Doing it with (a) Stile...

At last,
I have my very own stile
for crossing
the aforementioned
(and feared)
electric fence!
I just love this stile!

Where did this come from?

Born today, a little miracle - but a very odd one on this farm!
Yes, I know recessive genes manifest themselves occasionally - but I have never seen a calf like this on our farm in 30 years of breeding! Maybe it's Shorthorn? That's the only Non-Red semen we have ever used to AI our Hereford herd. And usually that appears as just an odd spot of white on the legs of the normal Hereford markings. Even odder, I did NOT AI cows last summer - we let our bulls do things the way nature intended. I thought both our bulls were full-blooded (or nearly so) polled Hereford. What do you think is going on here? Well, at least this little one will be easy to spot when his mama has hidden him out in the pasture - and doesn't remember where she put him!

Udderly Easy

This is a long-overdue account of the new milking aid we purchased in January. An article in a farm journal made us aware of this wonderful little tool. It was origianlly designed to help gather colostrum from mares who wouldn't nurse their foals - or for foals who couldn't nurse. But in typical farmer fashion, we try to see more than one use for every implement. I don't think it was ever intended for dairy cows, but it is absolutlely great for milking dairy goats.
Since I have arthritis in my thumbs, hand-milking was not so easy some mornings. With this device, all I need to do is squeeze the handle a few times to start and maintain the suction, and the milk flows quickly into an attached quart bottle. What's even nicer is that the milk stays very clean - no goat hair or bits of hay or insects dropping into the fresh milk as it often did with an open pail. I just unscrew the full bottle from the device, cap it, and take it in to the house for pastuerizing and chilling. The device is called Udderly E-Z. According to the literature, it is actually gentler on the doe than hand milking. None of my does complained a bit while I used it. And it certainly was gentler on ME! Here is a photo of the morning's milk - can you tell which bottle has the colostrum?

Ridiculous!

Ok, I know snow in April is an oddity. It might be expected, or even desired in some places (ski resorts, for instance). But to have three inches of this crystaline precipitation pile up over the new ryegrass seed in my freshly-tilled garden plot on April 14th is RIDICULOUS! Here is a photo of my garden at 2:00 pm on Saturday. The next photo is just an hour later! And it is still coming down - what I would call heavy snow. I guess I should just throw out the calendar and let Mother Nature continue to dictate, willy-nilly, when spring (i.e. planting time) actually arrives in northern Indiana. After 30 years of trying to understand her, cajole her, appease her, bend her to our will, you would think I would know better than to try to out-guess her. Oh, well, if life gives you snow, make snowcones!

Do fence me in!

Since it is still too wet and too cold to put corn or bean seed in their fields, we have turned our attention to our fences. The last time we built fence, I was a newlywed, nearly 30 years ago. We use all high-tensile electric fence around our pastures and lots. In the long run, it is easier and cheaper to maintain this type of fence, and when the charger is working correctly, the livestock - including my wiley goats, respect it. Me, I fear electricity, but I have only a rudimentary understanding of it (and a great repect for it), so my husband takes care of the switches and the circuits and the volt-meter testing. I just make sure the chargers are turned OFF before I do any fence work.
This week, we purchased 50 new fiberglass posts and special stainless steel "clips" that fasten the wires to the posts. This is a new system of fencing that we could easily incorporate into our existing fence wires. We un-clipped the hi-tens. wires from the old splintered fiberglass posts and pulled the old posts. Then we drove in the shiny white 2/3" diameter posts into the soft ground. Next, we slid 4 new clips onto the post and then slid the hi-tens. wires into the clips. Voila! revitalized fence!
We set 45 new posts (that includes installing 180 clips) and we put them along the roadside - we always want our neighbors to appreciate our efforts. It really does look a lot better, but more importantly, it should make for a more secure enclosure - and with our animals, keeping them securely enclosed is an ongoing challenge. Now, if these post last 30 more years, someone else in the NEXT generation will be replacing them in 2037!

Cozy Pursuits

March went out like a lamb here, with summery weather - including a few thunderstorms. Unfortunately, there was enough rain combined with the snow melt to fill our basement with 8 inches of water. We have tried to waterproof everything down there, but this time, the water got deep enough to actually float some of the plastic tubs - which caused them to turn sideways, and then fill with water. It has been great fun to sort through the soggy stuff for yet one more time. Ironically, the guy with the trencher/backhoe was going to come fix the boken tile (the cause of our flood) one day BEFORE this storm, but he was worried that it might be too wet! Ah, well.
Now, April has arrived and brought winter back with her. We may even see snow flurries this week. I can't even think about all the fruit tree blossoms that may suffer, but I am not up to getting out of bed at 2:00 am to light smudge pots. I think it's early enough that the trees will try to blossom again. I'm too tired to fight with Mother Nature these days - she always wins, anyway!
I've been doing some sewing - while my sister-in-law was visiting last month, I think she infected me with a quilting bug. She does absolutely beautiful things with tiny pieces of fabric. I have daughters who are very capable quilters, too, but I never caught the bug from them. Maybe my resistance was low in March. Or maybe this cold snap, which is keeping me out of the garden, out of the yard, and out of the farm fields, is making me pursue cozier activities. Though I'm just learning, I feel rather proud of the small project I'm working on right now. So, indulge me and let me brag a bit here.