Catherine is awesome! She is very short, and very wide, and doing once a day milking, leaving the baby on full time, she gave about a half gallon from her three nursed out quarters, and her ugly, blown quarter gave well over a gallon before my bucket was full to overflowing. Then I milked into a little bowl, which Bitsy would lap up, and milk more onto the ground before the bowl was ready again.
That quarter was still throwing little round, hard, lumps. At one point, one got into her teat that would not squeeze out. Phil came and held up her tail so she wouldn't kick. I squeezed with right hand, with left hand, with both hands. I tried stripping the teat and milking the teat. I put some muscle in it. I tried massaging the plugged teat so the clumps would break up and come out more easily. It remained clogged.
I prayed. And a bit later, as I held the teat with my left hand, in a fully milked position, I squeezed the tip, with the clot with my right hand, and it shot out. I didn't even get a glimpse of it on the ground, but I'm sure she felt better after that.
And by the end, the milk was clean, the extremely swollen quarter, that had only allowed two fingers and thumb to milk before (which was both agonizingly painful and painfully slow), actually felt like a normal teat, and I could milk in the satisfying, full-handed squeeze.
She isn't a perfect milker. She dances a bit, and kicks a bit. But I can always catch her foot, and she isn't vicious in her kicking. She goes for the bowl, not for me. I suppose dealing with Reese's antics has an upside: I know how to deal with flying hooves.
The two fingered milking took a long time. When finished, I started to walk her back up the slope, and she took off running. I yelled to Phil: what do I do? Just hang on.
As we approached the electric wire, she slowed and stopped. She knows the voltage that wire puts out, and had no desire to touch it. Isaiah lifted the stake, wire still connected, high above his head, and I finally managed to get her to walk under, and as soon as I unclipped her lead, she went right over to Clover's hiding spot.
It was a fulfilling milking in every way, even if my forearm is sore. (We recently bought one of the EZ Milkers: I might try that on her quarter tomorrow. I meant to do it today.)
I was also pleased to find a use for the mounds of jalapenos we're growing. I picked only seven plants yesterday (out of 50), and had the better part of a box. So I chopped them and put them in a lacto-fermented brine: raw whey from our cow, Celtic sea salt, water, and garlic. It should naturally ferment over time, preserving the harvest without purchased vinegar, or much effort on my part at all.
Phil had a bit of a frustrating day. He was going to shovel the chick's trailer, full of manure and wood chips, into the greenhouse, but when he maneuvered it with the truck, the space wasn't large enough and the truck got stuck in the winter dry lot, with its deep bedding.
So he went to clear a tractor path in the lower pasture, and, after several profitable hours (I love the lower pasture when the brush is cleared away), he ended up both running out of gas in the chainsaw and getting a flat tire on the tractor.
The life in the soil and the land is exploding. I saw the first (or maybe second) hummingbird down in the flowers yesterday. A bluebird of happiness sometimes startles out of the tall weeds. Every night as I walk between trailer and motor home, I see a little hopping shadow, as the toads come out in force. I was in the lower pasture today when I suddenly was stung on the back of the thigh by, probably, a honeybee (since the stinger stayed in me; it was a horrible burn, but I think the upper thigh isn't a bad place for a sting: if I do swell up, I'm not going to be able to tell, the way I do with a facial or finger sting).
Joe and I had gone to look for potato sprouts when we saw a web in the earth, with a black widow winding her thread around a victim: probably a fly, though I wish it was one of the hornets. We watched her for a while and she spun her threads with her tiny black legs, while Joe received a stern admonishment to leave black spiders with red abdomens alone! And then we left her in peace.
And Phil noticed that where we have cowpies, the underneath is entirely worm castings, with beautiful night crawlers poking their heads out. When we moved here, we marveled over the lack of worms. They are multiplying now, though, and I like that.
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