Duke and Meyla

Duke and Meyla

Saturday, January 10, 2015

Around the Farm Today....

We brought Ribsy to the butcher last month, and I used the proceeds to buy these two calves. The jersey is a steer, and the holstein is a freemartin heifer. 
 We dehorned them and it leaves a hole in their head-you can look in and see their brains if you want to.



 They are real skinny but should fatten up good on some nice alfalfa.


 Theda posing for me.

 She's due March 21st and is already pretty big. Hopefully she'll have triplets.
In the below picture, notice her head is bent to the right. That makes her left side stick out. The left side is where her rumen is. Kids are on the other side. This picture says one kid.
 So, if we want to make it look like she's gonna have lots of kids, we crank her head around to the other side. Now the right side is big. Three kids at least!
 Now a real one with her head facing forward. Looking good!
Violet-I got her pregnancy results last night and she is pregnant! For those of you who don't know what was going on, to make a long story short, it took 3.5 months to get her settled. 

A random picture of Mistress Burnsides sittin' on her nest.

 My new goat, Mueslie. She is bred to one of the top bucks in the country whom I admire greatly! These should be some awesome kids! She's due April 29th.

 If anyone has suggestions on what I should call her, leave a comment. I'm having a terrible time figuring it out. I've tried Li,(pronounced Leigh) Li-Li, Moo, (trying to stay along the lines of her original name) but none of them seem to go.
 Amirah-she is due February 23rd and is also very large. 


 Elsie on the tire.
 There would have been more pictures but my camera died.
Desi is due February 22nd.
Fern is due February 3rd.

     I had a fantastic time at Kaia's, howbeit I didn't really enjoy the small house. I slept in the hallway, kitchen, dining room, living room, and bedroom. At once. But hey, I bet I set the record! If I pulled out of the bedroom and living room, I was partly in the bathroom. Which is what happened one night when, at ten thirty or so, after the lights had been out for half an hour and I was nearly sleeping, a big, fat, drop of water splashed into my ear! The roof was leaking! However, I think that one drop is all it ever dripped when I was there.
      Duke caught nine rats, and between me and him we got 19 in ten days. All were big ones too. If we'd had more time to polish up of stalking tactics, we'd have cleaned them all out.
    Kaia's people (I never know what to call them) were very impressed with Duke and foamed about him quite a bit. It's nice that someone finds all my hard work admirable. I've worked so long and hard on that dog, but still am so often disappointed when I see any rough edges. I recently realized I am a perfectionist. I always thought perfectionists were people with everything tidy and perfect. But no, they are people who always try to have things tidy and perfect but it rarely is that way thus they get all bummed out and think they are no good at anything because it isn't perfect. I think the problem with me is, I expect instant results, and things will go just the way the article said. In the case of training Duke anyway. The article says do it this way, so I try, and "this way" doesn't work. So I slump in the corner and brood angrily. One training method does NOT work for every dog! And Duke seems to be the exception in every case. In the meantime, Duke is writhing on the floor at my feet because if I so much as have a glare on my face, he's sure it was him that put it there and he's gonna get thundered and beat because of it. This side of him is the one that gets to me the most. Often, when training, things may not be going to plan, or I am even slightly irritated, all of a sudden I notice Duke shutting down. As in laying down, looking away, refusing to move at all no matter what I say, ears laced tight back etc. I'm finally learning that he is reacting to ME even before I even realize that I'm starting to get annoyed, grumpy, or just plain angry. I'm also finally learning that scared, stressed dogs never learn a thing. So when this starts happening, I just need to stop. Immediately. And play with him until we both feel better, or, if I'm angry enough, send him the play with the other dogs and send myself to run up and down the stairs or shoot hoops until I'm feeling better. Most of the time, our training session ends there. I may pick it up later in the day, or I might not. That way a big rabbit trail-back to the original subject.
       Milking cows was fun. I got to know all of them and, somewhat, their personalities. The jerseys I have no use for. Crazy little things.
      Kaia and I went to some different Christmas events such as the singing boat and the Navy Band. We went to watch the lighted boats parade up the sound, but evidently when they went by was the time we were up and a big Christmas light park sort of thing.

Plans & Resolutions For 2015
Try getting up with the sun in the summer.
Exercise at least three times weekly.*
Learn how to ski.
Plant a huge garden and preserve lots of it for winter.
Get a job now that I have my license.

This list is pretty much always growing so those aren't all I plan to do this year.
*I had already started this in December but then I broke my tailbone so it was discontinued. I was ice skating with Jeff and Luke on New Year's eve. We were playing tag and I was "it." Luke was straight in front of me, although about 30 feet away, with Jeff five or ten feet behind. I raced over and tagged Luke, darting in between him and oncoming Jeff. I did not have enough space to get through, and we collided. I went down. Hard. On my bunny-hiner. I instantly knew I wasn't gonna be able to sit down for quite a while. My skating was over at that point and soon we headed home. I got through chores somewhat okay-I was still kind of numb at that point. I went to bed shortly after. The only position that it didn't hurt was the side position.
I could hardly walk in the morning. Doing chores by myself was very hard. Can't bend, lift heavy objects, kick buckets to break the ice, etc. without bad pain. I retired to bed again-the only place I was somewhat comfortable.
That night, I took Advil, struggled through chores, took some Motrin and went to bed with a heating pack sort-of-thing.
After that, I slowly got better. I never thought I'd actually need a lot of the things I've taught Duke, but they sure came in handy during the last week. He'd pick things up off the ground for me so I didn't have to try getting down there. And when there was not way out of me kneeling to do something, I could say, "hold still" and use him for support so I didn't fall on my face.

It still hurts but it's not bad enough to stop me from doing my normal activities. Still can't sit on hard surfaces for long though.

That's probably the longest post I've ever done and it wore me out. See ya later!

2 comments:

  1. This might be your most interesting post, too! So many things to say I forget them. So I'll have to look it over during our weekly chat and talk it out to you.

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  2. Kinda interesting, Annie Kay! You're doing a swell job with the writing. Stub

    ReplyDelete