Farm Fresh Blog

In weather like this, feeding cows is the least pleasant chore on the farm. This is because it requires a 4Wheeler to slog through the mud to carry hay and an 80/20 mix of cottonseed meal to very, hungry cows who mob you like Christmas shoppers the day after Thanksgiving. I normally like to have Blue Heeler with me when I do this to keep the cows off me, but then I end up with a wet, muddy dog too, so lately I've just braved the mob alone. 

It's not ALL mud out there, it's just a sloshy, mud-pit by the gate and near the feeders. Because I feel sorry for the cows, I have lobbied (successfully!) for a new pole barn out there where the cows with calves can get in out of the winter weather. Unfortunately we will have to wait until next summer to build the darned thing. So . . .  the cows and I will just have to endure the mud for another winter.

Yesterday was a typical morning of feeding cows:

A cold, steady rain is falling. The cowponies hear the chain on the gate.  Mean Cowpony has taken the only open lean-to stall and pushed his buddy, Sweet Mustang Cowpony, out in the rain.  While he is dry and warm, Sweet Mustang Cowpony is standing as close to the porch as possible to stay dry.  His head is dry.  The rest of him is soaked.  I go into barn to start 4Wheeler.  Didn't cover it with a tarp and now the chickens have pooped all over it. Note that Other Half will have a fit if he sees that. Coax machine to life in the cold.  Load it with hay and move it to barn door.  Sweet Mustang carefully squeezes through barn door to pass 4Wheeler and stand by his warm, dry stall.  Move 4wheeler outside.  Still raining. Go back inside and let Sweet Mustang into his stall. Mean Cowpony comes out of lean-to to raid 4Wheeler. Slings hay off 4Wheeler into mud. I grab rake and run out of barn while screaming like a Fishmonger's Wife. Horse is mildly impressed and trots away from hay.  Does he go into his nice warm stall?  NO!  He dances around me like a soccer player to come back to hay.  Consider throwing rake at him.  Scream things at him in a language used only by police officers and sailors. (my Grandmother would be so ashamed of me!)  Horse finally meanders into barn. Feed horses.

Still raining.  Load 80/20 cottonseed meal onto 4Wheeler. Re-load hay.  Putt-putt out to cows and calves in roping arena. They gather at gate like Wal-Mart shoppers on Black Friday. Stop at gate. 4Wheeler makes a wake in the 8" deep water at gate. Grab chute panel beside gate to help steady myself as I climb off 4Wheeler which has now become a ship in muddy waters. Accidentally hit gas pedal on handlebar with my glove.  4Wheeler shoots out from underneath me and slams into gate.  Cows jump back.  I fall in mud. More cussing. Thank God that at least I was hanging onto chute panel and didn't fall face first in mud.

Climb back on 4Wheeler.  Put that Bad-Boy in Neutral!  Climb back off 4Wheeler. (carefully this time!) Open gate.  Cows are watching with great interest.  Not only is there the promise of food, but it is a Dinner Theater!  They can get a comedy show with their meal. Perhaps the Human will fall off the Machine again!  Wise Cow informs the rest of them that this is only funny if Human falls off Machine when Machine Filled with Food is INSIDE the arena.  Not funny if food is still outside.  Other cows bow to this wisdom.

Another calf was born.  This is a little bull calf.  He is cold and wet and shivering violently but seems to otherwise be healthy.  We have GOT to get a pole barn up for these new calves! Calf that was born in the cold rain last week is motoring around pasture and quite pleased with herself.  She has mastered the art of moving in the mud and showing everyone how fast she can run.  At least someone is having fun. Since birth she has known no other world than cold and wet, so she accepts it with good humor.  Looks like she will survive.

Unload feed as cows are pulling it off the 4Wheeler.  Finally get all the feeders filled. Little Bull Calf has wandered away from his mama and is headed for opened arena gate.  WHY???  He sees me coming at him and sloshes through mud faster as he heads toward open gate.  Again - WHY??!!!  Move out at an angle to close gate before he can reach it. I make it to gate before he does.  (HAHAHAHA!)  Almost fall in mud closing gate.  (He gets to say, "HAHAHAHAHA!")

Stalk back to 4Wheeler.  The seat is wet.  Use an empty bag to cover seat.  It is wet too.  Damn.  I still have to go by feed store for dog food. My hair is soaked, my down jacket is soaked, my new leather gloves are soaked, my ass is soaked, my boots are covered in mud, and I STILL have to go out in public. Hose the mud off my boots and head to feed store.

Walk in feed store.  Girl Behind Counter does not look in the least bit surprised to see me looking like a muddy, drowned rat. (That's almost sad . . . ) She asks about Other Half.  I show her phone pictures of him playing in snow with New Police Dog.  He is playing in the snow.  I am stuck in the mud.  He owes me.  He owes me big. 

Oh, I almost forgot!  Underneath the wet leather gloves is a really cool Vogt silver horseshoe ring. So maybe he DOES know that feeding cows in the mud is a Major Headache.  Yep, he probably knows that already.

Woman Logic
 
Other Half has only been gone for over a week and a half. In addition to juggling work chores and farm chores, there have also been the emotional ups and downs of dealing with The Enforcer's kidney failure.  This has led to me being an occasional Cranky Pants Bitchy Bear. Some days are better than others.  This is an account of one of the "others."

Go to bed early because I am attending a mandatory class that starts at 8 AM. Wake up at 1 AM because The Enforcer is throwing up.  Clean it up and go back to bed.  Phone rings at 4 AM.  Other Half is calling to wake me up so I can do my chores before I leave the house at 6 AM. Although I am happy to hear his voice, I am MOST UNHAPPY that his voice means I have to get out of bed, tromp out in the cold, and feed the animals.

Walk through laundry room and remember that I put ALL the towels in the washing machine the night before. I FORGOT TO PUT THEM IN THE DRYER. It is 5:05 AM and there is not a dry towel in the house.   Oh joy.  Put towels in dryer. Decide that SOMEHOW Other Half must be responsible for this. This is Woman Logic.  If things go bad, somehow, some way, some man MUST be responsible for it. Since Other Half is not home, it is easy to blame him for EVERYTHING that goes wrong around here now.

Consider calling him at 5:07 AM just to wake him  up and inform him that he has ruined my day because I now have a boob smeared with cold chicken grease and NO dry towels.  Decide against it. I don't have the time.

Take shower. Dry off with hand towel. (Little hand towel + Big Butt = Pissed Off Woman)
Walk into bedroom. Old Police Dog has stepped in dog poop outside and tracked it through the doggy door,through the house and into the bedroom.  Oh joy, joy, thrill, thrill.  Clean up floor.  Clean up paws. Clean up dog bed. The Enforcer throws up again.  Clean that up too. Consider throwing up myself.  Consider calling Other Half to wake him up and tell him that this is ALL HIS FAULT for leaving me for 3 weeks.  Decide against it.  Don't have the time.

Gather purse and race out door. Wonder if I smell like dog poop. Step out back gate and stumble in a hole the size of a moon crater that Briar has dug. Turn ankle.  Cuss.  Consider calling Other Half to wake him up and tell him that this is ALL HIS FAULT for leaving me for 3 weeks.  It is 6:30 AM.  Decide against it.

Get in truck and head toward the Big City. All goes well until I reach The City Before The Big City.  That's when the tail lights ahead of me just stop. Surely this couldn't be happening.  There are tail lights as far as the eye can see.  Was there another hurricane evacuation that no one told me about???  Yes, that must be it.  There must be a hurricane in February and everyone in Texas is moving north to Oklahoma.  Oh joy. I was going to be late.
All "The Powers That Be" in Homicide will be in this class, and I am going to be walking in late. (yes, I AM in Homicide too, but I am not one of the Powers That Be.  I am one of the people who play Twister over Dead people.  We have no power.) An HOUR AND A HALF later, I slink into class like a whipped dog. No one notices or cares. (YES!!!!  God DOES love me!)  By 11 AM I am asleep.  How do these people actually work on day shift?

Make it through class and head back home. Call Dear Friend and chit-chat with her all the way home. Thank God she has AT&T too or we would both run out of phone minutes the first week of every month. Give her every agonizing detail of my life of juggling chores and trying to keep The Enforcer alive.  She reciprocates with details of her life and I feel better.   (You see! Women don't have to SOLVE each other's problems, they just have to LISTEN to them! Then everyone feels better - especially the men who DONT have to hear the women in their lives gripe in detail about their problems!)

Get home to find that I have a package.  A package???  A PACKAGE???  For me???  It is from Other Half.  He has sent me a precious card, a beautiful ring (the right size!), chocolate, perfume, and a PAIR OF LEATHER WORK GLOVES!!!  Wooo hooo!

He calls later and I happily gush about my package.  He gets excited."Did the gloves fit?" he asks. (Not "Did the ring fit?")

I point that out.  He laughs and informs me that the gloves are more important than the ring because they are WORK gloves and I NEED them to work on the farm. Hmmmm . . . Man Logic. While it is true that my other gloves have holes and I DID need new gloves, it still gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling to know that I have a new horsehoe ring under those leather work gloves. 

And THAT, friends and neighbors, is Woman Logic.

The Blue Heeler is the quintessential Texas Farm Dog.  No ranch in the Lone Star State is complete without one.  Our Blue Heeler is an excellent ranch dog.  Not only does he work cows, he is a good guard dog.

  Unless this is your dog, you don't really want to see this running at you.

But he has so many other uses:

   Holding down the ottoman.

  Border Collie Aerobics Partner

  Supervisor of coffee and do-nut breaks

His most unusual job has been instructor of the English as a Second Language Class for New Police Dog.  You will recall that she came to us speaking only Czech.  She needed some tutorials in English.  Blue Heeler proved to be the perfect ESL instructor.

  "Welcome to English as a Second Language Class!"

   The teacher tells the class to "stay" and walks off.

  "Hey!  Whut did she say????"

  "Shsshh!  Just do what I do!"

 "Yeah!  Yeah!  I can DO that!"

"See, English is easy.  Now we've gotta work on getting you a Texas accent!"

People ask me all the time how I get good shots of my critters.  The answer is easy, "Take a LOT of them!"  I have a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT.  It's the same kind of camera that I use for work.  It takes great pictures but I also use to take great shots with my Kodak Easyshare too.  The camera is only half the equation.  The person BEHIND the camera is even more important.  Get a camera you are COMFORTABLE with and take it EVERYWHERE!  Trust me, mine goes everywhere with me.  I take lots and lots and lots of pictures.  Then I download them into my computer, edit them, and toss out a bunch.  Ultimately I'm left with a few good shots.  Digital photography is easy, fun, cheap, and keeps you off the streets.

Here are some shots I got when Blue Heeler and I were coming back from feeding the cows.  I had to edit his ears out of the pictures.

This hawk was just sitting there, minding his own business.  And then we came along.

  This is my one good shot. 

Then he noticed us and flew off.  I missed that shot because someone stuck his big blue head in the way!

   I wish this was in better focus, but it was a long way off.  The look on his face is priceless though.  He is just so offended!

"Freakin' paparazzi! Go away and get a life of your own!"

  This is Ice.  She is The Enforcer's sister.  Ice is concerned.  While The Enforcer seems to be doing better, he does still have bouts where he throws up.  Last night The Enforcer started throwing up again.  Over and over again.  Because he hates to be coddled, I lay in bed and waited for him to get finished before I got up.  (stone tile floors)  His sister became concerned and came to get me.  She put her front feet on the bed and said, "MOM!!!!  Kona is sick!  He needs some help!"

It was touching. 

There is an order to how things work on the farm.  It goes like this:

Feed livestock. Feed dogs. Feed me.  Because Briar spends all night with the sheep, I let her run and play with the dogs after breakfast because she wants to play rough games and the sheep do not.  She gets so enthralled with the lambs' games of chasing and mounting each other that she wants to play too.  This results in lots of running sheep.  Although she doesn't seem intent on harm, I don't want her running sheep.  Thus, I let the Border Collie and Blue Heeler get the zoom-zooms out of Briar before I deposit her tired little hiney back into the pasture. 

This morning there was a hitch in the plan.  Briar has learned to use the doggy door.  She went into the Laundry Room and stole a good long-sleeved white t-shirt.  Then she ran around the yard with my good shirt while her buddies chased her.  I happened to see a bright white shirt bouncing through the mud and became curious.  I called her.  She ran behind a rose bush with her prize.

Because it was muddy and I was sock-footed, I sent The Enforcer out in the mud to take the shirt away from her.  She growled at him.  Time just stopped.  The Earth stopped spinning.  The entire farm gasped.  Briar had growled at The Enforcer!  Was she crazy?  Cattle tremble at the mere sight of Blue Heeler, yet The Enforcer can glare at Blue Heeler and he pees on himself.  Who WAS this crazy woman who would GROWL at The Enforcer.  He stood over the puppy with the shirt in his mouth.  She wiggled her butt.  His eyebrows shot to the top of his head.  Rather than put her in the position where he would eat her, I called him back.  Then I put on my boots and tromped out in the mud myself.

"That's MY shirt!  Give it back!"

"Unhhh  uhhhhhhh!  Finders Keepers!!!"

I won.  She pouted.

It's about time to toss her back in the pasture with a bone. She is a delightful pup who is quite full of herself.  She is beginning to guard the pasture and it's quite comical to see her barking at something she believes is a threat. The sheep have totally accepted her now.  As soon as she grows up enough that she cannot fit through the squares in the cattle panels she will be able to be with them all the time.

This is what greeted me today when I went to take care of the cows.

No. We are not raising "low-rider" cattle.  She is standing in a mud-hole up to her knees to lick that syrup tub.

It's not all muddy though.  Fortunately this calf's mama found one of the dry spots to sun her calf.

The new calf is doing well.  I named her today.

   "Hi! My name is Mud!"

  "I am getting good at slopping through the mud. It's hard work."

  "But WELL worth the effort!"

  Look at our Sweet Tater Gator!  Girl Power!

This is what Other Half and New Police Dog are doing this month.  Our little Sweet Potato is having so much fun! She makes a convincing argument that a police dog doesn't have to be massive.  Since "Force = Mass x Acceleration" it stands to reason that a little dog running faster than a speeding bullet can hit just as hard as a slower moving, but larger dog.

  I LOVE this little dog! 

But it is very cold up there and I keep telling Other Half that we need to buy her a little sweater to keep her warm.  Perhaps something in pink?

Update on The Enforcer - the vet is coming to our house to give him IV fluid treatments to flush his kidneys.  He hates the treatments, but likes the boiled chicken he gets as payment for his trouble. His appetite is good. His eyes are bright.

Update on the New Calf - So far, so good.  I'll post pictures later.

    Things are looking better today!  After lounging around like a lazy-bones in a drug haze yesterday, I feel a lot better.  We are giving The Enforcer penicillin injections daily now.  Vet's Wife/Dear Old Friend is helping me.  I hold him and she pokes him. Then we pay him with boiled chicken.  The chicken is staying down now! Vet is coming over tonight to start him on fluids to flush his kidneys.  This should be interesting since I won't be there. (can't miss work two days in a row!) Vet and Wife are on their own.  (the sign of a good friend is someone who will come over even when you're not home to poke your snarly dog) 

Keep your fingers crossed that they love him as much tomorrow as they do before they try to give him fluids tonight!

Today is a "cocoon" day.  Woke up this morning and realized that I was officially "sick."  Felt it coming on yesterday.  Head felt like a football.  Eyes itched and burned.  Woke up this morning to find eyes almost swollen shut  (that was a pretty picture!  Exactly WHO was that troll in the mirror this morning?) and head was indeed, a football.  Border Collie let me sleep until 10 AM!  I don't think she had a choice.  I was awakened every 2 hours last night by animals and another storm roaring through.  Had to get up at 2:30 AM to settle sheep with more hay and make sure their area wasn't flooding.  I'm not sure what I planned to do with them if it WAS flooding because they won't fit it in the living room! 

The Enforcer is having a hard time keeping his food down.  He threw up his chicken and rice.  Retired Police Dog ate it.  At that hour of the morning I didn't even care.  It was one more thing I DIDN'T have to clean up.   Storm roared through at 4:30 AM.  Checked on stock again, shut top windows in barn, and fell back into bed.  Said a prayer that baby calf made it through the night.

Since Other Half's Son is doing Cow Duty today for me, I planned to sleep late.  Other Half called at 10 AM.  I informed him that Princess IS SICK.  He informed me that Princess needs to go on antibiotics just in case she has whatever The Enforcer has.  Hmmmmmm . . . Princess thinks that it's just the flu, BUT . . . it would be nice to know EXACTLY what The Enforcer has that is making him so sick. 

Decided then and there that today should be spent laying in bed under electric blanket with Border Collie and Enforcer.  Stumble out into mud to care for sheep, goats, and horses.  Feed dogs and coax Enforcer into eating more chicken.  Want to go to bed but cannot trust myself not to burn the house down while boiling chicken, so I figured it'd be a good time to update you guys on the latest happenings.  Thank you so much for all the emails of support and cyberhugs regarding Kona.  He is my Attila The Hun, but I love him and don't want to lose him.

Someone told me once that we are all on our own journey and must walk along our own path.  I think that's probably true. I am most thankful that at least for a little while, Kona's path walks beside mine.