More Baby Pictures
Here's more pictures of Living Green's Rainbow.
We managed to get Aura to put her head in the stanchion, which allowed us free access to the calf. Aura bellowed and mooed and tried to break the stanchion, but it was a quality construction job and held her tight (thanks Mark!). So we took turns playing with Rainbow. We picked up each hoof, stuck our fingers in her mouth, her ears and all over her face and body. She needs to get used to having humans handle her all over. And day one seemed to go pretty well.
More below!
Channa on 06.30.07 @ 10:11 PM PST [more...]
CALF!!!
Update: It is a heifer, a nice little girl calf. We're naming her Rainbow!
We managed to get Rainbow and her very protective mother up to the cow shed, and boy was that an adventure. Our friend Dorothy, who brought Aura to us back in December, called with some advice. She said NOT to leave Aura with the calf, but to give the calf a lot of human attention, especially in the first few days. She said it was very important that the calf becomes socialized immediately. So we decided to go make friends. Aura was not going to let us near her baby. And we discovered that Aura knows quite well that she has big horns. Wow.
Little Rainbow helped us out. She wobbled under the electric fence wire and flopped down about 4 feet away from Aura's intense gaze. I think she was feeling a little stiffled. Aura tested the electric fence and found it to be a deterrent to getting to her calf. So Nate sat down and petted Rainbow while we thought out what to do and Aura practically had another calf. Rainbow was amicable enough, allowing Nate to cradle her, stick his hands in her mouth and ears, and pick up feet, exactly what we needed to do. But based on Aura's behavior, there would be no way for us to separate the calf from her on a regular basis. So we decided that they might be spending some time up near the stanchion.
Being very gentle and calm, Nate picked up Rainbow, all the while keeping a close eye on Aura. We feared she might charge through the flimsy wire, despite its high voltage, at the sight of her calf being taken away. But she stood there and her frantic lowing turned into frantic mooing. For a cow that didn't moo for the first seven months, she sure knew how to turn on the noise machine. But she didn't move. She didn't charge or paw or prance. Nate cradled Rainbow in his arms and took her up to the cowshed. There we fawned all over her and she seemed to enjoy the attention. And yes, she's 100% a heifer, complete with tiny little udder. And up from the pasture came the forlorn mooing of a heartbroken mother.
We settled Rainbow into some clean straw and went back for Aura. Aura, smelling her calf on our hands, practically ran up the hill after us to get to her calf. Nate said, "So this is what a motivated cow looks like". I had no idea she could move like that. But up into the cowshed she went to be reunited with her calf. Both are settled in now. Aura is in the stall that contains her stanchion. That means we can lock her head in a position so that she can't gore us with her horns when we try and handle Rainbow. It also means Nate will be cutting her food and bringing it to her. The stanchion is also necessary for milking. So we'll give that a try this evening. More later!
ps, I put this morning's photos in the "more" link.
Channa on 06.30.07 @ 10:03 AM PST [more...]
Sunday, June 24th
The Progression of Time
So my apologies for having nearly a month of no posts. It's a far cry from the nearly twice a week posting I was doing earlier in the year. But near the solstice there isn't nearly as much time spent inside near the computer. That said, I'd like to catch you up on what's been happening in the last month out at the farm!
First off, a few weeks ago Nate and I finally smoked the bees. Nate was a little tired of being the person to handle the bees and wanted me to feel comfortable with them as well. So I suited up and we lit the smoker. We used a combination of dried fir needs and green grass. Many people use burlap as a fuel for the smoker because it gives a nice even low heat smoke. But we didn't find the burlap Kurt said he had! I was a bit worried about the heat of the smoke injuring the bees, but everyone seemed just fine. I was nervous to start out with, but gained a little confidence when I found that really, no, they can't sting through the bee suit. Still, I have very small hands and the bee gloves are meant for big hands, so I felt as though I was fumbling around. And with bees, it's important to remain calm, cool, and steady. So butter fingers are not an asset. Nate stood nearby, offering support, encouragement and digital recording.
We wanted to see if the bees were producing anything. And they are! There are capped cells of honey, as well as cells of developing bees. That's very good news. We've left them alone for the most part since then. We've been advised by beekeepers Tad and Karen to juggle their frames about so they expand sideways into the hive more (they're only using the first four or five frames), as well as adding a "super" for the summer. So we'll be smoking more bees sometime this week!
Many more pictures and updates....
Channa on 06.24.07 @ 08:23 PM PST [more...]
Saturday, June 9th
Darn lucky!
I went down to the farm last week to help finish the installation of the photovoltaic panels for the water supply. Pat the electrician was on hand to instruct us in the finer points of pulling wire: we had 250 feet of conduit in the ground, and we needed to thread #2 AWG wire through it to connect the outbuilding (where the photovoltaic panels reside) and the house (where the electrical panels reside). On a previous trip Pat had used his "mouse" and a vacuum blower to thread a small string through the conduit; then he used the string to pull a rope through the conduit. In the photo above, Pat is fastening the rope to the wires we were going to pull through the pipe. I examined the end of his rope, and found that he had actually spliced a loop in the rope! "Yeah," he said, "I do it that way because it is more reliable than a knot. This wasn't my best splice, though." Then Pat unrolled the large spool of wire and laid it out in the yard in a couple of long loops.
Kurt on 06.09.07 @ 10:51 PM PST [more...]
