Herman the Flying Cow!

Happy New Year! So far this year has been eventful. I have found out that Herman (my 9 month old steer) can fly! There has been some pretty cold nights here in the North Country that have guilted me into putting Herman in the barn during the deep freeze. I only have one empty stall for him to go into and it is not very big. When I put him in the pen, I fully assumed that he would push the gate down and get loose. Well, in the morning he was loose, but the gate was not disturbed. Nothing was disturbed about the pen walls which was odd because Herman is pretty big and I can't figure out how he managed to get over a tall, tight pen wall to be found standing in the barn aisle the next morning. I chalked it up to levitation. Luckily he didn't knock over any of the feed bins and gorge himself on grain (which would have been very bad). Instead he entertained himself with some hay I had on the milkstand and a tarp I had on the ground. I put him outside in his big pasture and went about my day.

The next morning he was standing in my flowerbed. Tom went out to put him back in his pasture and I went out to figure out how he had escaped. I deduced that he had walked over the snow and ice and stepped over where the fence was low. Tom shoveled some of the snow away from the edge of the fence and I made sure the fence was on and working. Herman stayed in his pasture the rest of the day and we assumed he would continue to stay there.

Yesterday I came home from work to find Herman in the dog pen. I was puzzled but didn't feel like thinking about it too hard. When Tom came home he explained that Herman had seen Tom plowing in his truck and decided he wanted to play. He jumped high in the air over the fence and ran circles around the plow truck, kicking and snorting for joy. Then he ran down the road and skidded on two legs around the corner to the barn. Tom caught Herman in the barn and put him in the dog pen (which is the tallest pen we have). He is there to stay until we can figure out a "flight proof" fencing situation.

Ode to Ethel the Cow

Skinny and lumpy from a life of toil,
Some say you should've been named "Olive Oil".
Your hips stuck out, you looked frail,
Life's not easy when attached to a milk pail.
We brought you home with Herman, the freebie.
You didn't like him and thought he was dweebie.
Your pasture was large with lots of green grass,
You ate so much grain it gave you a fat ass.
Herman came to join you and be your friend,
You found yourself loving him in the end.
Now you are up in the big pasture in the sky.
When I eat your ribs they're so tasty I could cry.
I hope your life with us was very nice,
I really appreciate your ultimate sacrifice.
I say all my animals are lucky to live on my farm.
I really love them and try to keep them from harm.
They have all the things they ever could need,
Their life's pretty great, I have to say, indeed.
So what if in the end they have to die,
I loved each one of them so much I could cry.
I treated them all with lots of care,
I know they are looking down from up above, somewhere.
Do cows have a heaven? This I don't know.
If I were a cow, that's where I would want to go.
So in lieu of not knowing about cow heaven and all it's worth,
I try my hardest to provide all my cows a sweet heaven on Earth.
This is my greatest responsibility, my solemn duty,
To appreciate my animals and treat them all as family.

The Great Downsizing!

Winter is a time of hibernation and rest. The animals, who don't go south, bulk up in the fall to get ready for sleeping through the winter. What a great concept! Unfortunately humans haven't evolved the ability to hibernate, even though some of us have tried. I like the winter because I like snow. It is pretty and fun. I don't like the only 6 hours of daylight so I do find myself winding down my activities when the sun goes down at 4pm. This goes also for barn activities. When it's cold and dark, doing chores just seems to loose its appeal for some reason. Thus in the fall I begin the process of finding homes for all my extra livestock.

Yesterday I found a home for Max and Mikey, my two buck goats. I don't like keeping male goats over the winter because I do not have very much room in the barn, and the male goat is the most stinky beast God every created! The stench permeates everything and it is oil based so you can't ever get it off of things.

I also found a home for six of my 21 hens. I hatched some chicks this year to add to my flock. Of course some of them where roosters which I found a home for pretty quickly. This fall a lady at work offered me "half a dozen" hens. She was getting rid of all of her chickens because her neighbor had been calling the dog warden on the chickens getting into her yard. The dog warden wasn't taking that seriously but the lady was not happy with the feud over her chickens. I went to her house and found that there were 12 hens and a rooster she was giving to me! That's a lot more than six! I took all of them and shoehorned them into my tiny, outhouse-sized chicken house. With the snow on the ground none of the chickens dare to venture outside. So all 21 chickens are stuck in the tiny house all day long, all winter long. It gets quite smelly and dirty in there in about 2 days after cleaning. Luckily a friend needs about six hens to fill out her flock. Coincidentally I am looking to give someone six hens. So by tomorrow night the chickens won't be so crowded after my friend comes and gets her new hens. I can't wait!

So this winter will hopefully be similar to the past ones. A nice, easy time of doing the chores until all heck breaks loose when all four female goats give birth in the spring. I will enjoy what I can until then.

Goats, Goats, and MORE GOATS!!!

Time for more goat pictures!

This is Mad Max. He will be the father of the kids out of Gloria, Lucy, and Matilda this year. He is a Toggenburg. Toggenburgs are a swiss breed of dairy goats that are identified by their very distinct gray coats with white accents.

This is Mikey. He is Max's friend and pen mate. He is also a Toggenburg. Both of these boys will be going to a new home in December where they will become pets.

Here are the lovely Lucy and Matilda. Lucy is the brown one and Matilda is the gray one. They are both very nice goats and will be having kids for the first time this spring.

I can't wait to have goat babies!!

Pictures of Mexico!

Here is one of the largest cenotes in Mexico. When the meteor struck in the Gulf of Mexico that killed the dinosaurs, it fractured the layers of limestone that make up the land that Mexico sits on. The result was that Mexico has no over-land rivers. All of the water flows just under the ground and pools up in sinkholes and caves all over the place. This cenote is a large sinkhole where tourists can go down to the water and even swim if they want to.


After visiting the cenote, we all went to Chichen Itza. It is one of the "New 7 Wonders of the World". When the Mayan civilization was at its peak, Chichen Itza was a great temple where worship of the various gods took place.


Here is the ballcourt where the Mayans would play to the death with their enemies. There were no wars in their culture. If one group had a beef to pick with another group they would challenge them to a game of ball. The losers would be sacrificed to the gods after the game was over. The game was played with a rubber ball and the players had to hit the ball with their hips or elbows into the hoop on top of the wall. The ballcourt at Chichen Itza is the largest of all Mayan ballcourts.


Here is a statue of a jaguar. Jaguars are sacred to the Mayans.


Here is a face that was on the corner of one of the buildings at Chichen Itza.



At the end of our stay in Mexico this year, we went to Xcaret. It is a Mexican theme park. There was an aquarium with sea turtles, dolphins, and manatees. There was an orchid farm. Tom and I swam through the underground caves. There was also a Mayan village. The picture is of some graves from the graveyard in the Mayan village. The graves were very ornate and each one told a story about the person buried there. At night there was a show in this huge outdoor amphitheater. The show was about the history of Mexico starting with the Mayans and ending with the Spanish colonization. The second half of the show was different dancing and songs from the different regions of Mexico. It was very cool!!



Here is the view from our room this year at the El Dorado Royale. It was very nice!

Update

I made a deal with myself when I started this blog to not be one of those loser bloggers who doesn't stay consistant with writing new posts. Well, that deal has gone out the window and then some. Oh well...
So here's the update: Winter is coming. There has been one big snow storm about two weeks ago with 12" of snow. All that snow melted by the time I got back from Mexico (yearly week-long vacation to the Riviera Maya -- will post pictures in a few minutes). It was nice and warmer when Tom and I returned from the tropics. Now it has started to snow again. We got one inch yesterday and the roads are getting sloppy. The roads aren't frozen but the snow and water on top of them is. Thank goodness for 4 wheel drive. I have been fighting ice off of the animals' water buckets in the mornings because it has been below freezing at night.

The cows are now both in the same pasture. I put Herman in with Ethel a few months ago. Ethel was not pleased at first but now she won't go anywhere without him. He will be sad when she leaves for the freezer in December. We are planning to keep Herman until next year if he continues to be a good boy. Tom is building the cows a nice shed for them to get out of the snow. He wants to use it for firewood if there aren't cows in it. It will be hard for me to not fill it up with goats before he can get firewood in it.

The goats are well. Breeding season has started. Three of the does came into heat this week. The bucks have been busy chasing them around. Only problem is that both bucks are still pretty short. They are growing, but I didn't realize that their particular breed grows slowly. Oh well, where there's a will, there's a way. I am not going to make my traditional mistake of thinking that the goats are not bred. Every year I wind up with a surprise because I get to thinking that this goat or that goat is not pregnant and is just fat. So this year, I am going to assume everyone is pregnant! I have one more goat to breed and I will be taking her to a farm to be with a buck of her breed. She is a Nubian (floppy-earred goat) and my bucks are Toggenburgs (straight-earred). Mixing the ears makes a pretty ugly combination so the Nubian will be going to a farm that has a Nubian buck. I have to remind myself to call the farm to make a blind date for my doe.

I now have lots and lots of chickens. I hatched three earlier in the year by letting two hens set on some eggs. The mean hen that always pecked me when I checked the eggs made a good mom and hatched the three chicks. The nice hen that never pecked me ate her chicks when they hatched! I raised the chicks in the garage and kept one of them. The other two were roosters and went to a person who needed a new rooster. I then put some eggs in the incubator. I put in 14 eggs. I candled them and 7 were fertile. Out of the 7, I had three hatched. The power went out a few days before they were supposed to hatched and killed the other four eggs. It's not good to have the temperature change right before they hatch. I raised those chicks in the garage as well. I just moved them out of the garage to the barnyard the other day. Now my existing flock, before I started hatching any chicks, was about eight hens and one rooster. My rooster died and so did some hens (it happens). Then a lady at work gave me what she said was going to be "half a dozen or so chickens". Well, that "half dozen" turned out to be 10 hens and one rooster! So now I am up to 22 chickens in my tiny hen house. I am hoping to give some away before it snows too much and they are all stuck inside together for 5 months.

Tom is doing well. He is busy as always. He has lots to do for people before it snows bigtime. He has been cutting trees like crazy.

All is well here!

Calf on a Leash

Last night, Tom took the calf for a walk. The calf is no longer the cuddly, baby-cow-eyes, little baby. He is a big boy now. All that goat milk is doing his body good. Suffice to say the calf is not a very easy thing to walk on a leash. Tom went in the pen with the calf and got his halter on. Then Tom opened the gate. The calf bolted out of the gate in a flash that would make a Derby horse proud. Tom was inside the pen as the calf bolted to the outside of the pen. As the calf spent out the rope he was on he jerked Tom into the gate. Luckily Tom carries a chainsaw around all day and he was able to pull on the rope and get the calf stopped quick. The calf spun around when he reached the end of the rope and landed on the ground with legs out in every direction. He recovered quickly, lept up and ran to the end of the rope again. After hitting the ground two more times he figured out that he needed to stop running to the end of his rope.

Tom took the calf over to Ethel, the older Jersey heifer. Ethel looked through the fence at the little calf and knew that he was one of her kind. They haven't seen each other in a few months because the calf has been in the goat pen behind the barn and Ethel has been in the cow pasture. Ethel wanted to get closer to the calf but didn't dare go near the electric fence. She snorted and kicked dirt up over her back to show her disgust with not being able to get near the calf. The calf and Tom walked around the outside of Ethel's pasture with Ethel following on the inside of her fence. After a few minutes Tom took the calf back to his pen and let him get the rest of his dinner.