Summer Solstice!

Tryin' to take a nap here, quit pestering me! :)

Time is flying by--its officially summer now!
We had more storms go through the past couple of days, we got 1 1/2" of rain that came down hard and fast.
Everything is growing! The chicks, Nessa, turkeys, kittens and the garden! We have one green tomato and lots and lots of blooms! A few zucchini are almost ready to pick as well. Everything else has small produce on it and lots of blooms as well. Now if the hail will stay away....!!



I planted the rose outside that Patrick gave me for Valentines' Day and it's blooming again. So pretty!

Blogger isn't letting me answer comments (could be operator error!!) HA But for those asking, here are details and more photos of the chicken (poultry) tractor from my August 2010 post: http://http://onecowco.blogspot.com/2010/08/chicken-tractor-pics.html

The last photo is when we got the turkeys. They have grown alot in just 5 weeks! They should be ready late August/early September.

Good Cow, Bad Cow, Good Cow!

Nessa messing with the Peach Tree in the pasture area @ 3 weeks old.
Today started off early for me with Anna and Nessa having moo-ing fits. (I'm sure the neighbors loved me.....yikes!)
Last night at milking time, Anna was fidgety, fast tail flinging/swatting (with aim--I was getting warned, and yes, I noticed and tried to ignore it) and after a whopping half a pint milked out, Anna decided to do the 'roundhouse' kick, not once, but twice. (The second one was retaliation of me smacking her for the first one and was aimed.)
And the spigots promptly shut off milk after that--she was the Hold Up Queen. Try as I might, all I got was dribbles/drops out of any quarter. I refused to give up and let her win. She had to know I wasn't going to be scared off and give up just because she was being a pill! She didn't offer to kick after that, but the tail wringing kept up.

So after some stanchion time-out (oh she was not a happy camper) while I fed the turkeys and hen with chicks, I brushed her thoroughly all the while telling her to throw a hissy-fit all she wanted, that was all the good it was going to do her. All she wanted was out of there, and I wasn't going to do that. Not until *I* was ready!! That meant her normally short routine turned into 45+ minutes and no 'special alfalfa treat' for a job well done either! Then I let her out of that area and left Miss Naughty Nessa locked up for the night.
(Oh Terrible Evil ME!!)HA

I wasn't going to coddle her--she has a job to do. It's not even a hard job, either! ;-) Honestly, how hard is it to stand there calmly for roughly 20 minutes (out of a 24-hour period) to get milked?? Nessa can't drink all that is produced, so the empty udder should make her feel relief.
We've been milking a month now, and sure a bad day is expected, but I don't want bad habits turned into normal routine.

But this morning Anna was back to Good Cow. She came in promptly and settled into the routine like normal. No tail swishing, no fidgeting and stood still like any normal day. Hopefully she just had a bad day yesterday. Not sure if she learned anything except I have control, even if she's happy, grumpy, pissy or whatever. I can make her bad day a lot worse....or a good one even better. :)

She must have gotten over me being Ms. Evil, as I went back out later to let them graze, and neither Dolly nor Anna wanted to get up. Both just laid there as I talked to and patted them. Maybe they are tuckered out from a rough night--Dolly from listening to Anna and Nessa! HA

Long Productive Week

We have more Roses blooming, the Peonies and Iris are blooming as well. It smells wonderful outside right now! (Perfume-y! ha)
Jared made it back to North Carolina Monday just fine. It was sad to see him go, but he *should* be back next month on leave. (It's the Army, they like to change plans!)
Kyle finally got a haircut this week, too. I was calling him Greg Brady again! (From the Brady Bunch TV show years ago.)

The white hen hatched out 9 chicks on Thursday. Only two eggs didn't hatch. There is one bantie in the group. We moved mama and babies to the smaller chicken tractor for now, hoping to make her job easier of protecting them. They are all doing fine. (The turkeys are in the bigger chicken tractor. Maybe it's a poultry tractor??) ;-)

Deb and Galen (known to some as Scrounger) stopped over Friday and Deb brought me some of her homemade soaps and body butters. Ummmm, they smell great and work awesome! We had a nice visit. I'll take Deb some Comfrey when we get up their way. (I more or less go right by their place when I go visit my folks'.)

After they left I went out to cut thistles. It was hot, hardly any breeze and very humid. When I came in to take a break and drink some milk, a gal from the (family) cow board called. I hadn't heard from her in a loooong time, we had a nice chat. (I think the last few times we've talked, its been a hurried "So-n-so's cow is down, I have to go to work. Will you call them and help them until the vet gets there?!!") So it was nice just to 'shoot the breeze'! :)

We had more rain this past week, part of the drylot was a boot-sucking souplot one morning. I need to get a bobcat/tractor in here to scoop some of the mess into a compost pile and put some rock down. It's mostly around the cows' shed where its the worst.

Nessa is 3 weeks old now and milking is going great. I made more cream cheese the other day and was going to make Queso Blanco until I poured the milk into the outside cat's pan. (I had grabbed the wrong milk--or grabbed the wrong container....take your pick! HA)

That's the quick news update for the week! :)


Nessa smelling a thistle and then pestering Peaches the cat--who feels he has to follow me everywhere. (He's a stray someone dumped off last fall.)