Archive for December, 2011

Last Saturday, we took the four-wheelers out to the upper 40 (that’s what we call the rather rough 40 acres found across the farm from the house, over the creek and through the north hayfield).  Anyway, in moving the cattle every morning through the upper 40 the last few weeks, Jon discovered that there are several smallish cedar trees, which might make for a sufficient Christmas tree for our living room.  Here’s our photo documentation of our humble Christmas tree outing.

We wish you all a wonderful holiday season, and much joy in the New Year!

Roger and Carolyn, coming up from the creek.

Jon cutting the tree -- this one was situated under a much bigger tree and quite close to several other trees, so we simultaneously were thinning the trees and getting a Christmas decoration.

Small, but sufficient. It's a Charlie Brown christmas.

Voila! Very nice.

Matilde

Every so often, and usually at least once a year, we end up feeding a baby calf who, for one reason or another, can not be taken care of by his/her mother.  Sometimes the mama has a difficult birth and does not make it, or sometimes there are twins and the mama will only take care of one calf.

This year you’ve probably heard or read about Hummy the Red Heifer on our blog or on our facebook page.  Last year, we had Thlama.  And for the winter of 2011/2012, we actually have two bottle babies, Matilde and Ferdinand.

Matilde: Matilde has her name because she has a white marking on her forehead that somewhat resembles the tilde punctuation mark.

At first, when we brought Matilde in from the field, sometime around Thanksgiving, she wouldn’t have anything to do with us.  For a few days, Jon took a bottle of milk out to her, but he just couldn’t get her to drink.  Finally, he had to straddle her to keep her from running away and push the bottle nipple into her mouth. For about a day, she still resisted, but drank vigorously once she got the hang of it.  Now, she comes running whenever she sees Jon and drinks very well.  Matilde currently resides with the south group of goats and touches noses with the bigger calves who live just east of her field.  She aspires to one day be a grown up calf like them.

Jon feeding Ferdinand

Ferdinand: Ferdinand is a bull calf and is named after the old children’s storybook, The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf.

Ferdinand just came in from the field a few days ago because his mama was not producing enough milk.  He is quite eager to drink and eat grain from our hands.  He is all black with a little white tuft around his navel.  He is definitely a cutie.