jersey – Living de Good Life

Saying Good-bye

Saying good-bye is difficult, whether it is expected or suddenly unexpected. As I have written in a few previous posts, we have dealt with many unexpected deaths here on de Good Life Farm. Of course, we raise cattle and chickens for meat, so those are planned and expected good-byes, but even so, are difficult. Life is precious, whether it is a meat chicken you have raised from “chickhood” or a steer you have loved and raised from birth. We take caring for our animals very seriously and thus, the loss of life is painful, regardless of whose life it is.

As I sat on the bucket milking Mocha this morning, I was very sad knowing that the events of the day would be very hard–hard on her and on me. If you have read My Name is Mocha, you know that Mocha left her mama behind when she came to our farm almost seven years ago, and it was very traumatic for her. She was fifteen months old and pregnant with her first calf. She cried the whole trip through town to our farm and for days after. I later found out Jersey cried for Mocha as we pulled away.

Mocha and Jersey playing around in the pasture after days in the barn

THE WHO?

Jersey is Mocha’s mama. Jersey is also the cow I learned to milk on! I am thankful that she and Ralph, her farmer, were patient teachers. I had such untrained, fumble fingers.

Ralph, Jersey’s former owner, visiting to say goodbye

Jersey has been mama to Coco (Mocha’s older sister), Mocha, Billy (Coco and Billy were both born while still at Ralphs’ farm), our sweet Oreo and our sweet Herbie. She has also been grandma to Mocha’s girls: Cocoa (named after her aunt), Caramel, Truffle, Hazel, Elsie and Daisy and great grandma to Snickers, Caramel’s daughter. Needless to say, without Jersey, there wouldn’t be a “de Good Life Farm”.

Jersey’s milk wasn’t the first fresh milk I had tasted, but I and my family, as well as a host of other families who are part of our herd share program have enjoyed her rich creamy milk for a grand total of about eight years! Our vet lovingly calls her “a lean, mean milking machine”. She’s not really mean. She is stubborn and will bully Mocha if she has the chance to get to fresh hay, water, feed or mineral first. I guess maybe she figures she is the matron and deserves to be first!

THE “WHY”

Jersey doesn’t “show” her heats at all (other than occasionally trying to “ride” Jeff) This makes getting her bred a challenge. When she came to our farm in 2016, we thought she was pregnant, but soon found out she wasn’t. Eventually we were able to get her successfully bred and in 2018 she gave us our precious Oreo! What a sweet boy he was! Then in 2019, she gave us our sweet Herbie! She is two for two on sweet boys for us. The problem is that in five years, trying a number of protocols, we have only been successful at getting her pregnant twice. Two calves when she “should/could” have given us five is fairly significant.

THE “NOW WHAT?”

Unfortunately, there aren’t many options when you have an eleven-year-old cow who can’t be bred. And it is also unfortunate that we cannot afford to feed and bed a cow who cannot be bred. Together, Jeff and I prayed that God would show us what to do.

Eventually, I made an appointment to have her sold at auction. It broke my heart but sometimes being a “farmer” means making very difficult decisions with something other than your heart. Then on Monday, I placed a call to our vet’s office to see if they knew of any other options. They said we could try to sell her on a local site as a “pet” cow who is still lactating. So, I placed an ad.

Within an hour or so, I received a response from a guy who has a cow who is getting ready to be dry in preparation for calving and he was interested in Jersey. So, today, he is coming to take a look at her. It would thrill me if she could continue to provide her rich milk to another family and live a little longer. We will see, but we definitely felt this was a sign from God that we were on the right track.

Mocha (l.) and Jersey (r.) in their barn stalls

THE “KNOWING”

So, as I was saying earlier, it hurts me for Mocha, knowing what I know: that she will again have to say “good-bye” to her mama and this time there will be no happy reunion as there was in her book. She will cry and she will mourn and that will break my heart. It may affect her milk production for a few days and I am prepared for that. However, the wonderful thing about cows is that they are very adaptive and eventually she will become accustomed to a new normal.

THE “NEW”

What Mocha doesn’t know is that rather than keeping the stall next to her empty which will be a constant reminder of what she has lost, tonight or this weekend, we will attempt to bring in her daughter, Elsie. Elsie should be coming into heat soon and we will try to get her bred. She’s a bit of a wild child…”Diva” like her mama, with a little wild thrown in since she has been pretty much free in the pasture since she was four months old. Getting a lead rope on her will be challenging. Eventually, we will succeed!

Elsie (Mocha’s daughter from 2019) and Herbie are buddies and have been since she was born in December two years ago. They are the “queen” and “king” of the calves’ pasture. They actually are more like brother and sister than uncle and niece. We won’t take her away from him for good until March–just long enough to settle her down and get her bred and hopefully in the process, ease the pain for Mocha.

THE GOODBYE

You know, it’s so good when you ask God for guidance and then you look back and see His hand. Jersey just left for her new home. It’s even better than we had hoped for her.

The guy I mentioned above came with his daughter and after looking her over and asking the questions he needed answers to, he decided she is what he was looking for!

She dutifully followed me out the front door with only one quick backwards glance toward the back of the barn where she usually exits. She followed me through the back yard to the waiting trailer. I stepped up into the trailer and she followed me without hesitation except for the step up into the trailer. That hesitation wasn’t surprising as cows do not like to step up into anything!

Herbie was obviously bothered and because he was bothered, so were Elsie and the calves. Anything to do with his mama is always of concern to him! Last year when she passed by him on the way to the barn, he ran to meet her. Jersey? Well, let’s just say she hardly gave him a sidewards glance!

Herbie and Elsie upset and confused as they see Jersey get on the trailer

THE FUTURE

Now, not only will Jersey provide milk for a family during the dry period of their regular milk cow, she may actually have the opportunity to get bred! They have a yearling bull that will run with her. That is like the icing on the cake for me and makes this post so much more happy and hopeful! Jersey has a new home, so this is just the next chapter in her life! I think that means it’s time for a new farm book!

Thanks for reading! If you are interested in my children’s books about the farm, you may check out my website http://www.dianeorrauthor.com and click on the “Books” page.

“Little Big Mouth” and her Arrival in the Pasture

If you have followed my farm stories for long, you no doubt remember reading about our last calf who, when just hours old, bolted through several electric fences and crossed the road before Micah tackled her on the edge of the cornfields. If not, you can go back and read “She’s Here….And She’s Off” that was written last October. That same calf “Snickers”, when being carried to the barn shortly after her birth as we do with all calves born in the pasture, belted out the loudest cry I have ever heard on a newborn calf. She earned the nickname “Little Big Mouth” on that day and she has lived up to it many times in her short four-month life.

A week ago Tuesday, she said good-bye to her mom, Caramel, and joined her Aunts Hazel and Truffle and her Great Uncle Oreo in the pasture. Now, this isn’t the first time we have been through this process. Normally, in fact with all other calves before Snickers, three days has been the magical timing of when they decide their situation isn’t going to better itself and they may as well just shut up and make the best of their current situation. But, this calf again has made a name for herself and lived up to her nickname.

Oreo, Hazel and Truffle watching in curiosity as Snickers joins the group

She mooed for a full five or six days and five nights….most of that non-stop! Caramel responded in duet with expected moos for three of those days, but conforming to our expectation that she would settle down in three days, she was contented after that. But, Snickers (LMB) kept it up…till she was hoarse! She would go over and eat hay with the other calves and then go back to the area of the pasture nearest the barn and start her complaining all over again.

Then one night, after she had begun to settle down, a neighbor’s dog evidently got bitten by our electric fence late at night and was yelping so loudly I could hear it through my closed window. Well, Snickers decided that was her cue to begin her song of woe once again. Thankfully, when the dog quieted down, eventually she did as well.

The other funny thing that has happened in the pasture since she arrived is the older calves have each “adopted” one of the calves as their protector/babysitter/trainer. When Hazel joined them several weeks ago, I expected her sister, Truffle, to take her under her wing and be her buddy/surrogate mom. However, it was big, sweet and gentle Oreo who became his niece’s buddy and babysitter.

When Snickers joined the calves, I was also hoping that Hazel would be a comfort to her because they had played together in the corral quite a bit and seemed to really enjoy playing with each other. However, Hazel stood and observed this noisy little creature with near disdain and a quizzical look as if to say “WHAAAT IS YOUR PROBLEM???? This pasture was a pretty peaceful place before YOU arrived!!!” It was Truffle who then seemed to have the patience and desire to help with Snicker’s acclimation to the group. Several times I have gone out to the pasture and they were standing two and two…Truffle and Snickers in one place and Hazel and Oreo in another. There are times that all four of them are in one place, either around the hay bale eating, or in the shelter for the night but this pairing up has surprised me.

Snickers, enjoying stretching her legs and running around in the openness of the pasture

I think she is slowly becoming one of them but Oreo, as sweet and as gentle as he is, still finds ways to let Snickers know he doesn’t really appreciate all the chaos she has brought to the pasture. I have observed him several times chasing her away from eating near where he was eating. As much as I don’t like this, I have come to realize it is part of how the calves establish the hierarchy of the pasture and I must allow them to work it out, as long as someone is still able to eat, drink and sleep without being bullied. Sometimes I wonder if somehow Oreo knows that Snickers is Caramel’s daughter and is paying her back for how Caramel bullied him when she was at the top of the heap in the pasture. If you remember, he was the one who broke through the fence and happily ate from the neighbor’s clover field when Caramel kept chasing him away from the hay. Guess what goes around comes around!

A Girl is a Girl is a Girl

If you are a girl/woman, do you like to go to the beauty parlor to have your hair done? I do! It’s so nice to sit back in a chair and have someone wash, cut and style your hair and all you have to do is sit and relax! Do you know that on some level cows are like that too?

We have two jersey cows for milk. About this time of year, they begin shedding and need to be brushed. This morning, Mocha was laying in her stall after the milking was done. She looked so cute so when I finished milking Jersey, I went in to love on her a little. I knelt down beside her; she was so loving and docile and it was then I realized how much she is already shedding. I began combing her with the curry comb and it was obvious how much she enjoyed it. I brushed everything I could reach and then without warning, she suddenly stood up so I could get the rest of her. As went from side to side, she kept watching me to make sure I wasn’t leaving. She enjoyed it so much.

A couple summers ago, our girls were standing in the barnyard and I began brushing Mocha. She stood so still which was abnormal. Our other cow at the time, Heidi, came up to see what I was doing to Mocha. She tried resting her head on Mocha’s head which made it nearly impossible for me to brush Mocha. She tried to push Mocha out of the way so she could have her turn. Mocha wasn’t going to allow that to happen and stood firm. Soon I realized that Heidi was standing behind Mocha, like she had gotten in line behind her, waiting for her turn. It was our Bovine Hair Salon!

It’s funny because Mocha is pretty persnickety when it comes to what she wants and doesn’t want. If I was just going to come up and pet her while she was in the pasture, she wouldn’t want anything to do with me. However, if I have a brush or the curry comb in my hand and the girl in her shows up! Regardless of species, we girls enjoy being pampered!

Wellerism or Reality?

According to Wikipedia, “wellerisms are sayings of Sam Weller in Charles Dickens’ novel The Pickwick Papers that make fun of established clichés and proverbs by showing that they are wrong in certain situations, often when taken literally.” One wellerism I heard many times while I was growing up was ‘”Each to his own”, said the old woman as she kissed the cow.'” The official wording of this wellerism is “‘Everyone to his own taste,’ the old woman said when she kissed her cow.”, but the meaning is the same.

The funny thing is that for fifty-some years, it was just that…a funny saying. But in 2015, that wellerism became a reality for me at de Good Life Farm. In March of 2015, we brought home our first bovine. She was actually classified as a heifer at the time which is a female bovine over one year old who has not borne a calf or has borne only one calf. Mocha was fifteen months old and pregnant when she came to live with us. I had known her a since she was a couple of weeks old. She was a beautiful calf and I fell in love with her. I remember one time pulling in and I couldn’t find her…then saw her little tannish ears peaking out from the bean field. She had escaped the electric fence and was enjoying a little freedom! She was so adorable and quite proud of herself!

Each time I saw her, I tried to gain her confidence. I would stick my hand out toward her and talk sweetly to her, but she was pretty skittish and really wanted nothing to do with me. By the time we were ready to bring her home to the farm, I had only been able to coax her within twelve inches of my hand. She had no idea how much I loved her but soon she would!

Mocha’s life experiences had been pretty limited until we loaded her on the trailer to bring her home. She had been with her mama, Jersey, from the day of her birth. It’s all she had known. Not too long before she became ours, the farmer bought some jersey heifers. It was so comical to watch her assert herself over them. There were two of them and one of her and she ruled the roost, so to speak. The farmer would feed the heifers and she would chase them away from their feed. He would then put feed out for her and the heifers would go eat her feed since she was eating theirs…and when Mocha saw what they were doing (when she would eat, she would position herself so that she could keep her eye on the other heifers) and she would literally run (more like bound) over to them and push them away from the feed.

On the day that we brought her home, we loaded her up on the trailer and as we pulled away, she began mooing loudly…and I could hear Jersey mooing loudly back at her. Her baby was leaving in a trailer! Mocha mooed all the way through town. Every time we came to a stop, the sound of her mooing filled the air. It broke my heart.

We got her home and put her in the stall in the barn. Several times each day, I would go out and spend time with her in the stall, trying to gain her confidence. She had no idea how much I loved her. I brushed her, talked sweetly to her and just spent time with her so she would know she could trust me.

That is when I realized WHY the old woman in the wellerism kissed her cow. Mocha’s fur smelled like cinnamon! I kid you not!!! I would nestle my nose in her neck or back and the faint, sweet scent of cinnamon filled my nostrils. I began to realize that she liked it when I nuzzled her face or buried my face in her fur. She began to trust me and I grew to love her more and more.

Now, don’t get me wrong. She is still that stubborn, silly girl when she wants to be! But she knows I love her and I believe she loves me too! And, even when the barn doesn’t smell sweet, burying my nose in her fur still fills my nostrils with the sweet scent of cinnamon.

Tag: jersey