A Homestead Daughter

• Thursday, July 17, 2008 - Cows

On behalf of the milkers, I'd like to introduce to you all our cows: Buttercup is our oldest cow. She came on to our farm straight off the dairy and as wild as a bull. I will never forget when the trailer pulled up with her on it, and there were these wild sounds coming from inside, as well as her kicking the insides of the trailer. She has done her share of dragging Andrew through the mud, chasing kids through the pasture, kicking the milk bucket and all kinds of other naughty things that a good cow should not do. It was because of her that Dad designed and built our first milking stanchion for Andrew (although it sill took 2 or 3 ropes to completely confine her). Thankfully, she has completely come around, giving up her old ways, and is now the 'good one' out there. She has been hand milked and pet enough to know that it is not our intention to harm her. The smallest kids have even ridden her! Buttercup is definitely the 'thinker'. You can just tell when you walk by and she gives you that glazed over stare—like she's thinking up their next escape plan. Susan (Black-eyed Susan) also came straight from the dairy and had this wicked problem of fainting on her milker when she was getting used to being hand milked. She would pant and sweat as she was tied and, eventually, could faint dead weight. Andrew got good at getting out of the way quickly, and saving the milk, but it sure was a pain. Sometimes she would lay there for minutes before realizing that she was OK and getting back up. She has come a long way, and the kids have been telling me recently that 'her eyes no longer stick out' (hence her name). She can be pet now, too, whereas she was untouchable when she first arrived here. These are old cows.. they just haven't been handled all their life, so it was scary. They're used to it now, though, and Susan adores the younger kids around milking time. Theresa is her milker and the younger kids take turns brushing the flies off to keep her still. She loves the attention, but she's partial to Michael. Lily was born on our farm (her mother came with Buttercup, but has since passed away). Even though she was born on our farm and experienced a lot of handling as a calf, she was one of our most skiddish cows, due to the fact that we left her on her mom. We had a heck of a time weaning her; she simply did not want to give it up and would do anything for a drink of her Mom's good milk. We tried putting a nose ring on her with spikes on the end, so that nursing would bother her mom and cause her to kick. Unfortunately, she had a very patient mother who spoiled her to death and let her nurse even though it hurt. She came into milk for the first time this spring with the arrival of her first baby, Buddy. She was rather wild with her first milkings and shared Susan's fainting problem for awhile. We chose to bucket-raise Buddy since Lily seemed like a very confused first-time mother. She's pet-able now too, but is very partial to Andrew as a milker. Paddy is our friendliest cow. We got her as a baby when we got Susan and she was also bucket raised by peoples' hands, so that seemed to make her so friendly. This poor confused cow spent the first several months of her life in a pen with sheep and male goats. Needless to say, she developed a taste for lanolin and licked our poor sheep bald. She was bullied by the horned goats at first, as she was very little and her horns hadn't come in yet. When the horn buds arrived, along with a growth spurt, the goats no longer challenged her and she got a cockiness about her... A neighbor commented that she was going to be one confused cow by her upbringing, but she seems fine.  She's the first cow that we left horns on and we are hoping we don't regret that decision. When we finally admitted her to the herd of cows, Lily became terribly selfish of the attention that the older cows showed her, and has never been fond of poor Paddy since. Thankfully, Buttercup looks out for her like a good 'Auntie'. We have a young bull coming this week to 'do his job' with the girls. We just found out that he got missed in the dehorning and still has his horns too. Ugh. That's not really what we wanted. He is going into the freezer as soon as he does his work, and hopefully not before...

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• Wednesday, May 21, 2008 - Buddy's Blue Bucket

Our Big, Baby, Bull, Buddy's, Blue Bucket Everyone in this household is used to the familiar slam of the front door followed by "MILK!" every morning and night from our cow and/or goat milkers. Now a new phrase has been added to the list; "Can I have Buddy's Bucket?" This proceeds the "MILK!" one. Whoever is in the kitchen will bend over and pick up the little blue bucket from it's place under the counter and give it to Andrew at the front door. To us, it's a little blue bucket with a rubber nipple on one end. To Buddy, it's; "Momma!"  When he sees Andrew crossing the yard with this little blue bucket, he starts dancing around his pen for joy. Racing from corner to corner, he kicks, jumps and hops until Andrew gets closer to the pen. This is a very dangerous time because he's bound to eat anything that comes through the fence. When Andrew gets tired of teasing poor Buddy, he's hooks the bucket inside his pen and lets him suck the bijeebers out of it, (well the milk anyway). He can usually down a half gallon in ten minutes. Not bad, considering you have to take it suck by suck. He's almost as good as our top hand milkers.   Afterwards, he always stands there and demands that there wasn't enough. It's amazing the excuses he comes up with to convince Andrew that he needs more. Such as; "the cat drank most of it," "I inhaled half of it through my nose, so I didn't get to taste it," "the bucket has a hole in it," "I think I'm getting dehydrated in this 50 degree heat," and; "I have company coming this weekend and need to put some aside for them." (Of course bulls can't talk, you can just tell by his expression. )

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• Saturday, May 10, 2008 - Got Cats?

We do... Our oldest (and very pregnant) mama demanded to be let in the house yesterday and the girls didn't hesitate to oblige her. She knows how to do the whole birthin' thing. Lizzy tried to bring her in a few days ago and she wasn't too happy. It wasn't her time yet. I was in my room and heard Theresa calling Annie: "She's going to have them soon, Annie!!" Annie: "Why?" Theresa: "Cause her water just broke.... on me." Then, I hear Andrew asking Mom how much pizza he can have.  Mom answers, "You can have as much as you want." With that the cat gives a meow/groan (if you've ever heard a cat giving birth you'd know what I'm talking about), and Theresa cried: "I see it!" The next thing I heard was Andrew's groan, and "never mind...". It was visible a moment later. Annie's excitement died in her mouth as she declared that Lizzy's cat gave birth to a lizard. Not really. I guess it was just an ugly baby. Annie pointed out the long tail to Theresa when they were deciding if it was cute or not. "See? It's tail is like two inches long! ...So is it's extension cord." Sigh. After tons of litters of kittens and millions of baby farm animals, she still can't remember what a umbilical cord is! What am I going to do with that girl...? Or all those cats?!    Anyone want one? Or two?? Oh, and we also have a litter of rabbits arriving soon, (due yesterday). Anyone up for long ears?

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• Tuesday, May 6, 2008 - The Morning the Cows turned up Missing...

Our cows annually break out once a year during fly season. This is a story I wrote about last year's breakout. (Note: they'll have to swim a moat if they want to this year!!) The Morning the Cows turned up Missing... "I don't know where the cows are, and now I'm not so sure I know where we are." The words are spoken in low, hushed tones as if to not awaken the woods around us. My sister and I gathered closer around the speaker, our brother. The blazing sun brought the temperatures high above one hundred degrees. The insects were the size of dollar coins and in swarms so thick you couldn't see through them. They drew blood mercilessly on everything that breathed. We had to fight animals that had threatened our lives.. with knives. Luckily, we won and walked away with our only prize—our life. We hunted down food in the wilderness, climbed mountains cliffs and fought through raging rivers. For our source of direction, we followed the stars. We made our own clothes with the ferns that blocked our path and blinded us from all sense of direction. We'd been gone thousands of ... well, more then we could keep track of .... seconds. Yes, waking up to reality from a call on the walkie-talkie I realized we'd only been gone an hour or so. Rising the instrument of communication to my mouth, I answered the question: "We're at the back northeast corner of our land, and no—no signs of the cows yet. Andrew says we're heading in." So, in reality, we were dripping sweat, but the temperature was only around 70. We did climb steep ravine edges and had to jump a creek. The bugs were bad so we did make silly looking fern hats to keep the bugs and sun off. I did pluck a few evergreen berries when I was hungry but spat them out because they were so bitter. Andrew was keeping an eye on the sun and where our shadows landed. As far as the life-threatening animals... the ticks were pretty vicious. Andrew had gotten sick of them and started cutting them in half with his knife. Suddenly, I glanced down. "Andrew, cow hoof prints!" I cried. "You both walked right over them," I continued to a doubtful looking Andrew and a surprised Theresa, who still wore her silly fern hat—though it was slipping sadly over her eyes.     "Are you sure?" Andrew asked, kneeling beside the pointed-out prints and pulling back underbrush.     "Yes, see the split hoof?" I answered. Jumping up I pulled my walkie-talkie out of its place at my pocket and rang home. I made contact almost immediately. "We've found prints!" I told Dad.     "But we've been all over around here," Andrew countered. "They're not here."     "We have to follow these," I pointed out.     "They're going this way," Theresa said, pointing south.     "You see," Andrew defended himself. "I didn't miss the prints. I was leading us is the right way all along."  He tossed a smug smile at us and we started walking again, though the prints disappeared shortly after and Andrew insisted on heading home.      I called in and told Dad that we were heading home unsuccessful.     "I thought you had just found their tracks," he answered.     "Yes, but Andrew says we've seen these before and we've been all over in here, so we're coming in for lunch."     "Okay, where are you?"     "Just crossing the fence in back." I jumped the wire and stumbled into the brightness of the closely-eaten 30 acre pasture. Looking up, I could see the house only a half-mile up. Sigh. Fantasy may be more exciting, but it is nice to have a place to go to when you get hungry, I thought.    So, to finish off the tale, we found 3 of the 4 missing cows in the back of someone's pasture. We'd spotted them from the road while driving in the van. I think I gave Theresa, who was sitting in front of me, a near heart-attack at my sudden outcry of "I SEE THEM!!!". We searched the whole area for cow #4 but found nothing. The foliage was so thick you couldn't see more then 3 ft. into the woods. After a while, we brought the other cows home through the back fence again (we should just make it a revolving door at this point!). It was about 5pm and the cows hadn't been milked yet, so Andrew hurried to it. The next day we finally found the fourth cow's remains. Yes, she'd died, probably from the stress of it all. While we were disappointed, we weren't surprised because she had been very skinny and sickly before we bought her, and we really hadn't expected her to live as long as she had. Though, she'd paid herself off in the milk she'd produced in the few months we'd owned her. So ended the two day cow marathon.

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