A little help from our friends....

Sometimes life seems to get in the way. Even when you are farming. Maybe I should say especially when you are farming. My car has been out of commission for a couple of weeks now and we were depending on that of my mother. Unfortunately, this car is also out of commission for a couple of days. Which makes our lives a little bit interesting. 

Thankfully Aeryn and I are blessed to have wonderful friends in Jay and Lilly who have fed the cows for us for the past couple of evenings. It is another chance that I can reiterate the point that it really does "take a village". Not just to raise children. But to succeed. Never would Aeryn and I have been able to set out on this venture without the help that Jay has given us. (And the land that we are using of course) 

Aeryn and I stopped into Jay's classroom the other day, and on the way out she saw a sticker on his door that simply stated "No farms, no food". She looked at me and grinned a little bit. I like that she understands the meaning of this. I also enjoy the fact that she is realizing the benefits of raising our own food and is willing to work hard to help me achieve this goal. 

Without farms, we ARE without food. Or more importantly without American farmers, we are without food that is nutritious or that the majority of America can afford. Aeryn is learning every day that buying local is better for both our bodies, and our community. I will work to support this mindset in my child. 

Back to the grind...

Aeryn is now back from summer camp but has been so busy getting ready for the fifth grade she has not had a chance to make time for blogging. Even though I have informed her that it is "her turn". That's okay. I have lots of thoughts to share.

It is now the end of August and we have had our cows at the farm for four months now. Though it seems like it has been much longer. Aeryn loves them more every day. I think they even may have missed her when she was at camp.

We have moved the girls into a different pasture. It has been suck a long hot summer trucking water to them was getting to be a bit of a chore. One that we could not keep up with. So now they are in a beautiful pasture with a pond and more green grass than these four girls will ever be able to consume. And they LOVE it. We moved them over the day before Aeryn got home from camp.

Aeryn loves their new pasture. She likes to feed them at the edge of the pond so that she can watch the ducks play while the cows are eating. Though she may not be doing that much more after having to fish a feed bucket out of the pond with my mother's umbrella. Silly girl had left the buckets their over night and one fell in.

I love going with her to watch her feed. Though it happens less and less lately with my work schedule. She can stand anywhere in the field and call to the cows and as soon as they hear her voice they come running. A couple of evenings ago we could see both Roseanna and Lola from where we parked but we could not see the twins. Then from up near the pond we see a little head poke up and then look back for her sister. All of a sudden Rachel comes barreling down the hill out of the pond, water flying everywhere! Apparently she had been taking an evening swim and we had interrupted her. Fortunately she decided that coming to get her dinner was not an event event to be missed.

Cheshire Fair 2012

Aeryn has had a very hard time keeping up with blogging. As have I. Apparently blogging does not fit as well into our lives as we had thought but we are going to keep at it. Eventually we will get better and will be able to look back on our sparse beginning.

So here we are at the beginning of August. Amazingly we have survived our first show with our little herd and Aeryn is VERY pleased with the results. When Aeryn gets home from summer camp she will be writing out thank you's to all of our wonderful friends that made this possible.

What an adventure the fair was! Nancy and Robert kept Alex busy while Mary, Aeryn and I dealt with the animals for the most part. And it was so tiring. Aeryn worked her little tush of every day to make sure that her animals were clean, fed and watered. I have never seen her take such responsibility for something before.

She also got to spend lots of time with one of her very best friends. Rhyan became my second daughter for a week and it was a lot of fun. Nothing like sleeping in a tent with a toddler, three other adults and two giggling girls!

Pavlov's...cows?

 So we have had our beautiful girls for almost two and a half months now and are still just as happy as that first day that we brought them home. Their registration paperwork in Aeryn's name should be coming in our mailbox some time this week and they have already had their first visit from the vet. Big shout out to Claremont Veterinary Hospital. I called and they were able to find an address that was really "a field at the end of so and so's driveway". They were also very patient with our girls who were a bit naughty when it came time to give them their shots. 

 I LOVE taking the camera out into the field with them. The twins who Aeryn have dubbed "The Tweedles" when we are talking about them collectively are two of the funniest animals I have ever encountered. We had a huge scare when we went to feed them last night. Aeryn went out in her usual manner, bucket of grain in hand, and only came back with Roseanna and Lola. The Tweedles were missing! Poor Aeryn immediately looked as if she were going to cry. And all I could think to myself was that it was a bad day to bring Alex to feed cows and to not have another adult handy. But the welfare of the animals is one of our topmost concerns and while Aeryn got the bigger cows settled with their buckets of grain Alex and I set out in the field to find the missing babies. After about fifteen minutes of frantically tramping through the over grown milk weeds we found them. They had found themselves a nice place to settle down for a nap. We quickly herded them over to their mamma so that they could have their dinner.

So I mentioned Aeryn's routine of going out into the field with a bucket of grain to round up the cows. This is really the inspiration for my post tonight. We discovered early on that we did not want to be trucking buckets of grain all over the field to bring dinner to the girls. As they grow, and they get more food, this would have been more and more cumbersome. So we knew that we wanted them to get used to eating in one location.

To start with we would go out into the field and sit kind of close to them with the buckets of grain. Letting them come to us to see what we had. This worked amazingly well. It is how we have managed to gain their trust and bond with them well enough to train them safely and efficiently. Eventually we started having the cows follow us a little way before we would give them the buckets. This worked out just as well. As long as they were getting grain at the end of the process things were golden!

Now to understand the rest you kind of have to understand the construction of the pasture. It makes kind of a U shape. Near the gate there is a smaller area that leads to a larger area that leads back up into another smaller area. (On the other side of the fence between these three "sections" is a house. Poor guy didn't know what to expect when we started fencing around his house.) We wanted them to get used to eating in the first smaller area closest to the gate. This is beneficial for a number of reasons. The first of which is not having to lug buckets all around the field. There is also the fact that we usually bring my mom, who sits with Alex so that he is out of the way of pounding feet. (Toddlers and cows are not always a good combination) We are able to park the car near the gate and then mom and Alex can see the cows and watch Aeryn work with them. So this extra effort to get them to eat over there is completely worth it.

Eventually I had Aeryn start to walk the cows from where ever they happened to be in the field over to where I would be standing at the gate. The result was this adorable little parade that I get to watch every day. Usually Roseanna is as close to Aeryn as she can get without running her over. Lola follows closely behind with The Tweedles bringing up the rear. It is truly a sight to behold. So it has been about a month now that we have been doing it this way. And one day last week we happened to be in a hurry. We were not going to stay and work with the cows we just wanted to feed them. I can not remember now where we had to be by a certain time but it was pretty important.

Usually we drive to the house, fill the four buckets, and then go back to the field where Aeryn starts her little parade. This evening we had a small bucket in the car. It was not even a grain bucket. I think it was one of those plastic buckets that you can buy ice cream in. Aeryn and my mom got this brilliant idea for Aeryn to take that little bucket out into the field to see if the cows would follow her to their "eating spot". So Aeryn happily jumps out of the car with her little bucket, throws some pebbles in the bottom of the bucket to shake around, and heads out into the field. When I returned with the grain buckets, sure enough, Aeryn was just getting to the "eating spot" with the four girls. They had followed a bucket of rocks!

I seriously could not believe it. And now thinking about it, it is all about conditioning. These cows have learned to associate Aeryn, and a bucket, with getting something to eat. So they trusted, even though the bucket looked different, that Aeryn would be giving them something yummy if they followed her. I have warned her that we do not want to do things like that too often. I do not want them to stop coming to the bucket any time soon.

So I end tonight on a peaceful note with the smiles of my little girl. (Who does not like being called little) She is happier now with these animals that I have ever seen her. Though I do have to say that you do not often see girls in a cow pasture wearing outfits like hers! I look forward to many years of raising animals with her and her brother by my side. Assuring that we have healthy, nourishing food on our table. Food that was raised with kindness and love before it served its life's purpose. Our little farm will grow. And our lives will be much better for it.

It just fits....

     Farming fits who we are. I come to that realization more and more these days. Nothing makes me happier than watching Aeryn stroll through the field every afternoon. There was a week recently when I could not go with her to feed our girls in the afternoon because I had commitments helping one of my sisters and I truly missed it. 

     

     Aeryn is bonding with Lola more every day. We still have to keep a halter on her in the field or she makes our lives difficult but she no longer jumps away when it is time to grab her. She is actually starting to lead beautifully. We have worked with her on a show halter a few time at this point and the two of them are starting to work well as a team. Today Aeryn tried using a show stick and got a little frightened when Lola did not take to it as easily as Big Mack did last year. 

     

     Alex loves to go watch us he sits with my mom at the entrance gate yelling "Lala!" and clicking his tongue. He can not say Lola yet but she come to him saying "Lala". She even stands still while he is in the pasture and lowers her head to a level to let him pat her. 

Rachel and Rose are a whole different matter. Since the are not in a barn halter breaking them has been an interesting adventure unto itself. We have worked to gradually gain their trust so that we can get halters on them. So far Rose has a halter on her. Rachel does not. Rose, however, does NOT like the halter. Every time we put the slightest bit of tension on it she throws herself down on the ground on her side. The first couple times she did it Aeryn was scared to death that we had killed her calf. For the next few days, by the advice of our friend Kim, we will just be catching her and tying her up while she eats her grain. We will see how she acts on a halter after a few more days of this. Rachel is the more illusive of the two we have yet to get close enough to get a halter on her yet. But I am sure we will have it done within the next couple of days. 

Crazy times are happy times....

Aeryn and I have been crazy busy working with our new friends. Though I have to admit it took a few weeks for us to reach the "friend" stage. But we are finally there and I am completely in love with this big red cow. Which I am sure that I have stated before. She reminds me of a time in my life when I was genuinely happy. A much simpler time than the one we live in now. My days in 4-H were some of the best days ever. And even though raising beef animals is slightly different than the dairy animals I am used to I am enjoying this every much. I have something to look forward to when I get out of work. No matter how bad a day I have had I can count on this beautiful cow to cheer me up. If Aeryn and I choose to do nothing but sit in the field while they graze she is not shy about coming up and getting our attention for a bit of grain, or a scratch behind the ears. She is loving and devoted to her calves and Lola, who I am thinking she is treating like a daughter. The start of our beautiful herd at Long View Farm, beautiful Roseanna. This happens to be one of the few pictures that I like of myself. Not normally one to like being in front of the camera I like that this pictures captures actual happiness.

It also shows a love that I share with my beautiful little girl. Though she does not look nearly as happy as I do in this picture. Inside she really is happy because this is the first time that she has gotten to lead Roseanna. (Granted this picture was taken a couple of weeks ago) When we first brought the animals home I was not sure that Aeryn would be able to handle a cow this size. She looks so small next to her. But Roseanna has turned out to be such a wonderful girl. At least she has not tried to drag Aeryn all over the pasture, which is an option that she would definitely have if she had the mind to do it. Fortunately that has not seemed to cross her mind. At least I think that it has not. And as long as Aeryn has a bucket in her hands ( it does not even have to have grain in it ) Roseanna is willing to follow her anywhere. It usually ends up being a parade with Aeryn in the front being followed by Roseanna. Lola is usually close behind with the calves bringing up the rear. It is a very entertaining sight. 

Rachel and Rose are growing like a couple of weeds. Even though they kind of blend in with the remnants of the rosebushes that we had to get rid of. They are eating grain full time now and have began to associate the buckets with something tasty. They are just as eager to see us these days as the two older cows are. Which makes me laugh. All of the animals have began to recognize our car as it drives past the pasture to get the grain buckets from the garage. If we choose to walk to the pasture from the house they are usually waiting right next to the fence by the time we get down there.

Lola is also growing like a weed. She is wonderful. And now that we are able to get a halter on her and lead her she makes me proud. There was a week or so when I was starting to get worried that we would never get her trained. But, we were able to get her on a halter and she has been working wonderfully. Aeryn is not quite up to handling Lola by herself yet, but we have avoided being dragged across the field by her as well. We have even gotten a show halter on her, which she has responded very positively too. 

The Adventure Has Officially Begun....

This week was our week to bring both the cows and piggies home. And our adventure has now begun. We headed out in the truck and trailer on Wednesday morning. Aeryn was very excited as can be expected. After a little over four hours in the truck we made it back to the farm safely with all of the animals healthy and sound.

The girls were very happy to be unloaded off the trailer and to munch on some of the fresh green grass. The rain that we have been having lately has really made the grass beautiful . Rachel and Rose did not stray too far from their momma and it looks like Roseanna is going to be just fine in her position of "boss cow". Even Lola is treating her as sort of a mother cow. And I am okay with that. Because it means where ever we can get Roseanna to go, everyone else will follow pretty closely behind.

 Aeryn is really enjoying every minute that she spends with them. She loves to go in the field and sit with them. I stand back and watch. Also loving every minute. This is her project. I want her to be able to bond and do things on her own. It is okay if the animals do not trust me as much as they trust her in my opinion.

 We also brought home Sir Bacon Bottom (the black and white pig) and Delicious (the red pig). Here they are laying in the sun soaking up some rays. They are two of the friendliest, most adorable pigs I have ever seen. They come when you call them, and love to sit and be scratched behind the ears much like a dog. I do  not have much experience with pigs but I certainly think that Aeryn and AmberMae will enjoy these two. The biggest trial however, is going to be in the fall when it is time to turn these two cuties into bacon. Both girls assure me that they will have no problems with it. But we will see.