Ups & Downs

Experience is a harder teacher because she gives the tests first, the lesson afterward.

It's been a while since I posted about the farm and I thought "the girls" deserved their turn in the spotlight too.  I mean afterall, I spend roughly 63 hours a week (on a good week) with them and they have become part of my family really.

This past week at the farm has been a little rough.  No, my boss hasn't been giving me a hard time or anything, but as with everything in life, we've had some unexpected things occur there that have left us feeling a bit down.

Sunday morning, during milking, one of our more experienced cows (I talked about her in a previous post), when into labor early and the vet was called in to take a look at her.  It ended up that she was pregnant with twins, and the vet delivered them both alive (two little girls), but because they were so early and weighed only roughly 20 pounds a piece or thereabouts, their little lungs weren't developed good enough and they both died within 30 minutes or so.  I don't like to see that kind of stuff.  I know they are just cows to most people, but I never like to see stuff like that happen, I think you all know why.

Mama cow who had the baby twins :(

So that was the first bad thing this week.

Then we found out Tuesday night, via Facebook, that the high school kid who had been working for us for about a year, has decided "he wants to get out of farming".  I love how he worded that..."get out of farming", makes it sound like he ran the place and was going to make it his future.  So once again, we are short of help at the farm.  Only good thing is, we do have somebody else in the works, so hopefully that turns into something.

About this time, the whole attitude we have is bummed a tad, and then we get to the farm on Wednesday morning, only to find that our bull calf that we have been raising for about 9 to 10 months (Bernie) hung/choked himself to death during the night by getting his head caught in a headlock and he must've panicked and fell once it was stuck.  My heart sank when I found him.

Seriously, he wasn't a baby calf really anymore.  I went with Jeff to pick him up when we bought him from this other farm back in September.  A red and white Holstein bull that we were raising for breeding purposes with a very good bloodline.  He weighed roughly 700 pounds now and he would always let you pet him on the nose, Zach did this almost every time he was at the farm and adored him.  Talk about a kick to the head.  All that work and time we had put into him and something like that happens?

This is a picture of Bernie I had from a few months back when he was much smaller.  Poor guy :(

What lessons I have learned this week around the farm.  The circle of life just keeps turning.  As rewarding as the job can be, at the same time, it can get depressing, as can life.

BUT!!!

That is when I kick myself in the ass, not always but most of the time, and remind myself of the good things and the other blessings I am a part of.  So onto more daily images from around the farm to cheer myself and hopefully you up as I've been a little bit of a Debbie Downer so far.

Here are some of the other babies I have around the farm that call me "Mama".  I swear, sometimes when they moo just the right way when they are hungry it sounds like they are calling me that.  Maybe I'm just losing it completely, but it does to me.

Some of the bigger girl babies I am feeding every day.  They are so sweet.

A familiar scene in the barn anytime food is given to the animals.  I see a lot of animal behinds!!!

One of my new bottle babies.  I love how spotted she is.

Another bottle baby.

Another bottle baby.  I love her nose and eyes.

I have a bunch more I could show you but I'm pretty sure you'd get sick of seeing all of those little calves.

So onto the big mamas and experiences I take part in every day.

This young lady apparently wants to be a cheerleader or something and has a problem with "doing the splits" in the cowyard.  Doing the splits for a cow is not an easy thing to get out of so it's not necessarily something to be proud of.  So...to avoid her doing them too much she has special accomodations in our loose housing area between milkings to avoid showing off in front of her friends.  The soft, fluffy straw housing in there helps to avoid her doing them :)

This is a familiar scene at roughly 4:00 pm every day.  The girls are waiting to come into the barn to be milked.  And yes, most of the cows will come up on their own at that given time as they "know the routine".

Some of the girls getting their last bite of "grub" before heading into the barn for milking time.  I think they are giving me the evil eye or something?

Everytime this cow comes down the aisle I crack up.  Her marking on the top of her forehead looks like a bow to me so I can always spot her as it looks like she is wearing a bow in her hair.

And next is the cow I affectionately call the "Grandma" cow when talking to the kids.  She is one of the oldest cows in the barn and doesn't get around the best.  She also has special accomodations in the loose housing barn most of the time or the other younger cows push her around out in the cowyard (big bullies!).  I found out her real name is Mandy.  Pretty name for such a docile and easy going cow, heh?

And the last girl I'm going to introduce you to is one of our "newbies".  She just started being milked about 1 1/2 months ago and I took to her right away because of her face.  Another farmer I know, when I made the comment that she had such a precious face, said they "all look the same", and I disagreed right away.  I think they all look a lot different.  The combination of their markings and personality and the sensitivity you can detect in their eyes makes each one of them different.  This particular one stands out to me because of how black her face is and then you get the white in her chest for the contrast.  Like I said, I think she is pretty darn sweet and distinct looking.

So yeah.  I hope the next week is better at the farm and we aren't hit with anymore surprises like this week.  Seriously though, I still wouldn't trade it.

I visited briefly with some co-workers at my old job earlier this week.  I would've liked to visit longer but I had Luke along and he was tearing up the joint.  But I can tell you, although I love and miss a lot of the people I met there, I didn't walk out of those doors wishing I could go back.  I think I made a good move.

God Bless!!!