I am doing something at work with an embedded youtube playlist. While experimenting I made this playlist of all of the cow videos I have on youtube thus far.

You’ve probably seen them all before but doesn’t it just seem so fresh and new now that it’s in a playlist? Am I wrong?

We had our first calf of 2010. I know it’s a little late. We were expecting her in June. She was born July 31 and I haven’t gotten around to posting until today. I think she’s about five days old in this picture. She has three white feet and a weird belt so she doesn’t meet the breed standard. She’s still pretty cute though.

My mom named her Flavia. It’s from some book I haven’t read… so I don’t approve.

We also have a second calf now and there should be a third any day now. The second calf was a little bull with a white foot and a very narrow belt. He’s named Zaphod. I guess if we have another bull it’ll be named Marvin.

hay wagon

It’s already fading from my memory even though it was just a few days ago, but we got a HUGE amount of hay into the barn on Friday and Saturday. Maybe Thursday was in there too. Friday was kind of hot but Saturday was REALLY hot. I’m so glad that we got it done on Saturday because today is REALLY REALLY hot and the humidity is rising. The floor is starting to sweat. I may have to jump in the pond soon.

We tried to take it easy and pace ourselves. When there’s no rain in the forecast, you can do that. But when it’s that hot there’s really no amount of pacing yourself that will make it an easy going romp.

Of course I believe I heard a rumor that another field got cut yesterday so there could me more hay to load tomorrow. I’ll be at work in my air conditioned office though.

…who don’t read this blog anyway.

A couple of days ago, actually, the day we were collecting the Ten Tons of Hay, my dad separated the cows from their calves. They needed to be weaned because all the cows are pregnant again and it’s just time anyway. Also there’s a bull running with the cows and as his two daughters get a bit older, well, it’s good to prevent inbreeding.

They were all mooing and mooing and mooing that evening while we were picking up the hay. And they didn’t stop when we quit for the night. I fell asleep listening to them moo. I woke up around 2, 3, and 4 am to the sound of mooing. They aren’t like mellow normal moos either. It sounds like we are torturing them.

I shot some video a couple days BEFORE we separated them when they were all worked up about something, but you’d have to quadruple this to get a sense of what we (and our poor neighbors) were subjected to on Tuesday night.

Mooing cows

Sorry neighbors. Really. I am.

On Tuesday we picked up about ten tons of hay. Ten tons. My dad cut it on Monday. He cut about the same amount of acreage as last time, in late may, when we only got six tons. At least it wasn’t as hot out this time.

When I got home from work my aunt and two of my uncles were loading a wagon while my dad continued to bale. I assembled dinner and went out to help around 6:00. Brian got home and joined us around 6:30. We loaded three wagons and took one down to the barn, turned off the tractor and discovered we’d lost the tractor key somewhere in the hay field. The tractor only needs the key to start, but not to run. We started to comb the field looking for it. We needed to get the wagon close enough to the barn to unload.

I headed back to borrow a metal detector from my grandpa. By the time we found it and found batteries for it, Brian had figured out a way to ‘hotwire’ the tractor. My dad was still out baling so we unloaded the first hay wagon. The light was just starting to fade as we started to unload the next but it was supposed to rain in the morning so we couldn’t really stop. Halfway through getting that load in the barn, we got word that my dad wanted us to come back out to the field and pick up the rest. Whatever we could get on wagons we could get under cover or tarp if it did decide to rain.

We all walked back up to the field where my dad was loading a wagon by himself, driving the tractor a few feet, jumping off, throwing some bales on the wagon, driving the tractor a few more feet and jumping off again to repeat the process. There was still a whole lot of hay left to pick up. We were soon to be out of light so we were in a hurry but all pretty exhausted, hungry, and thirsty. That last wagon got stacked super high to try to fit as much hay on it as possible. Luckily I didn’t have to try pass the bales up to the top because somehow I got the gift of tractor driving duty. We get finished until about 9:30 in darkness. I was really really ready for dinner. And a shower.

I haven’t mentioned yet that we have ‘foster horses’. It’s kind of hard to explain. It’s kind of like we’re boarding them for free because they still belong to someone else but we get to use them… for something. But they’re draft horses & I never learned how to hook up that whole crazy rigging system. I don’t know what I’d do with them if I learned. Go grocery shopping? I kind of wish they were saddle broken because I do sometimes miss riding.

Luna & Dixie

The farrier came out yesterday to trim their hooves. Dixie looked like she needed it pretty bad & Luna’s hooves were in good shape but best to keep it that way.

We used to have these stocks that belonged to my aunt back when she was a farrier. Basically stocks are supposed to help you secure a large and/or cranky horse and make it easier to get their feet trimmed up.They were kind of falling apart and I guess my dad gave them to the guy who owns the horses. He fixed them up and brought them back over here with the horses.

Dixie is unphased the whole hoof care and being in the stocks process

The farrier suggested that we should chain the stocks to a tree. Just in case. Which turned out to be a good plan.

Dixie went in and out, got her hooves trimmed up and was mostly unphased by the whole process.

Apparently Luna is fairly young and isn’t really even used to a regular stall. She’s been in a box stall most of her life. She’s had her hooves taken care of by some Amish people who don’t use crazy contraptions like this. She didn’t like it at all.

Some early complaining

The first hoof gets done without much trouble

But then…

Luna has a freakout and manages to thrash herself up and over the front bar with her right foot still tied to the post. I thought she was going to hurt herself.

They extract her from her tangle

And try to end on a positive note so she won’t have traumatic memories of being in the stocks. They’ll finish her feet another day.

There’s nothing less rational than a panicked horse. They’ll kill themselves trying to get away from a posted sign if the light hits it right.

We put about six tons of hay in the barn on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. Most of the time my dad gets the hay in the barn with an army of retired relatives. When they were passing child labor laws back in the day, it’s a good thing they didn’t pass any senior labor laws.

I took the easy job and drove the tractor on the first day. Why should a 36 year old break a sweat when there are plenty of 60+ age people around to do the heavy lifting in a high heat environment. I mean… I have a full time job. I work my fingers to the bone typing on a keyboard for 7-10 hours a day. They’re retired. What do they do all day? Build stone walls? Garden? Put up fences? On day two I let my aunt drive. The ‘new’ tractor is so nice. The brakes work and everything.

Right now you’re asking yourself. How do I get in on this low cost labor source?

Step one: Invite your relatives over to dinner. It helps to have served them a few good meals in the past. Don’t mention the hay.

Step two: Cut lots and lots of hay and bale it so it’ll be ready when they arrive, or gather whatever materials you need for your labor intensive project, perhaps order a few pallets of sod.

Step three: When they arrive, you do the bait and switch. “Oh no,” you say. “I just cut all this hay and it looks like it’s going to rain soon. It will all be ruined if we don’t get it in the barn asap. We can eat this delicious dinner as soon as we’re done.”

Step four: When the work is done be sure to serve enough drinks that they either won’t remember or will remember the event fondly. You don’t want to deplete this wonderful resource.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted any cow stuff. They seem to be pretty happy that spring is on the way. Not so happy about the road construction crew putting a water line in on our road. Actually I’m still not happy about that either. We’re going to have to pay for it forever, and we don’t even need it. I’m part of a very very small minority in Marbletown that didn’t want the water.

Anyway.

Cows… and bulls.