the base of the finger, she had clover to graze, and so I clipped her lead from collar to halter (I had taken her halter off for a few days, but she started to move so much I had put it back on and left it for the duration of Phil's absence.)

This made her mad and stubborn. She dug her heels in, and our progress grew agonizingly slow. Finally I had Isaiah let Shadow go. She ran down to us, and her presence was enough of a scourge to get that cow moving. What a relief! Belle ran up the hill, and I followed and captured her rope again and finally had her in place to milk.

Back with her baby, she had no problem letting down.

But we did have to skip Trader Joe's, though we managed a stop at Whole Foods—they are open until 10pm, and we closed them down.

I went shopping!

Back home around midnight, we were falling asleep when Belle walked by our trailer, headed back down to her friends.

Phil got up and fetched her this morning. He thinks she is mostly trained to the halter now, and with a little more practice, she will be a most obedient cow.

We had a young friend from church come today to help. She and Phil spent about four hours moving the remainder of the blocks inside the structure. Phil estimated they lifted somewhere around three or four tons of block. That will be a huge boon going forward!

Belle Grows Sick of Rye

I opened a new paddock up for Belle yesterday, a section of rye perhaps not quite as fertile, a bit more sparse and not quite as high, but nicely headed out for all that.

Apparently she was not as grateful as she might have been, as she burst the bounds (somehow) and was found wandering the land. Isaiah closed the gate to the road, and she roamed at will all afternoon: the apple orchard, the greenhouse, down near the bees. At milking time we found her in the big blue barn, eating old hay off the ground. Happily, she headed almost directly back into her enclosure and stood pretty well for milking.

I remembered today that resting my head in the crease between belly and leg (is that the flank? Or is the flank the leg itself? I don't remember) both keeps kicking and movement to a minimum, and gives me a split second more warning that she might move. That felt more restful.

On a totally different note, I have had a craving for French fries, so I made some today: good organic potatoes and coconut oil and Celtic sea salt. I ate the first plate and offered successive plates to the boys, unsure if five pounds of potatoes would be enough to satisfy us all for dinner.

Apparently, the boys' pickiness has no limits. After sampling the delicious golden fries, they decided they were too ... something, and left the last three plates untouched.

It's hard to fathom.

My Bubble Is Burst

Belle is no longer the ideal cow. She laid down yesterday right before I went to milk, and it was quite the task to get her back on her feet. She dances now almost constantly, moving forward, moving backwards, refusing to walk to the fence where I can milk her easily.

And tonight she kicked my bucket. A quart or so of milk, spilled into my shoe and all over the ground. I hate waste! (And squishy shoes aren't my favorite, either.)

I spent three milking sessions feeding both babies, while we drank through the milk in the fridge. Now I wonder if I should have cut the boy off earlier: two years of scarcity makes me quite parsimonious. And knowing that Belle might kick over her production: that makes me downright grumpy.

Happily, we found three eggs today, for the first time since Saturday, eggs from both batches of chickens. That's encouraging!

And while Phil is working hard, the boys and I continue to get along. Some days they want to do a few hours of math (the boys beg to keep going in their Life of Fred books); some days I read to them. And some days I moan to myself and they read Calvin and Hobbes together, or jump on the trampoline, or draw or build Legos. I have my moments and hours of capability now. Looking back, I've had alternating good and bad days for about the last week. How exciting to have a few good days now! It reminds me that some day I will feel okay again almost every day.

Pictures from Our Spring

The daffodils are done now, and have been done for some time. But before they finished for the season, I took some photos of them, and of our spring in progress.
On March 28, the rye had just started to green over, like a nice carpet of grass. The denuded swales stood out sharply, and the line of daffodils was hardly a blip of yellow.

The plums just started to blossom. Our most sturdy tree, the best producer last year, probably lost all blossoms in a frost a few days after this, but what a lovely white bloom.

The peaches were just showing pink!

The apricot was showing pink, too, but that is a sad story. Those buds rest on the ground, where the tree snapped at the base during a storm. Poor Phil. He's been waiting four years for apricots.

Four days later, on April 1, the grass showed significant growth. Instead of a sparse lawn, it started to look a bit luxurious.

The peaches broke into bloom.

One peach had noticeably darker blossoms.

By April 11, the rye had shot up, and most of the daffodils were spent.

The comfrey had started to come in strongly. (At this point, the comfrey plants mostly touch one another in the greenhouse.)

The garlic was up well. This is the lovely time of year, before the garlic gets overwhelmed with weeds.

The apple tree grafts just started to leaf out.

And the redbuds finally broke into bloom.

The massive bulk of our daffodils are the standard cheery yellows, not even double blossomed like the fancy one at the start of the email. But the few final blooms show some differences, like white with orange sherbet centers.

Or white with solid orange centers.

Eight Weeks Later

Phil and I had to run an errand early this morning. It was my first time off the farm in eight weeks. It wasn't a fun trip. As soon as we got home, I heaved all the way into the house. Then the whole family took naps. I stayed in bed, feeling miserable, most of the rest of the day.

So that is too bad.

But ... interesting happenings around the farm. After the five chickens laid four eggs yesterday with the nesting boxes, I told Phil maybe we should move all the chickens up there. "Let's wait a few more days," he said.

Today the chickens laid no eggs. Now, they are at the very beginning of their productive lives, so it could be a fluke. Or it could be that the mysterious virus has now struck them, and how thankful I am that we have a few more days to experiment. The one-egg laying batch of 22 laid none today, either, at least, none that Isaiah could find.

Belle continues to be an ever more outstanding cow. After she gave five quarts this morning (a quart more than the last two mornings), I decided it was time to start feeding her baby real milk instead of powdered. That was a good choice, because instead of 13 cups this evening, as she gave last night, she gave 18 cups, for a total of two gallons, six cups today. A level of productivity we've never seen here before.

How fun to milk out two teats this evening, pour it into the bottle, and let Isaiah feed Elle the warm, frothy milk while I milked Belle just on the other side of the fence.

Human breastmilk changes by the feeding, based on what the mother's body senses the baby needs. I would imagine that cows bodies probably do the same. So how pleasant to make sure Elle is getting the best possible nutrition, and still have enough and more than enough for ourselves.

Isaiah asked if he could try some of the warm milk from this evening. He didn't much like it, but when I asked if he wanted some honey, like that age-old bedtime soothing drink, his eyes lit up. "That's a really nutritious drink, Isaiah. Think what God promised the children of Israel: that they would go to a land flowing with...."

"Milk and honey!" he said. "Wow."

***

I forgot to mention this on Friday, but this was adorable.

Grey skies; thunderstorm coming. We'd been watching the progress of this rainstorm for two days, gradually heading east.

About 1:30, Jadon and Joe came in. They dumped out the orange backpack with the potato heads and added their winter jackets (waterproof). A bit later Isaiah came in and got his jacket, and a flashlight or two. Then Abraham came in, found his jacket and another flashlight. "Mom, should I get my pocket knife?"

Jadon came in. "What is good to eat on a hike? Do we have almonds?"

It turned out that he made almond-and-raisin energy mix, and took the remains of some ground beef that none of the boys had touched in the two days since I made it.

Then the four brothers headed out on a long hike.

They came back several hours later, just as a gentle rain set in (the gentle rain turned pounding soon, so it was good they returned when they did). With their jackets on, they were sweaty, as it was still about 65 and now humid, but they were happy. They had eaten the rest of the ground beef (whatever it takes, I suppose). They had found a tree stand. They found ticks crawling on themselves for a few hours.

"Jadon said we went maybe one or two miles," said a younger brother. They probably did, though I have no idea how they would reckon that.

We Are in Love

Phil and I are over the moon with our Belle.

Friday morning, we headed out to milk her. Phil had seen a photo of a cow being trained to let down her milk: her baby was tied to her neck, and a person milked her out. I started to milk Belle, but it didn't feel like much was going to come. Phil got her baby and tied them together. Belle stayed put, and her milk came out, foaming in the pail.

My arms and hands grow sore, as out of practice as I am, but I love milking. I love the closeness with the warm cow, the suppleness of the teats, the feeling of the milk filling and emptying.

She gave a gallon that first morning. We were ecstatic: two full jars for us to enjoy!

That evening, Phil didn't have a hard time tying her. It was raining, but not so much that the water was streaming off her (that makes for a disappointing milking experience, as I know: the dirty rainwater dripping into the pail, no matter how hard I try to keep it clear: ugh!).

Milking was going well, and Phil was overseeing the boys as they bottle fed the two calves, when suddenly Babe got a bee in her bonnet and charged Belle, who was tied off and couldn't defend herself. I jumped up with the pail and got away from any flying hooves, but then felt paralyzed: what could I do? Phil was somehow trapped in the pen with the boys, and the trampoline was in the way. I slapped Babe's rump, but that didn't help her back up, which she needed to do. Then she got her horn stuck in Babe's collar, and two terrified cows and helpless me: what a disaster.

Phil finally jumped the fence (I think) and freed Belle from Babe. He kept Babe away and I finished milking. I wondered if maybe her milking was truncated by the stress, but she gave another three quarts.

This morning, Phil tied Babe off before we began to milk. We tried to pull Belle over to the fence to milk, but she would have none of it. She planted her feet in the middle of the pasture and did not move. So I milked her. By the end, Phil had the end of the lead, held slack, and Abraham was holding her. She didn't move.

Having milked cows who swatted me with their tails, or who wait until the end of milking to put their hooves in the milk, or who dance and kick the bucket over, this kind of deliberate stand-still is a mercy.

I went off to milk without Phil tonight for the first time. Belle was at the far end of the paddock, which I figured would be fine. I went to get her, and she eluded by grasp (well, pulled the lead out of my hand is more like it). When she neared her baby's pen, she slowed down, and I got her leash and tied her in. She set her feet and I milked her out.

She gave one cup more today than she did yesterday. Isaiah is checking the brix at each milking: we went from 12.1 to 12.3 to 13.1 at both milkings today.

Every time Phil walks by her, he says, "She is a beautiful cow!" He said once, "I never really noticed her because to me Beatrice was so much more lovely, but she is really a beautiful cow."

As euphoric as these two days have been, there is a reality of calf-raising for me: if we fed baby Elle from a bottle, she would eat more than half of what her mother produces. And she is just beginning to grow. And her mother has now been on perfect, belly-high rye for two days. Granted, that is probably not enough to generate an amazing amount of additional energy (going from 100% hay to 100% growing rye, vetch, and clover is not going to immediately transform Belle's energy level). And yet, I wonder how farms do it. I guess most farmers don't choose Milking Devons as their milk producers. (A good Milking Devon produces three gallons a day. A great goat produces two.)

We had another lovely thing happen this week. Phil went and got about 30 bantam chickens yesterday. They are ridiculously small (and fast—I haven't come within five feet of one). The five in the hen house with nesting boxes produced four eggs today! (And the 22 or so do near the compost pile, lacking nesting boxes, produced one.)

Last Sunday, had you told me that by the end of the week our farm would produce milk and eggs, I would have laughed.

So what a great blessing this week has been.

Apple Orchard

The year is not getting any younger. It would have been wise to prune the apples some weeks (months?) ago, but the building felt so all-consuming, the idea of taking a few hours, even in the rain, never crossed my mind. But some of the apples are beginning to bloom, and Phil had a bit of extra time on his hands today, so he headed up to at least take care of suckers (growth from the roots) or dead branches.

I haven't been in the orchard in months, and I was amazed at what I saw.

Some blossoms were totally white.

Most had bits of pink and white.

Such a pretty combination

I saw a shockingly pink bud.

The upper rows glowed green with health, a beautiful four or five inches of grass and clover thickly covering the orchard floor.

Not every tree has blossoms, and even those that do are not covered, but the whites and the greens: it's spring!

I saw my first crimson clover of the season, that beautiful flower that the bees adore.

While I was leaning in to take a photo, I thought I was stung by a bee, but it turned out to be a cricket, either pinching my leg or chewing on me. Ouch! (And my leg is not normally that dirty, but we had just been wrangling Belle and her baby, which left me more muddy than normal.)

My little comfrey patch is filling in. Less than eleven months old, those plants left beautiful circles of black soil around them as they composted down during the winter. I weeded a bit around some: it looked like mustard setting seed, probably from my garden compost.

And the pulsing green, the spring green, was all around.

During those long weeks that I stayed in bed, I would sometimes find myself visiting random wedding photographers, just in search of something pretty to look at. Perhaps what I was missing was just the beauty in my own place in this world, invisible from a sick bed.

One Cup

Phil's parents left yesterday. I have been desperate to try anything to help me feel better, and at 14 weeks, I really think it's about time. I saw a mention of tapping, a quick tap of pressure points on hands, face, and chest. That seems to help. I am taking some homeopathic remedies appropriate for this stage of pregnancy (Calc fluor, Mag phos, Nat mur). And I found a box of vitamins my sister sent me two months ago, buried under a stack of stuff on the coffee table. I had tried them once and felt so much more horrible the next day, I gave up. But I tried again yesterday, and was impressed with a boost of energy.

This was good, and just in time.

I had gone to bed reading my new copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Julia Child's famous first contribution to the cooking world. Happily, the first recipe uses potatoes and onions, butter and salt, all ingredients I had on hand, so I woke up ready to be in the kitchen. Sure, there was a certain amount of early in the morning gagging, but, poof, that's to be expected. And while I was at it, I made rice and an easy ground beef stir fry.

I say this mostly because it has been literally two months since I last managed even those simple tasks. Quite an achievement.

While I was savoring my breakfast, Phil came to tell me that Belle had finally (finally!) calved. He had noticed her bag swelling more yesterday, and her mucus plug had come out, so it was definitely time. For a heifer on marginal feed her entire life, she did a great job, though she did have a little tear in her vulva. Considering her farm-twin Beatrice died giving birth, I'll take a little tear.

We had an unexpected cloud burst this morning, strong enough and prolonged enough that everything turned slippery. So we decided this would be an animal day. We had hoped to pick up some chickens today; in the end that didn't happen. But the question was, where to put them? We suspect the white leghorns brought some sort of infertility virus that infected all other chickens. The last of the leghorns was eaten by a neighbor dog some weeks ago, so there would be no direct transfer. But the pen?

Phil disinfected it while I did some school work with the boys. We decided to put about 10% of the birds in that pen for a week or two, and see if they cease laying. If they do, that's a good indication those nesting boxes and that pen just needs to be burned.

So then Phil and I moved our old, rotted chicken tractor to another location. Phil put up the chicken netting for the 90% who aren't experimental. If there is some mysterious virus, we won't lose all our new stock.

I am thrilled to see nettles springing up at the back of the chicken pen. I bought 15 roots last year, and though not all made it, the ones that took are doing very well!

We had another major task of the day. We decided that we would move Belle and her baby (named Elle or Emily, depending on which son you ask) up to join Babe and baby Einstein.

This hadn't been too difficult with Babe on Monday. She was so pooped from delivery, she just stood there when Phil clipped her leash on, and her baby was so pooped, he followed along. Babe didn't exactly heel (she stubbornly refused to move without intense tugging), but it was not a strenuous exercise.

Enter Belle. Not only is she still almost plump, despite having delivered a large calf (I would guess about 15 pounds heavier than baby Einstein), but she is wily! She saw Phil coming and moved away. Between the two of us, we kept her in one section of her paddock, but she was not keen on being captured. After three or four near misses (because it's not enough to just touch her collar: Phil had to hold it long enough to clip it), Phil rigged up an amazing electric wire walkway. The problem was, it headed into the green growing section where all the other cows wanted to be! So we had to keep the other bovines from going where rebellious Belle refused to go.

Thankfully we had Isaiah, because it was more than a two-person job.

And when more wily Phil had finally captured wily Belle, he was tying her up for a bit to get the baby, when the nylon leash broke! Belle was free to run around the acre pasture! And the leash was just long enough for her to step on and snap again, so she had about six inches of leash dangling uselessly from her neck. Her horns are longer than that!

Happily, Phil had brought a halter, so after more fancy maneuvering with rope and gate, he got her haltered, I stood the baby up and directed her up slope. In some ways, I think Belle was a bit ready. She had just given birth maybe eight hours before, and here she was, being hounded by some crazy humans (and a naughty dog we had forgotten to tie up at the RV).

But that was not the end of the struggles. Belle fought every step of the way, whether her baby was ahead of her or behind her. We stopped to let the baby nurse about halfway up, and that was sweet to see.

In all, it was about 2 1/2 hours of intensity before the baby was in the pen and Belle was in the rye. Babe hasn't wanted to eat the rye much preferring the clovers and low-lying weeds. But Belle immediately went to town on the rye. She gobbled it!

We have had to learn about bottle feeding a calf. Since both the calves have eaten from their moms, they weren't ecstatic about trying the big rubber nipple. Einstein fought a good bit, but now, after about five feedings, he is a champion eater. He can down a half gallon in about five minutes. The new baby, having had real colostrum just hours before the night feeding, had no real interest in the bottle. Tomorrow should be different.

We banded Einstein today, too, which will turn this bull into a steer. I know that there are advocates for cutting bull calves man parts: quick and effective. But the idea of making an incision there—Phil and I are both sketchy on that. I gave the calf some Arnica before the banding, and then held his head. With all our palpitations (important to make sure everything is in the band that should be), he didn't move. Phil put the two bands on, and, hoping all goes well, in about a month, the band will have squeezed off the potent parts.

We had to again catch Babe in order to milk her. Phil caught her on the second go round. She never got quite close enough to the fence to tie her tightly, but after a few minutes of tugging we realized she had set her feet and wasn't going anywhere.

And so I milked a cow for the first time in two years. It was such an absolute joy. Her teats are perfectly shaped, her udder beautiful. She let down immediately. And though she gave only a cup, I figured that isn't bad. She was nursed only hours before, has had an extremely stressful day, and has been living on hay for the last four or five months. A cup is great! And with unlimited access to beautiful rye—I am very hopeful for this beautiful Belle.

Building Progress

How fun to see building progress all at once! From the north wall blocks not quite finished.

And then the blocks were done. Then came grouting down into the cells, hoisting the mortar up to the top of the wall and dumping it in.

Then the horrible realization that, cells grouted and finished, the lintel wouldn't fit. After a day of chipping away, and maneuvering the heavy lintel all by himself, twelve feet in the air, Phil ended the day with a workable window space.

The next day he had the top level bond beam in place. Rebar went in to add horizontal support, and Phil cut away all the vertical rebar that poked out of the top a bit.

Later, he had the full bond beam set in place.

With both walls as high as they will be, the space began to feel more like a real space.

Then Phil poured the bond beam and put in regularly-space bolts for the roof to connect to one of these days.

That brings us to the end of March. Considering how many days were too cold, or too rainy, or spent running unavoidable errands, or caring for the basic needs of the family, that is reasonable progress.

In April, Phil shifted to the south and east walls. But first, he had to pour three central column supports. First he scraped the gravel to create a level building site.

Next he built the forms and made the cute rebar grid for support.

After building three of them, he poured some concrete.

In a flash of typical Phil humor, he saw the camera go up and pretended to shoot the "dead" animal. (Shadow was not harmed in the taking of this photo.) I would never think to do such a thing. Gender difference? Probably.

We debated whether to bring all the blocks into the work area inside or to leave them out. In the end, we decided to leave them out: with three foundations, two scaffolds, and various tools, not to mention the fact that Phil would have to carry most of the blocks from one side to the other, we opted to leave them out. That may have been the wrong decision, but once made, too bad. Phil pulled the ramp and epoxied in the rebar supports we had had to leave out to offer tractor access.

Next: fill in the space where the ramp had been with 12" blocks and 12" bond beam, then pour the bond beam. And wait a few days for the bond beam to set.

Since then, he's laid half-high blocks and worked on the fourth corner.

As the wall grew higher, he needed an easier way to bring block in. A ramp helped.

And that brings us through about last Friday.

An Unexpected Calf

For the last four weeks, Phil has gone to check on the cows morning and night. Heifer Belle has looked like she is ready to birth, based on her bag and her backside, for the last three weeks, but, so far, nothing.

Our cow Babe did not do well last year. She needed help pushing out her calf (she had pushed out the nose, and was just so tired, we helped her get the calf out. Then Babe didn't produce much milk and her baby, whether through oxygen deprivation at birth or simply not ample nutrition, did not grow quickly. One day she had a horribly swollen face and quickly died, which we heard from a neighbor was what happened to his dog after the dog was bit by a copperhead. They're around, so that's what we consider to be the cause of death (it was certainly unlike any other death we've seen).

But Babe continued to struggle. As with Fern, another of our Vermont cows, I think she found it challenging to acclimate to the Virginia climate and, like Fern, lost much of her hair coat a few months after birthing. Fern now is a beautiful cow, but for several months there we weren't sure she'd make it.

Same with Babe. We figured we'd fatten her up and process her, but she refused to fatten by the fall, so we've fed her all winter.

On Saturday or Sunday, Phil checked on the cows and said, "I think Babe is going into labor. She's off by herself, and her tail is up like she's pooping, but nothing is coming out."

This seemed utterly ridiculous. We have had only two cows breed back in 14 months, and the idea that emaciated Babe would be the next one ... it was past belief. We assumed she was miscarrying.

But nothing happened that day or the next, and Babe seemed to be acting normally.

Yesterday morning, Phil fed the cows. Shadow follows Phil always, and while he was haying the cows, Shadow went off somewhere and came back carrying what looked like afterbirth. Shadow didn't communicate where she found this placenta-like object, but it appeared fresh. Phil tramped all over their paddock and found nothing. All cows accounted for.

It was a drizzly morning, so he came up to take care of paperwork, but his mind wouldn't focus. So he headed back down, and this time, he watched where Shadow went.

And there was a small calf, doing just fine. Babe hadn't bagged up at all, though, so Phil went to buy some powdered colostrum and milk replacer. This little bull calf will not be part of our permanent herd, and even if it was, better to feed some supplemental milk, even if disgusting, than let a baby starve.

I went down with Phil and we fed the baby. It took almost a full quart, gulping the liquid down. Then Phil pulled Babe, and I pushed her, and the calf followed shakily behind, all the way up next to the house. I could direct the calf with my knee, which was right about the level of his nose. Bitsy is about the same height and a bit wider.

Phil built the calf a little pen.

He fenced off a section of the rye grass that has shot up in the last week for Babe. We intended that rye to be a green manure crop. Perhaps it will be green manure and cow feed.

I was so tired from that walk up the hill that I took a 20 minute nap and then slept for twelve hours through the night.

Though we've tried to feed him several times, the baby takes only maybe a pint at a time since that first gulp fest. Babe lets him suckle, though I have felt her teats and there is almost nothing there.

So we have an extra calf we wouldn't have met had we brought Babe to the processors. Though we might need to figure out a way to keep her separate from the bulls, lest we perpetuate the cycle of breeding and birthing.

Our other animal news is that Mr. Bigglesworth the excellent mouser is gone. Whether coyote or dog or something else, we don't know what gets our cats on occasion, but his mouser skills are already missed. (Phil's mom came face to face with a mouse when she went to put something in the toaster oven!) He and Shadow were buddies. Biggles would sleep between Shadow's paws. That's what the blurry photo commemorates.