Renters

Grandpa and I are getting old. 'Getting'! We're not there yet! At least I'm not... he'll have to speak for himself. ;) Anyway, as part of the process of preparing for retirement, Grandpa and his two brothers who all three together own a dairy, have sold the cows. They're not all gone yet, but should be by the end of the month. It's going to be a major change when there's no more milking to do! A major, major, MAJOR change!

The guys always raised their own heifers for future milking, and they were kept at our place before having their calves. They were all holsteins, and here's an old photo of a few of them. I had taken it because I particularly liked the marking on the face of the center one.

Since the guys decided to quit milking some time ago, they stopped keeping the heifer calves and sold them instead. So our cattle yards and pasture have been empty for a while.

Not any more! We have renters in the pasture. It looks kinda strange to look out and see this kind of heifers.

They are angus (black) and charolais (white). I think. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong. :)

It remains to be seen if there will be more beef cattle in our yards in the future. Decisions are yet to be made.

Invisible fence

Question: Why are these heifers all lined up so perfectly?

Answer: Because they are standing on concrete. They know that if they step off the edge, they'll be in the mud, like the few on the right. Or like this one below:

Ooey gooey! YUCK!

I took those pics the same day as the "Random fallness" ones. It was, obviously, still very muddy after our big rain.

(Click the pics for a bigger view.)

Ya gotta make the best of it!

There are good things about all the snow. Like it makes for beautiful photos, right? And fun walks with toddlers. And it's good exercise climbing over/through the drifts... and shoveling. Okay, now I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel. But even the heifers have decided to make a game of it. A little "King... er... Queen on the Hill", anyone?

Happy New Year, everybody! I hope for a great year for each and every one of you, but even if it isn't so great, just think of heifers and find that something positive in the negative. ;-)

It's spring!

So why do we have a Winter Storm Watch for tonight through tomorrow? Aargh. (Late afternoon update: It has been downgraded to a Snow Advisory. Still up to 5 inches possible, though. Yuck!) (Friday morning update: Snow missed us again - YAY!!)

But, the calendar does say it's the first day of spring, and the birds must agree. Our lawn was covered with robins early this morning. Here's a not-very-good photo of one of them:

I also saw one blackbird perched at the top of a tree and many geese flying overhead, and I heard a meadowlark singing this morning. I also heard a killdeer last night.

That's not all I heard last night. At about 11:15 I heard heifers bellering, sounding suspiciously like they were not where they were supposed to be. A dreaded look out the window told me my suspicions were correct. They were tearing around all over the place... kicking up their heels from spring fever, I guess. :-(

We have plenty of mud from melting snow as it is, and the ground is thawing and soft. So this is what it looks like after dozens of hefty heifers had been dancing across the lawn and yard.

Nothing like a little early plowing, huh? Here one slid down the slope through my sprouting sedum.

At least they sorta spared the lawn directly in front of the house, but they covered everything else pretty thoroughly. Thank goodness for a son and a 4-wheeler, or they'd still be running around. 1:00 a.m. was late enough to be out chasing the dumb critters as it was.

"Hey, it wasn't us!"