Friday, March 14, 2008

Rainy Days n Fridays

No picture today. I am beat. Our adopted baby is doing better, better as in her mama is going quietly into the head gate and kicking at her less passionately. We had two vets at our barn today. They recomended giving her a bottle of milk replacer, calf baby formula,t once a day and to keep sticking her on the mama.

The vets were here today because we had another calf stuck this afternoon. He was a big fella, brave too. He and his mama fought very hard to save his life, but in the end it was not to be. He was all birthed except for his hind quarters. He lay in the hay while Drew and two vets pulled and twisted trying to get his hips released. He blinked a few times and was gone. The pulling chains were moved from his tiny, well not tiny enough, front feet, to his rib cage. Soon the little balck bull with a white belly him lay limp on the shed floor. All attention was turned to the mother who was still down and not moving. We know now that she may have a few pinched nerves that could keep her down for a few days. She should recover. Still she is a small cow and probably will not be rebred. We will feed her out and send her to the butcher. Kind of a sad ending to such a brave little cow.

Another day walking in His Mercy and Trusting His Goodness. Farm life.

8 comments:

Roberto said...

Farm life is NOT for me. Typical city boy: I don't think of my meat as an animal... or former animal, but simply as a thing to eat. I don't want to think of it any other way, actually.

Last night was great, at the Byham... the governor was there as the special guest. I think the show will air this Saturday, on WDUQ (90.5 FM). Not sure of the time because I just get the podcast, delivered sometime Sunday afternoon.

Today was great... an easy day... not too many e-mails or problems to deal with... some things came together, and now I have a weekend with nothing to do except relax and organize some of these piles of papers. The cool rainy weather is perfect... makes me glad to be inside!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Vicki said...

Oh Sandy, what a sad, sad story. I am sorry you lost another one.

How many calves are born in a typical year and how many is it common to lose? It seems like birth is pretty difficult for them. Is this because you have small cows with large calves? Maybe you need smaller bulls to breed with???

I remember when I lived on the farm(it wasn't our farm, we just rented the house on the farm) our dog wandered off and found the "pit" where the farm dumped all the calves that had died that year. My dog thought it was a good place to roll around for a while. Good thing the dog was an outside dog...

Roberto said...

Saturday, 15 March 2008

SUGAR BUZZ.

I normally try to avoid sugar in my daily routine. But this foster parent I've been helping train keeps bringing in these baskets of Little Debbie brand rice crispy treats. I've eaten... a lot. Many. Several. A ton.

My heart is racing, I can't focus, and I'm trying to do some OCR work with some stuff (you know, you scan it in and your computer "translates" the scan into actual words, so you don't have to re-type the thing), but I'm so buzzed I really can't be bothered with all of the questions the program is asking me: "Is this a lower-case 'a' or a number '2'?" because I DON'T CARE, RIGHT NOW. Will I care later, when I'm looking at this mess of letters and numbers, where there's a number two every where there should be an a? Yes, but I'll just eat more sugar.

Roberto said...

For some, unknown, reason, I've also had Terry Jack's Seasons in the Sun running through my head. I don't own it, I haven't heard it in a movie, I don't know where it came from.

But now, it's better: I have David Bowie's The Man Who Sold the World, as performed by Nirvana, in my head. Much, much better.

Who knows? not me
We never lost control
You're face to face
With the Man who Sold the World

Roberto said...

The sugar is wearing off, but now the caffeine is dovetailing nicely. The buzz continues.

And now I've made the Terry Jack > David Bowie > Nirvana > Meat Puppets transition, so it's like a punk flash-back weekend. Or afternoon.

I think I'm getting a lot done, well, I'm getting a lot done, the "think" part is related to the quality of the work.

Netflix delivered The Candidate for my viewing pleasure. We'll see. This is shaping up to be a depressing election year: McCain scares me, Obama scares me, and Hillary scares me.

Roberto said...

Man, this movie is SO 70's. The men have huge sideburns and the cars are all American and... also huge. The belts are four inches wide and the ties... whoa-mamma.

Not a bad movie.

Sandy kimmel said...

Robert,
I am so glad you are having a fun weekend. Nothing like caffeine, sugar, and seventies music. As for animals and the whole you are my friend, you are my dinner notion; surpisingly, they are compatible. Like I said the other day, I am learning how the two go together. To do the job right I think they have to.

Vic, this is our biggest calf year. We should have had around 20. Last year we had around 14 and did not loose any. Typically our bull Bob fathered small easily delivered calves, why we bought him in the first place. These last two have been a fluke. Plus, the girls were on the small side. We are learning. I am determined to be a bit more involved this year so this does not happen again. See ya all in church.

Sandy kimmel said...

PS Rob, I think that song, Seasons in the Sun has some strange ability to sneak into your subconscious and implode. I have had similar experiences with it.