I am sitting here inside my family room beside the bay window that faces the barn and I continue to hear Elsie bawling her heart out because she is permanently separated from her mama, Mocha. Mocha is beginning to settle down some, but sometimes joins back in to make it a sad duet, singing their woes of isolation. Beside me, lie our two golden retrievers, Lacey and Beau. Beau is snoring peacefully.
If you read my previous posts about “Tenney”, I am sad to say that I haven’t seen her for three days. The first day I let her out she went about her day as normal, checking out all her usual places…the manure pile, the pasture, etc. That night she didn’t show up for feed and I didn’t see her until the second day after that. She was out front, in the garden and the front pasture living it up.
I was relieved and stopped worrying about her, but I allowed my fears to subside too soon. I haven’t seen her since then. I feel sad, but there are, from time to time, many things that make me sad here on the farm. I find that the only way I can deal with the sad things is to just allow myself to be sad and to cry. Eventually, I am able to deal with it and move on. As in other areas of life, some sadness takes longer to get over. I guess I have adopted the attitude that I will do everything I can to take the best care of the animals that I can, and after that, I just have to understand and accept that this life we have chosen has a very front row seat to the life and death cycle of this life.
I think I am a bit melancholy due to the state of the world right now. I have no doubt that God is in control but it’s still concerning to me. Thankfully, my world hasn’t been horribly affected other than not being able to see and spend time with my friends and family. Everyone in my family still has jobs. The biggest change is that four out of five days my husband works from home. It’s been a bit of an adjustment but I am so thankful that he still is employed. It has given me a new appreciation for him…getting this up close reminder of corporate life. It makes me glad and thankful that my days are spent here on the farm.
Now that Odin has turned two years old, he has entered the next phase of his Livestock Guardian training. He is now loose in the pasture from the time I finish morning chores until we finish evening chores. He is calming down nicely and seems to enjoy his new promotion to pasture supervisor. He wanders around and checks out every area of the pasture, chases birds and sleeps in the sun. He has even stopped chasing the chickens when I let them out after gathering eggs. He is becoming such a great dog!
This year we are waiting to breed for calves a little later so that we can, for the first time, have spring calves. Previous years, we have bred for fall calves so that we were calving during baseball season, but sadly this year, it doesn’t matter. So, the plan is to breed in July or August for April or May calves. This will be so nice because the calves can be out in the pasture with their mamas. We didn’t intend to have a December calf, but that’s just the way it worked out, but will avoid that from now on. Even though they were in the barn all winter, Mocha had chapped teats from freshening in the dead of winter.
One thing I am looking forward to is ordering chicks for our new batch of layers and broilers soon. Undeniably, there is something so cute about the chicks. Of course, the broilers grow out of that cuteness rather quickly. The layer chicks stay cute much longer!
Sales for my first three published nonfiction children’s books, My Name is Mocha, My Name is Merlin and We are Mocha’s Family weren’t doing too badly until Covid-19 disrupted our lives. The bulk of my sales have come from Amazon and from author visits to the schools. With the onset of the Covid-19 virus and the subsequent “distance learning” orders, my scheduled school visits were cancelled. Not only did this hurt sales but it made me sad. I really enjoy reading my books to the students and answering their questions.
My book Micah’s Day is finally in the process of being illustrated and I am so happy with the sketches. Other books: The Mysterious Midnight Visitor at de Good Life Farm, My Name is Odin and Tenney, The Part-time Chicken are in the works as well. I enjoy writing so much, but I have found it difficult to sit down and write the past few weeks. Just now do I feel like I am becoming myself again.
I will leave you with this picture of Odin learning to co-exist with the cattle. He gets so excited when they head out to the pasture and he frustrates them by getting in their way and wanting to play. Mocha seems to tolerate him better than Jersey does at this point. Usually on her way to or from the barn, Jersey inevitably sideways kicks at him. Hopefully she keeps missing!
ONE MORE THING! Here on the farm, as in life, you never know what is going to happen next! I just happened to look out the window while making dinner and saw Snickers and Hazel had helped themselves to an unauthorized dinner time in the pasture! It would be cute and funny if it didn’t pose the potential for a life-threatening condition commonly known as “pasture bloat”. When cattle have been on hay and in the barn all winter, transitioning to the richness of the grass can cause bloat in them. There are several ways to guard against this. One of the ways we guard against it is to make sure they aren’t too hungry when they go out to the pasture and by limiting their time in the pasture, beginning with thirty minutes and gradually increasing the time.
Well, I guess these two girls decided they weren’t happy with how we were managing their time in the pasture! It’s frightening because I don’t know when they decided to pull this little stunt. If they were in the pasture for hours, we could have some sick calves in the morning.
We ran out there and thankfully, they were obliging and were dutifully coaxed back into their little shelter area. But, in the meantime, we realized that the fence wasn’t on (later discovering that the wind had disconnected a wire on the other side of the property). How did they know? I can’t tell you how many times it has happened that the only way we knew the fence wasn’t on was that one of the cattle had discovered it and had taken advantage of the situation and helped themselves to the pasture.
If we caught them shortly after they broke through tonight, then they should be ok. It’s hard not knowing. They seemed ok after chores. Just praying that we caught them early!
Hope you have enjoyed reading about some of the happenings here at de Good Life Farm. Come back soon! Feel free to comment or ask questions if you’d like!
