A Few More Baby Pics

We are almost at the finish line. With three more calves born Sunday and Monday, Marnie is the only one we're waiting on now! Come on Marnie! Marnie will be raising her calf whether it is a bull or heifer. Marnie is like her mama, Maxine. She can pack on the pounds pretty easily, and cows like that need a little more of a workout than once a day milking to keep them from getting overly fat ;) .

Sapphire had a little heifer Sunday. Doug said we should name her Sycamore in honor of the ISU Sycamores' NIT run :D. So Sycamore it is. After having a 2:1 ratio of girls to boys for a while, we have evened out considerably...there were 9 boys in a row and I think only 3 of the last 13 calves were heifers! But I was able to make more people happy who wanted to buy a bull calf to raise themselves.

Monday morning Ginger came into the milking parlor and as the other 7 cows in her group were being milked, it became obvious she was in labor. We were hurrying to get her group finished so she could go have her calf in the pasture and not in the parlor! And she did. About an hour later, actually...another obvious son of Sonny.

Today I was rolling up the fence for the nurse cow herd, admiring some of the herbs and forbs we had seeded a few years ago. This one chicory plant had exceptionally large leaves! Chicory has some great benefits, including some antiparasitic properties for livestock. They love to munch on those leaves!

Another forb that's showing up more and more since the seeding is called burnet. It has a deep taproot for bringing up minerals from deep in the soil, and can stay green all year. It's blooming right now, and has such a pretty bloom too!

So while I was trying to get a non-blurry picture of the burnet as it waved in the wind, I apparently had an audience. Because I turned around and saw these faces still watching me:

I have one more nurse cow, Celeste, getting a second calf grafted on to her now, and then the nurse cow herd will be complete (well, Marnie will probably join them too at some point). Celeste had a close call when she had her calf. We happened to be present to watch, and she was laying slightly downhill as she pushed the calf out. This can be a position from which a cow has difficulty returning upright, and if they get stuck they can bloat and die. We were able to assist her to an upright position, but it wasn't easy. There's no way to know if she would have eventually managed it on her own or not, so I'm glad we were there to help!

It's been the easiest calving year I can remember...zero calving assistance needed for the first 47 births (aside from Celeste's after-birth help)! But even with that, we are ready to be done for the year :) . In about 6 weeks, the bulls will join the cows for part of the summer and the whole cycle will begin again.

Variety is the spice of life, isn't it? That's one of the beauties of seasons changing. Knowing something new is around the corner can help us appreciate every season for what it has to offer...and when it's not an easy time you're presently in it can also help to look forward to the next season when it comes.