If I had a farm...

I'd be over the moon ecstatic! My friend Tori over at http://www.sunfromabove.com/ just posted something very inspirational for me. I often dream of what I would do with a farm, the animals I would have and the produce I would grow. Most often my fantasy takes me to a warmer climate where the options are more numerous, both for produce and critters. For instance, Tori's family's farm in Iowa immediately brought to mind a farm stand in the yard where neighbors could come from all around to buy from me. They pick up their eggs and we discuss the Lord and they get a gospel tract and an invite to church on Sunday. I am always willing to discuss my farming and explain that the Lord gave us stewardship of this planet. We're to dress and keep it, not rape and destroy it. The Lord put Earth here to sustain us so we'd best do it right.
I've replaced the miles of corn with acres of lush green pasture and row upon row of heirloom produce. I grow many varieties of melons, tomatoes, beans, squash, peppers, tomatoes, corn etc. Children come and watch the laying flocks cruise around the pastures eating bugs and scattering cow patties. Turkey hens carefully shepherd their poults while strutting toms defend their families. Heritage hogs, Red Wattle or maybe Ossabaw, grunt and sigh in the the shade of an oak tree. Spry piglets run and squeal and romp around their patient parents, living the life they should until it's time to meet the butcher in October. I don't know the raw milk laws in Iowa but on my farm I sell raw milk, yogurt, cream, butter and cheese to anyone who wants it. The lovely white gold is produced by those beautiful cows lounging in the sun, rumens stuffed with grass. I have many breeds, both dairy and beef, because each has it's strengths and it's weaknesses.
Beside the barn is my orchard. I grow apples, pears, cherries, some hardy peaches and apricots. My favorite tree of all is the plum tree. I LOVE plums picked fresh from the branch. I love them more than my grapes or even my strawberries. It's a little bit of a struggle to keep the tree producing but did I mention how much I love plums?
Before the sun sets I need to be out picking up what's been harvested. I bought a couple of older horses from a local family that couldn't afford to keep them anymore. I don't know what breed they are but they are gentle and easy to work with. They trained to pull the farm wagon in two days and that makes them awesome. They stand patiently while I hitch them up. I hate the noise of a tractor so my trusty horses pull the wagon down rows of plants. Many of the local teenagers come here in the summer to make a few bucks harvesting. I don't hire illegals, no matter how little they work for. I prefer to give the local teens a sense of pride in their community and hope to educate them about the need for farms of this ilk.
As I pull up to each worker they load the wagon with basket upon basket of goods, then jump on for the ride. We chat about the weather and they tell me about Farmer So-and-So down the road apiece. Monsanto is suing him for letting his corn get contaminated by their patented GMO corn. I shake my head in sadness, then grin as my high tunnels come into view. I do not grow sugar beets, alfalfa or soybeans, but I do grow many varieties of corn. To protect my beautiful plants from contamination I built a dozen high tunnels. They are similar to greenhouses only they don't get as hot during our Iowa summers. Agents from the big corporation descended on my piece of paradise once. They accused me of stealing their product by "allowing" GMO corn pollen to fertilize my heritage corn. When I showed them my high tunnels their heads hung in disappointment and they slunk off my farm. They aren't getting their hands on anything of mine!
Spring and summer is spent sowing, growing, tending, selling and repairing. Fall is spent harvesting both plants and animals, and making sure I have enough food put away for me and my animals. Winter is spent sitting in front of my fireplace sipping homemade cider and watching the snow fall. There's a peace in my heart from knowing that I used the time that the Lord gave me to provide for my family and my community in a way that stewards the land and furthers the Gospel of Christ.

Now, let's put this fantasy in Alaska, which is far more realistic for me. Up here there's 28 acres that I can use to create my farm. A full third of it is actually swamp land that I intend to use as a water fowl hunting area. It is not protected be The Wetlands Act so we're going to clean out the stream and build a pond. Hopefully it will attract cranes, ducks and geese in the fall, during hunting season. Our lifestyle fills the freezer with fish and the odd moose. Because of this the pressure to grow my own meat is reduced. I can concentrate more on plants since our growing season is so short.
Our pigs are temporary, no breeding. But, they get to fully express their pigness while they are here. We are building pens that will be 10' x 10' for them. They are movable pens so the piggies get new ground to root and destroy every couple of days. Two pigs can be incredibly destructive so we're using them to loosen stumps and clear land that we can later use for pasture. When the ground freezes and our pigs have reached a desirable weight then we will put them in the freezer, starting with new pigs next spring. I do intend to find a source for heritage pigs in the state but not this year.
My wonderful cow, Bonnie, is already a pasture fed, grain-free cow and she has provided a bull calf for us to beef, unless she has another bull calf her second time. If number two is also a bull then Cody gets a stay of execution and hopefully will live a long life breeding someone else's cows.
My turkey family is short a tom this year. He had a heart attack when Marathon Oil Company drove a brush hog ten feet from the coop. I am currently in contact with a lady who has her own hatchery in Sterling. She may have an extra Bourbon Red tom this spring that she is willing to part with plus I am on her list for poults. If she doesn't have a tom at least I will have some more turkeys to raise. I intend to keep a hen and butcher one of the hens I already have. She was injured by the tom last summer and is not getting along like I want. I doubt she would successfully breed, even to a lighter tom, and then I'm not sure she'd be able to protect her babies from foul weather and the odd eagle. I'd rather butcher her now than find out she's not up to the job and lose an entire batch of poults. Their pen will be moved as well, to the other side of the barn which is a good 200 feet from the pipeline. Their pasture will be large and lush and the perfect place to raise pastured turkeys for Thanksgiving tables.
My plan for a garden is somewhat complex and yet so simple. I want three permanent corrals somewhere close to the house. They will be the garden. The first year I will let the pigs clear the first one. That winter it will house the calves and finishing beeves. In spring and summer I will put my meat chickens in it. It will lay empty that winter. The next spring and summer I have a tilled and fertilized plot to grow my veggies in. They will rotate so I don't grow in the same one year after year. The corral that is attached to the barn is for my momma cows and the current year's babies. Each spring the rich manure and leftover hay gets carried out and placed in a mound to begin composting. If someone wants some they just have to come and get it.
In a neat row, next to the pipeline, we have teeny, tiny apple trees. We have yet to harvest a single apple but every year we have hope. We rejoice over every single new leaf that bursts from each branch. Next to our apple trees is a row of raspberries. Those we have no issues growing. They thrive in our climate and produce big, succulent berries year after year. This spring I will scope out a place for a blueberry bed. Because we have neutral soil the spot needs amending and forethought. I cannot simply plunk them in the ground and forget about them. I will move my gooseberry and give it a buddy so I actually get gooseberries from it. Because of the plans for the pasture the lilac doesn't need moved and I'm sure she will be so happy when all the shading cottonwoods are cut down. My beautiful Red Leaf Rose is sending suckers every which way in an attempt to survive marauding cattle. I will cut out the suckers and prune the poor thing this spring. Then I will sink posts deep into the ground on both sides so cattle chains don't get drug over the top of it anymore.
Because he is almost a grown up, Cody is spending the summer at the neighbor's house, being her lawnmower. I couldn't do it last year because Bonnie didn't like him being out of her sight. She will have a new baby to look after in June and Cody will be just another cow.
I sit at the computer, gazing wistfully out the window as snowflakes swirl and dance, knowing that my farm is waiting for me, in two short months.

If I had a farm I would be over the moon ecstatic, but I am building a farm and that is so much more satisfying.

Eating Through The Freezers

It sounds simple right? Make a list of what's in the freezer, make up the menu from your list and don't go grocery shopping that month, voila! Actually it's much harder than yo might think, especially when freezer inventory is interrupted by 3 weeks of the cold from Hades and then a mastitic cow. Fortunately, my cold has abated enough that I can finally contemplate finishing the job and my poor Bonnie is walking around in a cloud of peppermint from the balm that I rub on her udder twice a day.
Stay tuned for a riveting series in the month of March as I try and find new and creative ways of eating liver, halibut and salmon roe. Actually, I happen to like all three of those things so maybe I'll have to get creative with the pig kidneys and turkey giblets. Hm, sounds good already!

What's on my mind

I read an article that made me so angry and I need some catharsis right now. According to the FDA, factory farms used 29 MILLION POUNDS of antibiotics in 2009. That's not for "sick" animals you understand. That's just in the feed and used as preventative. That's INSANE!!! No wonder there is now another strain of MRSA rearing it's ugly head. But, that's the FDA for you. It is a communist organization run by greedy pinheads.
That's not my catharsis. It's just the rant and the reason for the need. Whenever I read or hear anything about MRSA my thoughts immediately turn to sweet Raisa, who has been dead for almost 20 months now. She's been gone almost twice as long as she was here and that makes me angry. I know that God had a plan and I know that she was leaving one way or another, but MRSA is a savage and horrifying way to go. If our government was any kind of competent then this particular virulence would never have happened but there you go.
Anyway, I thought about posting this on Raisa's birthday or the anniversary of her death but I decided today was a good day. The week after she died I started writing down all of my memories of her. I know how memories are, as they get replaced with the minutae of life and I always wanted to have them to go back to, to remember the good times. So, here they are:

1.It all started when Raisa showed up with one of her horrible diaper rashes. I had been studying the benefits of coconut oil and decided to use it on the rash that responded to nothing else. Having coated her thoroughly, I diapered her and turned her loose in the playpen/crib, leaving the little tub of oil within easy reach for the next diaper change. Unfortunately, it was within reach of her tiny fingers too. 15 minutes later I happened to really look at her and realized she had gotten hold of the tub and eaten all the coconut oil, smearing a goodly portion across her cheeks, chin, lips, eyebrows and forehead! She looked like a miniature gangster, with her greased hair. A Dapper Dan baby!

2.I had been teaching Raisa to respect the switch by switching her hand while saying “no”. Her playpen was next to a shelf that had many colorful and enticing things to play with but she was becoming so good about looking and not touching. I put the switch on this shelf so I could deal with discipline immediately. As we’re watching tv, I hear a small clatter in the rungs of the crib and look over to see the switch laying on the floor. When she saw me watching, Raisa ducked her head and peeked at me under the top rail, knowing she had been busted. It was too funny to get mad!

3.The first time she discovered her bouncy seat could also serve as a swing. She routinely bounced the seat but she couldn’t figure out how to get it to keep bouncing when she picked up her feet. She had been sick with a cold and hadn’t been in it for a month or so but the next time I put her in it she immediately began to swing it back and forth instead of bouncing it. I looked underneath and watched her pick her feet up and hold them until she had swung to a stop. She did this for hours!

4.She had the cutest chipmunk laugh and she always had a grin for me when she came.

5.The morning that she was born was sandwiched between a week of clear, sunny weather and clear, sunny weather. It was the stormiest, snowiest day I have ever seen in April. It snowed just for her! I had been sleeping with the phone for a week because she was four days late and when Kiki called at 4:30 a.m. I was immediately on high alert. It took an hour and a half for Tony to bring the older girls but I was so blitzed I couldn’t understand why he had his tiny car. How on earth could they squeeze a laboring woman into that miniscule backseat? India filled me in later. They had called an ambulance, duh! Nearly born in the ambulance, Raisa almost didn’t wait for her daddy to get there before she made her appearance.

6.Her favorite chewy was the top rail of the crib.

7. You had to be careful while carrying her cause she would grab anything and everything.

8.Kissing her mouth sounded exactly like a duck call. She loved being tossed up. (And caught)

9.She had just started playing with the ties on my hood during church, just like Phaedra did.

10.Her tired raspberries were just like Phaedra’s.

11. Just like Phaedra, she couldn’t resist an animal.

12.She carried things in her mouth while she crawled. If it was too big to fit in her mouth she crawled with it in her fist.

13.If she put something in her mouth that she wasn’t supposed to then she would take it out and put it on her head when she was busted.

14.She loved to stand backwards in her crib and yell at us when we weren’t paying attention to her.

15.When she couldn’t see me in the kitchen she would call out “Mama, mama?” until I showed myself.

13.She loved to play with her sisters, no matter what they were doing. She even wanted to have her teeth brushed like Phaedra, though she could never seem to keep her tongue out of the way.

14.Putting her in her car seat usually put her to sleep. She hated wearing the hats.

15.She snored! Softly but definitely.

16.She hated pacifiers but would suck on her thumb or index finger to fall asleep. It made it really hard to take her temperature.

17.Dad called her Rufus, Mom called her Snicklefritz, I called her “Hey You and Baby Girl”, Phaedra called her Raisapie, her parents called her Raisa Rea and Snickerdoo.

18.She loved to play peek-a-boo in her car seat.

19.When she fell asleep her body temp rose five degrees!

20.She slept on her face with her butt in the air.

21.When she was younger she needed to be on her side to sleep. It made it tricky to put her in the swing.

22.Her hair kept wanting to part in the middle. It made her look strange.

23.She had six teeth, three on top and three on bottom.

24.She hated showers.

25.She was ready to go to a big girl car seat.

26.Her favorite place to be tickled was her tummy, right at the bottom of her sternum. If you tickled her with your chin she would shriek and grab your head.

27.She could hold her own bottle and she loved kefir in her bottle.

28.Her favorite vegetable was sweet potatoes and she didn’t care for peas.

29.She crawled as softly as a hippo. You could always hear her palms slapping and her knees thudding on the floor.

30.She liked the bag of pine cones hanging in front of the Stoker exhaust.

31.Blue was her favorite color.

32.The day I changed her diaper and found a small handful of dog food! Then changed it four more times as what had been behind the dog food came out.

33.If she got into trouble while she was crawling she would put her head on her hands and start to cry.

34.She could stand alone, with a toy in her hand.

35.She loved to bang on things with her palm.

36. She would wrinkle up her nose and breathe really fast. She thought it was the funniest thing in the world!

37. I caught her with Jasher "berries" in her mouth. She was very upset when I dug them out and threw them away.

~Pam

Mom's New Camera

Mom got a new camera (Sony Cyber-shot) on Saturday and took some really nifty pictures when she took Kathy to Anchorage for her last chemo treatment.
Swans
Same swans, closer view using binoculars in front of the camera. It's a trick Uncle David told her about.
Sunrise in Homer
The tugboat that Uncle David brought back from... Kotzebue?? Nome, maybe?? Can't remember right off hand but it was really far north, in any case.
Frost on the dock in Homer on Sunday morning. BRRRR!!!
Phaedra Thyme on Saturday night.
Kathy, showing off her dental work, er, smiling.

There are more pictures but blogger is being a pain so I will attempt to post the rest of her pictures at a later date. We are taking Ripple home tomorrow morning and I need to get to bed!

Night,
~Pam

Yikes!!!

Has is really been three months since I posted?! So much has happened this summer and I can't believe I didn't blog about it! Oh well, here's what has happened.

When we last checked in on the Arndt farm we had taken Ripple home and were anxiously waiting for Bonnie to miss a heat cycle. Well, she did and then nine days later she got into horsetail (which stimulates uterine contractions) and lost the calf. I wasn't sure that it had happened since she wasn't here at that stage of her pregnancy with Cody. I marked it on the calendar and twenty days later she tried to jump Cody, bled off two days later and I was sure she had slipped the calf. Well, Mom pulled rank and called the neighbors before I could get Ripple's owners on the phone and we brought a little Dexter/Jersey cross bull over to try again. I was not told he was a cross or I might have gotten my way with Ripple but it is what it is. His name is Lou Lou and he is so LITTLE!! Cody, 400 lbs, is just a little smaller than Lou Lou and they spent Monday night pushing and shoving and being boys. Lou Lou won the test and was able to guard his new woman until she was in heat Tuesday night. Since she started standing for him about 7 pm Tuesday night I'm not sure if he ever got the job done but we'll know for sure in 21 days. I've heard that, if the size difference isn't too great, they will find a way. Just to be sure I am going to bring Ripple back on October 11-14. If she doesn't settle to Lou Lou then Ripple will be there to take care of business, and if she does settle to Lou Lou then I can be sure of it, based on Ripple's behavior. If she settles to Lou Lou and has a heifer then I have a plan in place for sending her to a happy future as someone's milk cow. If it's a bull then he will be castrated and eaten. I am not going to try and breed a mongrel bull to anyone's cows.Lou Lou, Cody and Bonnie

Cody is still growing like a weed on his mama's milk. We are still getting 1/2 gallon, milking once a day and that is still fine for us. It gets a little on the skimpy side sometimes but then we milk and we have milk again!! I'm getting closer and closer to being settled on his future. By the time he is big enough to butcher I'll be more than happy to see him go I'm thinking, especially when I walk the store aisles looking at grain-fed beef selling for $5 per lb. We can raise Cody for less than that!!

Next summer I will be buying some meat chickens early in the spring and we'll butcher in the fall. I refuse to buy the hybridized excuses for chicken that they call the Cornish X, but I might try Freedom Rangers. They are hybridized for faster growth as well, but not at the expense of their hearts, lungs and legs like the Cornish X. I've heard good things about them so we'll see. A hatchery in Sterling has many heritage breeds so I might get some and compare the two for flavor and vigor. Mom wants a laying flock but I'm not sure how feasible that will be next year. I've discovered that introducing one new project a year is perfect for my family. Trying more than that and something ends up being neglected or just plain forgotten.
The south side of the barn

The barn is getting there. Charlie came down for two weeks to help put the walls up but had to leave before they were completely leveled and in their permanent positions. Being around them when nothing but ropes were holding them up was freaking me out. I hate moving them with the handiman jack cause I can see it slipping, shooting into me or Dad, the wall falling and squishing me, a family member, a pet or all three. Thankfully they are in their permanent positions, balanced on concrete blocks, more concrete blocks and wood blocks. One wall ended up about 2 feet off the ground, just to be level but that's what we get for living on a hill. Dad has the corral door framed and we're just waiting on PFD's to be able to finish it off. When the floor is in the hay loft then Dad will be up there building trusses and we're hoping Charlie can come down for a couple days to help set them and get the tin on. Dad wants to be able to store this year's hay up there but I might end up buying the 1,200 lb round bales and those will be hard to get up there! We'll see what happens.

Mom is nearly at her breaking point at work. Her supervisor is addled and not really up to doing the job anymore. Unfortunately, she's union so there's nothing that can be done. We're just hoping Mom can outlast her.

Dad may have a part-time job as a jack-of-all-trades at the neighbor's. The gentleman has three businesses going and needs consistent help that's also reliable. Dad fits both criteria. They attend church at the Baptist church a few miles away so our schedules are the same as well. I have a job there for the winter at least, helping the wife while she homeschools the three older children. I'll be riding herd on the three little ones, 4, 2ish and 5 months. I'm kind of looking forward to it. They do things different than I do and she is a different kind of mother than I will be but she's nice and she's willing to let me handle the babies as I need to. I'll also be doing chores outside as needed, which is great since they own Lou Lou and his Dexter lady, Daisy. I think Daisy is bred and due this spring. I need to get my hands on her to know, but she's not that docile right now. They've only had her since early summer so she's not entirely comfortable with them yet. I am really excited to work with their cows and maybe see their calf hit the ground. The wife is very "into" farming. She was raised up north so this is her first opportunity to be a farm wife and she is like a sponge!

The turkey front is not looking good. Marathon Oil Company brush hogged the pipeline, ten feet from our turkey coop. The excitement and stress of protecting his ladies from the attack was too much for poor Tom and his heart gave out. He left no offspring to comfort his widows. He died a hero's death and will be honored at Thanksgiving... with a roast.
The hatchery in Sterling also carries Bourbon Red Turkeys, which are an heritage breed. I'm going to buy six or so this spring and keep a tom to breed my Standard Bronze girls. I think the cross would be much more marketable than a straight Bronze. Tom, dressed, weighs about 50 lbs and not very many people need a turkey that big. I'd love for them to be profitable.

Okay, you are all caught up and I make no promises that you will hear from me again before Christmas!!

~Pam

It's me again!!

Wow this summer sure has flown by! It's the middle of July already, Bonnie is (hopefully) pregnant again and the sun is finally shining. If you'll harken back to my previous post I was complaining about the lack of rain and the heat, well we've had two weeks of rain and near freezing temperatures at night. I just can't win!!!!

On the up side, we had a bull visiting from Homer this week. Dad and I went and picked him up on Monday, Bonnie was in standing heat on Tuesday, Dad and I took him home on Thursday. I really hope she took and I don't have to get him again. He's very calm and even-tempered but he's still over 1,000 lbs of hormonal male animal and he's a little intimidating. Dad and I had to lead him about 100 feet to the corral when we got him home and it was HARROWING!! Cody, tied on the outside of the corral to keep him out of the way in case Ripple decided to make a run for it, decided he didn't like the new guy and challenged him. Ripple didn't care that the challenger was a baby, he started pawing and snorting but Cody didn't shut up. Bonnie was tied inside the corral and she was very, very curious about Ripple. She was one day from standing heat so her hormones were raging and she was trying to get Ripple to come close enough to smell but not close enough to mount her. Ripple does have a mind of his own and no ring in his nose so he pretty much goes where he wants, when he wants. He is considered uncontainable so he is tethered all the time. I was terrified that he'd bend the stake we had him on, break through the fence and wander to the highway, getting plastered by some little old man and his wife in their rented motor home in the process. EEK!! Dad pounded two stainless steel rods into the ground right next to the other post so he was held by a steel post and two stainless ones. I wanted the third one because it is so tall. Bonnie can run in a circle and her chain will fling right off her stake so the tall post prevented that from happening as Ripple walked in circles following Bonnie around the corral. If I have him back next summer I think the tall stainless will suffice. He was so incredibly patient in his wooing of Bonnie. He tried so hard to get her to come close enough to smell on Monday night and Tuesday morning but as soon as she was ready she walked right to him. I've got it marked on the calendar so I know when to start watching for signs that she's going back into heat and she starts that early enough that I have lots of time to get him again if I need to.

Cody is still being a baby bull, goofy and testing boundaries. I measured him on his 3 month birthday and he weighs 278 lbs!! He is getting big so fast and I know that I really need to be on my toes to make sure he knows his place. It's important that he grows up as a subordinate cow, not the boss. Bonnie is pretty god about keeping him in line, but he will probably take her place as top cow before the winter is over.
The milking is going amazingly well. I am still separating 8 hours a day cause Cody has a little more growing to do before I'm comfortable separating for longer and I am still getting half a gallon a day, sometimes a little more. I want him to get the best start so he grows quickly and gets to the size he needs to be, whichever way his life goes. He is for sale, available in October, if anybody wants him!!! (wink, wink, nudge, nudge)

This is Ripple



Cody at 3 months old

After 18 years, Midnight has finally left us. She got sick a couple weeks ago but was eating and drinking just fine so I didn't worry too much. I did what I could to help her recover and I told her last night that I didn't want to have to make the decision for her, so if she was going to go, then go. It's much easier when pets go on their own terms since there's no what-ifs. She will be missed.

Busy, busy, busy

Sorry for the delay in posting!!!
Okay, life as a milkmaid is MUCH better. Cody is learning how to graze and I started separating them for a few hours about three weeks ago. It went to 8 hours separated last week and Bonnie is settling nicely into the routine. I get half a gallon a day now, YIPEE!!!!! She lets down her milk without having Cody in there nursing sometimes, but usually I have to use him. Mom has decided she likes milking so I'm the calf wrangler. I measured Cody, to figure his weight and he's around 135 lbs now. He's getting pretty shaggy, instead of fuzzy but he's still the cutest thing! His horns have erupted through the skin and are about half an inch long now. Lead training is going really great, most of the time!!
On memorial day the family, India and Phaedra went to Homer to meet the family who owns Bonnie's next baby-daddy. He's so beautiful!! I just LOVE Highlands! The family isn't "into" Highlands like Obsidian's owner and I though. They run a head of 30 Angus up on Kachemak Bay, above Homer. They have a few cows that spend all year by the house, the Highland, their Yak cow, a couple Galloway and some milk cow/Angus crosses that they use for milk. They really like the novelty of the Galloway, Highland and Yak. I had my camera with me but it never occurred to me to take a picture of any of their critters! I will take some while he's here, at the end of July.
Hm, so far this year we have pitiful grass, not enough rain and it's been too hot. I really need it to cool off and rain for about a week so the grass will get a move on and Bonnie can start putting on weight. Her milk is nice and yellow but she is too skinny.
The turkeys are breeding... sorta. One of the hens is nice and broody but the other one is injured somehow and she's not really in the mood to sit a nest. The tom is strutting around, flexing his wings and turning colors but his job is done for the year. I really need to get their pasture fenced off so he and the injured hen can run around outside and leave the nesting hen alone. Her nest was scattered today, probably by the tom but I gathered her eggs up and gave them back to her in the other nest box. Hopefully they didn't get too cold and will be fine. I'll candle them pretty soon also. I'm really hoping for a few poults this year.
That's all the new news I can think of for the moment so, until next time.
Later,
~Pam
AIN'T HE JUST THE CUTEST THING?!

This is three days worth of milk. The creamline is much better when she lets down without Cody.

Wow!!

Having a milk cow is very different than I thought it would be! Hopefully, it will get better. I have to keep reminding Dad that he's never been in this territory either!
Bonnie isn't giving much milk, but that's because she doesn't have much... yet. Her calf's name is Buffalo Bill (Cody). I call him Cody and he is a tremendous help when I'm milking. She stands very still while he's nursing, lets down great and lets me milk the other side. When he isn't nursing she is kicky, tail-swatty and cranky. I had to use the Kick Stop on her yesterday because Cody wasn't interested in helping me. I hope he's hungry today! When I get a halter for him I plan on separating them for a couple hours before milking, just to make sure he's hungry. I don't want to separate them for a long time since she doesn't have much milk and he needs the best start he can get. It's fairly common for first-timers to not have much milk. With each lactation, amounts go up so hope springs eternal.

~Pam

Happy Birthday!

The Arndt family farm has grown by four feet! Bonnie's bull calf was born at 12:35 am, today. She was in active labor for a couple hours and pushed him into the world standing up, completely silent, in six big pushes. He's fuzzy and adorable and nearly dry. I took him into the laundry room after seven hours because the temps dipped to freezing and it started snowing. He's almost ready to be reunited with his worried mother. She is calling for him and he's getting hungry. He had colostrum before I took him and she's got three more quarters ready and waiting for him. Hopefully he dries fast cause the window for the colostrum to be most effective is closing fast. Here's pictures of his first few hours:

He'd just hit the ground! She was more interested in the flashlight. Goofy cow


I moved him to a bed of hay, that he refused to stay on or near. He was on his feet in 15 minutes.


What on EARTH just happened to me?! He's fuzzier now and dried to a reddish-brown.

More pictures of him dry and them together to come soon.

Later,
~Pam

Springtime in Alaska

It's not pretty, or lush or gradual. Springtime in our part of Alaska is a three day event, beginning with sunshine and ending with rain. Okay, I exaggerate! But not by much. We've been in the 40's this week and I think spring has most definitely sprung. No calf yet, but she's getting closer and closer. More experienced eyes tell me she should go right on schedule but Bonnie is a contrary cow and can't make things easy on me. She'll probably calve on Easter, while I'm at church and Mom is in the house!!! I wouldn't put it past her.
Here are some pics from our place this spring... Enjoy!
~Pam

It's a stream of water, not an icicle... or snot



Dirt!!!!






They weren't doing anything cause he was more worried about me than her. She just refused to move when he stepped on her.