Cabbage and Cow tales

The farm is taking a breath today after a good rain, with soft gray skies and a chilly breeze from the north. We had a lot waiting for the rain -- potatoes, onions, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, parsnips, and flower beds for the bees & butterflies around the greenhouse and office were all planted out at the end of last week! The barley fields like this cool weather, too, according to Orv Roggenbuck, Les's dad, who was out until 10:30 pm last Thursday preparing other fields for planting. This time of year seems to be all about watching for windows of opportunity and throwing yourself through them when they come! We were out until sunset with the potatoes on Thursday, and finished transplanting the cabbage out at dusk on Saturday with an eye to yesterday's forecast rain.

On Saturday morning we sorted the herd for the second time this spring, separating the bull from the cows who are going into heat, and weaning more of last year's calves from their mothers. This takes some presence of mind, effort and patience, along with a couple handy buckets of roasted soy and barley to get the majority of the herd into the corner corral! It took about an hour and a half to move several calves out of the cowbarn into the back pasture, and sort a portion of the herd into the front pasture, including the adult bull and our little up-and-coming bull, Curley. Everybody got a little bothered and stirred up (including us humans!) but overall the move went smoothly.

And talk about separation anxiety! Some of the calves had stopped nursing on their own, and these youngsters seemed to take pretty easily to life away from mom. But each cow and calf react differently, and as the herd spread out across the pasture into the afternoon, the pitch and intensity of the bawling was eerie and sad, and sometimes hilariously funny to us as it swelled & roiled, stopped & started again. Things quieted down yesterday, but even today the calves we call 67 and 68 have been breaking off from the herd to come back and call through the fence for reassurance. Their moms are answering, but less, and when they come together again the relationships will be changed and less particular.

Another exciting item of news is that we are going to start milking for the house this week! Devons are a good dual-purpose breed, and we've picked a light red 2-year-old we call Violet, who is nursing her first calf Rosco right now. She seems to be a good "community cow," as she has already let an unmothered calf nurse besides her own, so here's hoping that she will be tolerant of us too! All we need is to set up a pen and warm our hands to begin drinking the freshest, creamiest, healthiest milk around.