A year ago today, Tiny Bottle Lamb weighed about 7 pounds. She still slept indoors in the playpen and followed me around outdoors like a puppy. She still sucked fingers when she was hungry. She hadn’t yet learned how to cross a creek, even a very little one.
Geese are, by far, the most entertaining of the barnyard birds. We’ve two kinds, a small flock of American Buffs and one lone white Embden that was destined for the table but hasn’t yet met her fate. The Buffs are the gentlest geese I’ve ever known. They’ve completely changed my opinion of geese. Those I knew in [...]
Morning light can be harsh.
After a long night’s work on predator patrol, a dog needs his sleep.
Someone should find him a doggie sleep mask.
The turkeys have a different perspective. This Blue Slate tom particularly likes basking in the early light, displaying his speckled fan, chortling to the hens. Most mornings I find him perched on [...]
Somewhere there’s an alien cow barn missing a calf.
Look, the alien calf’s big sister came to visit, too.
It’s an alien cow family reunion.
P.S. Don’t take your camera flash to the barn. Just don’t do it.
Rosie, our Jersey cow, isn’t pulling her weight. Sure, that premature calving was a setback, and a gal needs time to recover her health after that sort of trauma. Rosie’s always been a good mama cow, and she provides Cocoa with all the milk she can manage. It’s not enough though— not for Cocoa, who’s [...]
I’ve been spending a lot of time with the Jersey cow and her preemie calf. When viewed from the side, Rosie looks pretty good. At this angle, she still looks very pregnant. Or very fat. Whatever you call it, she’s still huge. I worried about bloat. I dreamed one night that by some freak chance she had another calf in there, still growing and biding its time until it could emerge like some alien space creature with big teeth and a raging, carnivore appetite.
When the snow covers the ground in a deep blanket of white, my world narrows. The occasional traffic on our narrow gravel road dwindles to none. An entire day passes without a single set of wheel tracks disturbing the snow.
I could be snowbound here, trapped by the snow and the icy layer of frozen sleet [...]
I’ve never wanted a bottle calf. In my experience, four-legged bottle babies are pushy, demanding pests. A few years ago I got a scary-looking hickey from a bottle calf that thought my thumb made a good pacifier. I’ve been bumped, shoved, and slobbered silly by half-grown calves that think humans are just part of the herd. And then along came Cocoa.
Cocoa came into our lives on a bitterly cold morning when the wind gusted through the trees and chilled every living creature to the bone. Weeks premature, she seemed barely alive when I found her. She’s stronger now, and I finally feel safe in sharing her with you. Here are some pictures to get you [...]
