Today I opened up the main pasture for them after fixing fence lines that the deer knock out. Bloody deer. I’ve been shooting at them, shouting at them, waving my arms like windmills at them. I get so annoyed that there they are in the pastures that are just greening while the cows have to still eat hay because the grass needs to grow.
Hope has horrible edema in her udder still, no mastitis but especially her right side, front and back quarters, are so full and hard the teats are sort of indented, and I can leave finger marks when I massage them and dig my fingers in after rubbing with a hot wet cloth. And she’s so gaunt it’s horrible. But she’s a good mum to Holly. I bottle fed her for the first 3 days because Hopes’ udder is so low that Holly couldn’t find the teats and I wanted to make sure she got the colostrum, but now she feeds herself. Favours the 2 front teats, and probably hasn’t worked out yet that there are four. She doesn’t run away from me, she’s learnt about the electric fencing, and she’s such a girl, she doesn’t want to walk in the mud. Silly girl, this is Michigan where we have at least 2 seasons of mud every year.
Yesterday was Easter, and the 7-month anniversary of Herbies’ death and I drove over to MaStanley with 2 dozen carrot cake cupcakes. Both Nanette and Elizabeth were there with their family / boyfriend. I held BH (Baby Herbie) until MaStanley finished eating and held out her arms for him, while most of the family played the annual game in the back yard - sort of like cricket, but with a big plastic ball that the player has to kick and then there’s running. I declined joining it as I’m not sure of the rules and don’t want to take the chance of getting hurt. I was a little toasted by the sun, slathered aloe vera on before bed as I was red, red, red. This morning it was a bit calmer, just my face and part of my chest still looked a bit raw.
Once back home, I had to give the horses and cows hay, then dug more holes with the post hole digger and planted the 10 thuja green giant trees above the neighbours house to hopefully block the view into their garage (and therefore their view up to my house) as well as block some of the lights they have on all night. I can see them from the window above our stairs, fortunately the bedrooms don’t have windows on the North side of the house, only the stairs, Herbies’ bathroom and the study, which is, I suppose, the 4th bedroom. Then I milked.
Still have to dig more holes for the additional 6 blueberry bushes that I bought at the same time, and the 2 lavender bushes. The 27 holes I dug last week didn’t allow enough for them too.
We have 12 lambs so far this Spring, and I’m not sure if there’ll be any more. All the white sheep and lambs are currently brown, while the black ones are just dirty. Mud season. I need to finish digging the holes I need so that I can put the flail mower on the tractor and clear out where Herbie started clearing out last year so that I can give them a bigger enclosure seeing as they’ve lost the front yard to the horses and the lower barn enclosure has been churned up into mud by the cows.
I checked my bees today and the whole hive is dead. I’m so disappointed, I fed them sugar blocks in early February and they were alive but not today. There was bee activity in one of the other hives, and a whole lot flying low against the ground in the veggie garden today, so I still have bees, just not that hive of them. Tomorrow I’ll move the sugar blocks to the hive with the activity, but need to cut the tree that fell on it last Winter.
So much work is needed here on the farm in Spring.