Violet on Grass

Yesterday, I just couldn't stand it, and I gave Violet a very small section of grass. This is usual, actually, but the section was VERY small. I'm giving her a little at a time under the old apple trees. I want to graze her in the orchard ASAP, and she has to walk past this patch of grass to get to the orchard. If the grass there is ready to graze, she can be extremely difficult to move forward.

The hard part of surrendering now is the management difficulties. We are not ready to milk two times a day- not until ballet is over for summer- so we do not want to wean the calves. The calves are also still small enough that keeping them in electric fence will be trying at best. This means I let Violet graze a few hours, then move her back with the calves. Today, I put her with the calves long enough for them to nurse, then moved her back to grass. Tomorrow is a really crazy activity day, so she'll stay in the paddock with the calves all day. I figure she'll protest a lot, but it's worth it to actually have her on grass almost every day.

I read in another blog how some people dole grass out slowly when the grass isn't coming on strong. This is definitely our situation, so maybe this will be good for the pasture, too. I'll still cut her grass from the lawn or from around the trees so she has something green on the days I need to leave her in the paddock. Mostly, it was lovely to see her rumen looking filled up when I put her with the calves; that's good for all of us.

Due dates and bovines

You know, the new cow shed still looks pretty much like this:

It is further along, but not much. The big difference is that there is snow everywhere. When it snowed a couple of weeks after this picture was taken, we decided for our safety, we would make due with the current shed. We thought we wouldn't have a calf until April, which would mean probably at least a couple of windows to roof the new shed without the slipperiness of snow.

The problem with the old shed is that it gets wet, especially in the spring. We were building this one with the intention of not having another calf confined in the wet shed. We even filled half of that shed with chickens, so there isn't really all that much room in it at this point for a couple of cows.

Last week, as I followed Violet out of the paddock, I noticed her nethers looked extra big and swollen. I glanced at her bag, but it looked completely flaccid. When I said something to Jason, he reminded me that we weren't expecting a calf until April.

Then, my dear friend was visiting from Colorado, and she said something about the view of Violet from the rear, and I mentioned how Violet isn't even bagging up (swelling associated with milk production). I glanced again at said bag, and I thought it looked more swollen than a couple of days before.

Monday morning, Jason said, "Did we get the dates wrong?" as he followed Violet out of the paddock.

We double checked and sure enough that April calf is due March 15. There's still a lot of snow on the ground. There is no chance of roofing and siding that new shed in the next week. And maybe, the calf really won't come until April; the last two calves were born pretty far from the due dates. But Violet sure looks ready. All her girth has settled closer to the ground. She's cut way back on how much she's eating. She just wants someone to stand beside her and brush her. Then there's all that swelling.

I'll keep you informed!

The Lone Cow

While I know no cow probably wants to live alone, Violet is handling it pretty well at the moment. I am not seeing any stereotypies to indicate otherwise. We are helping all we can by sticking pretty closely to a schedule that she can count on.

I am hopeful that the new cow shed will be finished by the end of December. This should stay drier in the spring and there is room enough for a couple of cows and a calf or two. For the moment, she's spending all day, every day outside. There's was one really miserable day of weather when we should have let her in the milking area, and if we have more weather like that, she'll definitely have access.

Her milk production dropped by a half gallon between one day and the next about three weeks ago and has not come back up. I'm not sure why. Our plan is to dry her off at the end of January or when we get less than a gallon of milk a day consistently. I am worried that our hay is not as good this year, or something, but it looks okay to my inexperienced eye. She looks healthy, so I am just watching.

We have a nice relationship now. Maybe some people make cows comfortable more easily or maybe some cows are more easily comforted, but it took two solid years for me to feel good about my cow. Now that we're at this place, I think everyone should get to interact with cows regularly. I bet they're even better for your health than a dog.

Eating with Gusto

Last November, Violet had a little bull calf. He was much prettier than Chappy, aka Clover, ever was. He was also less shy of people. Still, the fate of male calves in a setup like ours is pretty much the same- he was table bound.

Gusto was quite different from Chappy. He would nurse when I was milking, for example, which seemed pretty great at first. Violet would let down her milk much more vigorously than when I was just milking. Also, he wasn't taking even half the milk, so we had plenty. As he got bigger, he took more of the milk, and we did begin separating him the same way we had done Chappy. He was also harder on Violet than Chappy had been; her teats kept getting little scrapes and cuts from his nursing. Finally, we decided to wean him.

What we learned at that point is that Violet is a much easier milk cow when she does not have a nursing calf. She relaxes more, and milking is a pleasanter task. We got a surprising amount of milk once we weaned the calf and more cream. There are definite advantages to weaning a calf instead of waiting for Violet to do it.

Another thing I learned from Gusto is that banding a calf requires a little more focus on the task at hand. It seems that even though I banded him, I still had a little bull calf. This was not much of a problem until he got to be about ten months old and wanted very much for Jason to stay clear of the pasture. The braggadocio of a bull calf is comical until you remember that he outweighs you by a few hundred pounds.

That means we now have beef in the freezer and this on the stove. Because we now own a pressure canner, it makes sense to get the bones all turned into broth and out of the freezer. I'm giddy! Even my canning book calls broth a convenience food.

I'll simmer these for a couple of days, then can them in pint jars, and I'll have a beautiful ingredient for pretty much any sauce or soup.

This also all means Violet is alone again. I really want her to have another cow all the time, but at the moment, we cannot make that happen. The good news is that she did not exhibit as much stress as she did when we killed Chappy. Her next calf is due in April, and if that one is a heifer, we'll keep her to train into a milk cow.

How's Violet?

We did get Violet inseminated In January, so we should have a calf right around my dear friend's birthday in October. Maybe we'll name the baby after her.

So, something funny that happened within days of the insemination is that our very exciting cow got very boring, but in a good way. From January until last week, she was easy to milk, she was reliably adjusted to our routine, she stood extremely still during milking, she gave me cues before she peed or pooped so I had more of a chance to get out of the way. Really, just the way you idealists might imagine milking a cow might be.

About two months ago, Chappy came into heat for the first time. What do you know about cows in heat? Well, if you don't want to know, skip this paragraph and maybe the next one. When in heat, cows mount other cows or they are mounted; it's called standing heat. Having a herd of only two cows means my dear, sweet little calf was mounting her mother. It means that she would nurse and then try to mount her mother. It means her mother got pretty darn tired of that nonsense and quit letting her nurse. The really fun part is that this recurs every three weeks. The last time Chappy was in heat, we took pity on Violet, and locked Chappy up for the day.

Every three weeks, Violet quits letting Chappy nurse, then after a couple of days she lets her nurse a little. We can tell when we milk whether Chappy nursed the day before. This past week, I'm not sure if she's nursed at all.

That's because our dear cows are now back on grass, and we have a new little excitement at milking time. Violet would much rather be on pasture than wait twenty more minutes while I'll milk her. We only had to force the issue one morning, but her attitude was so reminiscent of her pre-pregnancy behavior, that I'm sure glad we got her inseminated.

How's that cow?

Things are pretty quiet these days, and I think we're beginning to be in the "enjoy" part of our cow relationship. Of course, we're also in the "reality striking" phase as well.

In the mornings, it is quite dark and we have to rouse dear Violet to get her chained up to milk. I guess this isn't perfect, but it's actually easier than what we were doing before. It does mean we have to get all the poo out of the barn after she's chained and before I kneel to milk. I have only been reduced to tears one morning as I pondered my poop covered knees in the faint blue glow of the LED tent light we're using in the barn right now. It was the very next morning that we began taking a flashlight with us to help find ALL the poo, even if it had straw thrown over it.

Jason guesses that milking takes me about 15 minutes now. I try not to think about time, but that's contrary to my nature, so I'm glad he's kind of keeping track. One perk is that I have strong forearms now. If you milk a cow 15 minutes every morning, your arms DO change. I will still stop in amazement when I go to scratch a mosquito bite on my arm; I have a flash of, "Is that my arm?"

Clover (known as Chappy to the over 30 set in our house) is getting friendlier. This is nice because that makes us feel more confident that we can handle an emergency should one arise. On the other hand, it will make killing her more difficult. And we are beefing her in the summer or fall of 2012.

Violet understands our routine now and is much easier to handle as she finds us less inscrutable. She walks fairly placidly to her pasture in the morning and fairly trots to the barn in the evening. The pasture is already better, and she grazes happily most of the morning and the early evening. She eats all her hay in the night when she has only limited access to pasture she does not really like. It turns out that cows will mostly not eat the grass in the lanes, the pathways that we use to move them from place to another. And her lane is all that's available at night because she wants to be able to be close to her calf who is locked in a pen in the barn.

We figured out that if we do not let the calf nurse before we walk them to their new pasture in the mornings, Chappy follows along very closely. This makes the morning operation MUCH smoother. Also, Chappy is quite clear on "What we do in the evening", so she makes for the barn and her pen in the evening with an ease we never would have predicted. It's nice to have our routine supporting us.

Right now, Violet is grazing just outside the back door again, and I like glancing up to see her there. She looks hopefully at us if we walk out. Jason has been bringing soft melons and overgrown squashes from work, and Violet thinks we're especially nice if we show up with one for her. I think we're all beginning to enjoy one another.

Life With Cow

I'd love to put more pictures on, and I will, but not today.

We made a calf pen last week after three days of NO MILK! It is very strange to have a cow you are currently milking and then have to buy milk at the grocery store. The only stranger thing might be mob stocking your pasture with a cow and a lawn mower (more on that later). So, Jason and I said farewell to our company, got our water working (Thanks, Paul!), and built a calf pen.

When building a calf pen, you might think of a sweet little calf, with those lovely gentle eyes, and buttery coat. You might be imagining tucking that dear little calf in, almost as if you were tucking a wee baby into her bed. If your thoughts are headed that way, your calf WILL get out and drink her fill of that perfectly good milk her mother keeps just the right temperature just for her.

Our first attempts at separating Clover from her mother proved that point.

So on attempt number three, after we re-enforced the barn wall, the pen wall, the gate, and the locking mechanism (two chains and a board dropped across), we got a full bucket of milk. Violet and Clover are not pleased with our designs, and we have a some exciting moments morning and evening as we get them into the barn and Clover into her pen or as we're trying to milk Violet with her calf mewling pitifully. However, we know that if we're consistent, they'll finally accept the routine, because cows are creatures of habit.

We are also getting used to our early rising time. I guess we're creatures of habit, too. I have a very keen awareness of the already decreasing light, and I can see that it won't be too much longer before we need a lantern or something to attend us on our morning chores.

Fence moving is proving interesting as we try to find grass for Violet to eat. We would be in much better shape if we had mowed in May and more last summer, but that's not what happened. For this year, we're grazing her on any grass we can move her to without too much risk of her escaping. We've grazed her behind the barn and along the driveway; she's grazing immediately behind the house right now. If we could figure out a good way to graze her around the fruit trees, we'd put her there next.

The hope is to let her graze a small spot for one or two days, and then to move her to a new spot. This is where the "mob stocking" comes into play. If the area is small enough and you put enough animals on it, they graze what they want and poop or trample on what they don't. The lawn mower makes up somewhat for the fact that we have only one cow whom we cannot reasonably put on a small enough area to call it mob stocking. Ideally, this time of the season, each grazing area should have 40 to 60 days to recuperate in between her visits. Unfortunately, we're having trouble giving things this much time. We just do not have very good grass at the moment, so she gets free access to hay.

Someone asked recently if I like having a cow. I am not in the enjoyment part of our relationship; it's too draining at the moment. As we walk to the barn each morning, I am playing out scenes of her menacing us with her horns and our reactions. Sometimes, it's so easy I feel giddy with relief. Then we have evenings and mornings like yesterday and today when Violet gets downright pushy about her calf or about her carrot. I've gotten much more pushy, too, so I think it will get better. I hit her with my stick last night and she straightened up and I slapped her this morning. I do not like that part.

It feels very strange to be rude to this animal that eats grass, utterly inedible to humans, and turns it into milk- a delight, a beautiful food readily made into so many delicious things. We just take this from her and her calf (who will also grace our table); it seems the least we could do is respect her and treat her gently.  On the other hand, when I have my body pressed close to her and she's swinging her horns around, I want very different behavior. I am nowhere close to her 800 pounds and I need a clear way to communicate "Knock it off!" to her. Many wise people told me, "Hit her and carry a stick." That's what I do. I hope it's not always this way.

The Milking Curve part 1

I would love to have pictures of what I'm writing about, but my hands are quite busy as I milk, so I hope your imagination is handy.

Early every morning, I get up, and a few minutes later Jason gets up. We put on dirty clothes and I make sure my hands are clean. I get a tub of warm water with a squirt of soap in it and the milk bucket. Jason grabs two carrots and as of today, the essential oil stuff to discourage flies. We put on shoes and wander down the driveway. We hope and wish that Violet will have Clover in the barn.

When we get to the field, we quickly scan for the cows, and if we don't see them, we make a mad dash through the gate, while trying to appear very calm and collected, and we lock Violet and Clover in the barn. That would be a good time for a happy dance.

What usually happens is we see Violet contentedly grazing with Clover acting up her calf-ness to the fullest. It's really adorable as she scampers and hightails her way around the pasture or rubs her head determinedly against anything (I guess new horns itch). We watch her for a minute, though not exactly in admiration. We are quietly and calmly making a plan for getting this rambunctious thing into the barn so her mother will stand placidly to be milked. I'll tell you something, Violet sure knows how to be un-placid.

This is the point in the morning when I'm glad there's no video camera. Jason pulls a carrot from his pocket and Violet pretty much follows him like a trained dog, or cow. Clover walks sweetly beside her mother right until her third or fourth rib is into the barn and then she makes a mad dash to scamper around the field again. Violet doesn't seem to mind for about ten seconds and then she turns around and walks halfway out of the barn. She gives a solicitous moo toward her offspring and Clover seems again like she's headed for the barn, but just as she reaches it, she cuts right and turns and careers around the pasture again.

Maybe we should laugh at this point, but at barely 6:00 am, it is not actually all that funny to be standing beside an anxious bovine mother.

Violet scampers after her child at some point. We scamper and wave sticks to try turn the wild thing back toward the barn. We stand still and see if she'll listen to her mother. We urge her mother back toward the barn hoping Clover will follow. And eventually, she does. We know there has to be a better way, but we don't know it yet.

What I See

This is borage, it rhymes with forage. The leaves are all prickly, even spiny along the underside of the main vein. I think some people eat the flowers and it has a medicinal use. I just think it's beautiful.

This is the push mower that was handed down to us from a friend who also got it from another person. It is an AWESOME mower that suddenly smokes a lot, hence the stark line in the grass. Maybe it doesn't like the oil I put in it, maybe I put too much. I must solve that problem.



These are sunflowers by the woodshed with morning glories around the base. I hope the morning glories climb the sunflowers. Wouldn't that be lovely?

This is one of the roses that we got for the kids. I look forward to seeing how the roses look.

This is a little cluster of pinks that I left in the middle of the yard. Have you read "Felicia and the Pot of Pinks"?

TOMATOES!!!!!!

One of the six trees that was felled. I am limbing them slowly and steadily.

A flagging tape from the surveyor. It's pegged to the ground.

These are the lupines I've tried to mow around. I think it worked. These are actually an invasive species. I wonder if Ms. Rumphius knew that.

This is our cow Violet who suddenly doesn't want us to touch her.

That's her calf laying in the field out in front. That's Violet eating the afterbirth.

These are the pine trees and apples before the pines were felled. And this is the same corner of the house minus the pine trees.