Egg-scellent Experiment

For quite a while now, I've been wanting to add to my puny 3-hens-1-rooster sized flock and about a month ago, I thought my wish had come true when one said hens went broody. Broody hens are amazing for farm wives who want more chickens on the cheap (or is it 'cheep'?) with little to no effort on their part. Only trouble was my broody hen who looked oh so comfy on her little nest set inside an old car tire also looked oh so yummy to a hungry predator (maybe time to have the coon hunters come pay a night-time visit again...) and while she escaped with a few less feathers, she abandoned her nest only a few days after she'd started a-settin' on it. I was able to borrow an incubator from my mother-in-law though and I figured if I could find where my chickens are laying their eggs right now (it's definitely not in the coop much to my dismay), I could hatch them on my own. But no amount of hunting high and low (well, mostly low) has yielded the location of said nest(s) so I decided to order eggs instead and started researching hatcheries.

Then I stumbled on a link that gave me an idea. Apparently, some people have had luck hatching store bought eggs. That sounded easy and cheap-both of which appeal to me very much.

Now it's not like you can try hatching any old eggs from the grocery store. Most eggs in the average carton are from laying barns and there aren't roosters running around doing their 'duty' so the eggs aren't fertilized. But if you can find eggs labeled 'free range' and from a more local source (think farmer's markets), there's a chance the facility won't have taken the roosters out of the hen house. There's an easy way to check for fertilization-crack a few eggs open and look for a little yellow bulls-eye blob in the yolk-and if you are lucky, you'll have a nice hatchable bunch of eggs.

Egg-cited by this prospect and in possession of not only an empty incubator but 3 dozen free-range eggs purchased just a few hours prior at my organic and local food grocery store, I decided to try it out. After all, if it doesn't work, I could chalk it up to test run and order incubating eggs from a hatchery.

So here we are. Day 5 of the grand Incubating Eggs-periment, a newly purchased automatic egg turner (that just arrived today) all set up and running, and a quick candling of a few eggs last night showed promising results so far. We'll likely have a few duds in the bunch but if all goes well (and with a healthy dose of luck), in about 16 days I'll have several little yellow fluff balls peeping around.

I just hope that they aren't all roosters...

Quirky Cows and Other Tails

Cows may seem like benign farm animals and 95% of the time, they are.  It doesn't take much to make a contented cow-a nice fresh grassy patch to graze, a cool drink of water now and then, and a cozy little spot to plunk down on for a quick snooze.

The thing is cows have quirks too. They can be extremely curious. You know that thing that kills the cat? A cow can be just that bad. Go stand out in a pasture of cows and within five minutes, they'll all be gathered round like you are the town crier and have a juicy bit of bovine gossip to share. I've seen them chase any number of birds (including eagles), the dogs, and any other animal that ventures into their paddock simply because they want a closer look.  They also like the game Follow The Leader. I'm serious. Get one cow moving in any direction and before long the herd is at her heels. She stops, they stop. She turns, they turn. (This can lead to trouble if the lead cow turns out a gate that accidentally got left open...)

And then you get the extra quirky cows. We have one who thinks the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. It doesn't matter if that other side is the paddock she just vacated or if it's a weed filled ditch. It must be better because it's on the other side. So she goes down on her knees and with her backside hoisted high in the air inches under the wire just far enough to snag that juicy morsel of grass without getting a hefty zap from the electric fence. Smart cow or dumb cow I can't decide.

L has a picture of another bovine who decided to 'dress up' a little. She was inspecting a tire left out in the field, decided it was as good a spot as any to scratch that itch way back on her heck and bloop! the tire slid over her head and she was fashionably at-tired (pardon the pun) for milking with a rubber necklace. (And I have it on good authority that it was easier said than done to remove said adornment. The cow was a little attached to her accessory and didn't want to give it up but she was finally convinced that she didn't need to be prettied up for milking.)

We have another cow who hurdled fences with the ease of an Olympic track star simply because she decided it was more fun to see the humans chasing after her than it was to go into the parlor for milking. Twenty minutes, three fences, two gates, and several laps (both on foot and on an ATV) around the pasture, she decided to take pity on the huffing and puffing chore help and meekly walked into the parlor. Every other year or so, she has to test her jumping ability and see if she can still clear that cattle gate or electric fence though she's stopped leading us on a merry chase.

And then you get the absolutely nutso cows. I mean out-right loony. And not just during full moons...

Last summer, the Craziest Cow in the Herd award was shared by two. The first was a young heifer who decided that even though she was a mom herself, she was going back to her baby days. We kept catching her suckling on another cow and no amount of persuasion (or dissuasion) would make her stop. The second was the cow she was nursing from. That one was due to calve in a few months and somehow decided this overgrown baby was hers. We ended up shipping the younger one because she couldn't quit and we sorta wanted the milk she was guzzling in our bulk tank, not hers. So off she went.

This year, another 'Momma' cow is a shoo-in for the 'Crazy Cow' award. We have a full-grown cow who suddenly decided the also full grown breeding bull was her baby. One day, she ignored him and went about her daily business. The next, she turned into a jealous mother. She spends her day mooing gently in his ear, keeping him safely corralled at her side so he can't hurt himself, and tends to his every need. She doesn't think he's old enough to leave her side for even five minutes which interferes quite a bit with his whole purpose for being in the herd. She's jumped fences, tried to sneak through a wood barricade, and attempted to wiggle under some metal pipes all in an effort to get back to her 'little' boy. We'll see if she settles down once bully boy is hauled away for a few months as we're at the end of our Fall breeding season.

And it's all just another day on the farm...

I counted too soon..Darn it...

Having never been around agriculture before marrying L, farm life was an adjustment for me. And that's putting it mildly. Even now, six years later, you'd think I'd know better than to plan a weekend vacation during the summer months. But NO...I had to go and do it anyway.  And ended up postponing the trip three times in total. So far.  It's still only July.  I've got to get through August and part of September before it 'officially' becomes a Fall vacation...

My first mistake was planning the vacation at all.  My second mistake was planning it first for the end of May.  That turned out to be a no-go when it quickly became apparent in April, that Mother Nature had her seasons mixed up and thought it was still winter before switching to monsoon season.  The end of May saw us frantically trying to get crops planted between raindrops and cooler temperatures delaying fieldwork.

My second attempt at a vacation was derailed when the hay crop decided to have a weekend growth spurt.  Being an understanding, if slightly disgruntled, farm wife, I pushed my plans off for another week.

My third try came thisclose to success when L was literally one foot out the door to go buckle the kids in their carseats when the phone rang.  It was unexpectedly bad news about a near and dear family member and there was only one decision to be made under the circumstances.  Luckily, the bad news quickly turned into not-quite-so-bad news and it's now at pretty-darn-good status but our trip was still pushed off.

We are currently awaiting an update that will let us know whether our 4th stab at a summer family vacation will happen in another week or if it will be two weeks out.

But, as any good farmwife knows, the only sure things about summer on the farm are the hay has to be made, the cows need to be milked, and vacations aren't to be planned.

Farm Life

Life on a farm isn't like it seems in those Old McDonald picture books.  Our cows aren't all white and black, my chore clothes aren't pristine blue jean overalls and a straw hat, and our farm isn't red outbuildings with white trim.  We don't use a pitchfork to pitch hay, we don't have hay stacks, and most of our cows have numbers instead of names.

The modern dairy farm is turning more and more automated.  Our fields are worked by horsepower (as in John Deere) as opposed to horse power.  Our hay is baled, not stacked, and lines the driveway at the barn in long white plastic wrapped rows. We use skidsteers and tractors with loaders to haul and feed hay.  No pitchforks involved. Our cows are numbered for convenience (ever try coming up with 40 new names each year without overlapping the 120+ names you already have in use?) and are black, white, brown, red, grey, and every shade in between.  My chores clothes are sweat pants, T-shirts, and sweatshirts and on my feet, the ubiquitous blue mud boot found at the fleet supply store in town.  Our barns are more pole buildings with steel siding/roofing as opposed to the iconic red barn with soaring hay loft.  Fields are plowed with tractors pulling plows that cut a several foot swath instead of a single row of sod turned over by a walk-behind plow pulled by a trusty farm horse.  While I do know how to milk a cow by hand, I rarely have to use that skill for more than the occasional cow as our automatic milkers with their automatic take-offs do all the hard work for us.  If you really want to get fancy, you can get a robotic milker for even more ease.

Yet, farm life isn't all mechanical. There's still the charm of seeing newborn calves wobble about on gangly unsteady legs.  There's still that one favorite cow who nuzzles up for a neck scratch. There's still the appreciation for the land and the animals.  Farmers still sigh with satisfaction when the last load of grain is in the bin and harvest is done for another year.  While things have gotten more automated and farm life has changed considerably since the days of Laura Ingalls Wilder, the essence of family farming still remains.  My kids will grow up on the same farm their father did and maybe someday V and/or A will farm with their own children here.  Til then, they'll ride tractors with their daddy, watch the calves gambol about in their pens, and grow up as honest-to-goodness farm kids.

Life with a Chicken Coop

In the last few days, the old adage "In springtime, a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love" has come true in our chicken coop. Due to a territorial new momma dog in the fall and two marauding (and apparently hungry) puppies this winter, the population in our chicken coop has dwindled down to two quite large roosters and a lone laying hen. Ms. Hen was being 'wooed' quite vigorously by her two suitors the other day and V just happened to get in the way.  The more ardent of the two roosters took exception to the fact V was blocking his (the rooster's) view of his ladylove and proceeded to make his feeling known.  Luckily, L was only a few feet away and managed to get the rooster away from V before it could do more than flap it's wings a few times and try jumping on V's back. Aside from a slight scare, my little boy was unhurt although he did want to put 'that mean chicken in time-out'.

The rooster, on the other hand, was a tad worse for the wear.  L knocked it out when he grabbed it away from V.  The slightly bedraggled rooster was up and about in a few minutes but he spent the rest of the day in the coop. Sulking or recovering, I'm not sure...All I know is that rooster makes a wide path around my kids when they are playing outside now.

Bye Bye Bossy

Because I grew up in town, even though I now live in the country, I still tend to look at animals as pets rather than just animals. I'm getting better and certain aspects of farm life no longer phase me. It's just that I get this little pang for awhile when we send a cow to the sale barn.

We sent one just this morning. She was one of the older cows in the herd, had developed a slight limp, had a high SCC number, wasn't bred, and wasn't producing as much milk as she used to. Still, for some reason, I've become attached to that particular cow.

Perhaps I was attached because she was one of the first ones I could always pick out when I first started milking. She just stood out in my mind. Maybe it was her placid temperament. (In other words, she went into the parlor first without complaint, had a nice big bag with large straight teats, and didn't kick at you or the milker.) It could just be that I liked that cow for no reason at all. For whatever reason, it was still bittersweet to say goodbye.

From Our Farm: Part 2

This is a milker. When the cows come into the parlor, we wash their udders with an iodine-based solution to clean off anything that might be on the teats. Then we put the milker on. The milkers are designed to mimic (as closely as a machine can) the action of a calf suckling in order to get the milk out of the cow.


Once the milk is in the milkers, it is pumped through a pipeline, a holding tank or 'jar', and our plate cooler (which cools the milk down) before ending up in our bulk tank. (This one is in our winter barn.) The bulk tank is essentially a very large cooler with a paddle inside. It keeps the milk between 35 and 38 degrees while the paddle stirs the milk to help keep the milk at a constant temperature.

From Our Farm: Chore Time

Twice a day, we bring our cows into the barn for milking. We have two barns-one is a stall barn with an attached parlor used in the winter and the other is just the milking parlor on our 90-acre irrigated summer pasture.


This is our winter parlor. This parlor is a Double 7, meaning we can milk seven cows on each side with a milker for each. We bring the cows in from the holding pen through the two doors on the right. The cows face away from the center aisle or 'pit'. The chore people stand in the pit and put the milkers on between the cow's legs. Once done milking, the cows are sent out the far door and back out into the barn where they are fed hay bales and TMR (a mixture of grain, minerals, and corn silage) in the feed lane. They also have access to the winter pasture.


This is our summer parlor. We bring the cows in through the system of gates you see at the far end of the parlor. As you can see, this is a much bigger parlor. It is a Swing 14, meaning we can put 14 cows in on each side but swing the milkers from side to side as the cows finish milking. The exit doors are not pictured. The cows go out of the parlor and walk back to their pasture until the next milking. We feed the TMR out in the pasture.

From Our Farm: Calf Chores

When a calf is born, we usually separate it from the mother shortly afterward. Because we do not allow the calf to nurse on the mother, we need to bottle feed our calves twice a day for 8+ weeks. We feed them a gallon of whole milk per day and introduce hay as early as possible. We also free-choice (leave out for them to eat when they want to) whole oats at least a week prior to weaning. Kelp and sometimes minerals are given with the oats.


This is a calf bottle. It holds 2 quarts of milk. That's a pretty big bottle.


This is a mob feeder. We can feed 2-5 calves with this feeder. After being bottle-fed for a while, we usually train our calves to drink out of this. They still get the same amount of milk but we will begin free-choicing water when the calves are using these.

At a minimum age of 8 weeks (and able to eat a fair amount of hay and grain), our calves start weaning. We give them 2 quarts of milk once a day for two weeks and then stop giving milk altogether. Once weaned, we keep the calves for another month or so just to make sure they are eating hay and grain well before sending them over to our custom calf raiser.

From Our Farm: A Calf is Born

For those of you who have never been on a dairy farm, here is a peek into our farming life.


Step 1-A calf is born. Our calves are bottle-fed whole milk for 8+ weeks before being weaned. Once weaned, we will keep the calves on the farm until they are 3-4 months old before sending them to our custom calf raiser. They will stay there until they are old enough to be bred.


Step 2-The calf grows up. We bring the next batch of heifers (cows that have not had their first calf yet) back to the farm when they are about a year old to be bred by our breeding bull. After being bred and having a calf, we bring the cow into the milking herd.


Step 3-In order to produce milk, a cow has to 1. have a calf and 2. eat, eat, eat. We feed hay, corn silage, and a mixture of grains and minerals during the winter months. This is taken in the feed lane at our winter barn.


Step 3(cont.)-From mid-May to mid-October, our cows are on our summer pasture. We move their paddocks twice a day to allow for fresh grazing and feed corn silage and a grain/mineral mix. There is nothing lovelier to me than seeing the cows grazing contentedly on all that lush green grass.

Baby's First: Chore Time & Snowshoe jaunt

Yep, I did chores for the first time last night. It was kind of fun to be back out in the barn again. I am quite rusty with dipping, wiping, and putting milkers on though I can still take milkers off reasonably quickly. Now, I bet you are all wondering what about Vern. Well, he was out there with me. Before I get shocked expressions from everyone reading this, I did have him fairly bundled up. Three layers of clothing, four layers of cozy blankets,and he was in his car seat in a playpen set eight feet away from the cows. He loved it! Slept right up until his daddy walked in to help with milking. He woke up because he was hungry so I went in and fed him. Worked out well all around. I am hoping to get back into the swing of things now that I know Vern will tolerate the noise of milking but I do have some limits. I won't take him out in the barn if it's below freezing and I am not doing morning chores yet. It will be a while before I am doing chores more than a few nights a week, but with Spring fieldwork and planting right around the corner, it won't be long before my help will be much appreciated.

Also a first for Vernon-snowshoeing. Lanny and I went out for a short stroll (stroll being an understatement) this afternoon. Lanny had Vern bundled up in the frontpack and zipped his jacket around both of them. It was a funny sight to see him all bundled up like that! (Shoulda taken a picture...) Even though I've been taking walks on nice days, I was stunned at how terribly out of shape I am! I had trouble keeping up with Lanny even though he had the bigger snowshoes AND Vernon strapped to his chest! Still, it felt SO good to get out and enjoy the warm weather. It was nearly 40 degrees and the snow was just about perfect for snowshoeing. I can't wait to go again!

Understanding: Kicky Cows

After having my baby nurse off and on for 12+ hours yesterday (not kidding!), I now understand why the cows can sometimes be kicky when being milked.

I also totally understand why they always say "Rest when your baby does!" (and REALLY mean it) as most of that 12+ hours was during the night. Poor little guy has a stuffy nose and can't sleep comfortably unless he's being held. I also think he is going thru a growth spurt, which would account for the near-constant nursing.

Old Barns and Old Farms

There is something about those old dilapidated weathered buildings you see on old farmsteads that calls to me. Those graying boards, missing windows, and empty rooms all hint at a simpler life in simpler times. My great-grandmother lived for many, many years on a small farmstead in rural MI, only leaving when her health declined. My grandmother and her two siblings were raised there and my dad, his siblings, and cousins all helped out with chores and fieldwork during their childhood summers. It was a small farm with a few cows, a bull, a very mean rooster (or was it a goose?), some chickens, a few horses (I think) and a tame skunk that came to the door to be fed and once to show off it’s family. The farmhouse was an old log cabin (that porcupines adored eating) with three rooms downstairs and a small upstairs for bedrooms and a homemade weaving loom. The kitchen housed the wood cook stove that took up an entire wall and, if I remember right, provided heat for the small home. I don’t remember much about that house except that the wooden shingle siding had already acquired the grayed, antiqued look long before I was born. I remember the cook stove being a big black, cast iron thing with the perpetually percolating coffee pot keeping warm in a back corner. (My dad claims the grounds were rarely emptied so you ran the risk of getting coffee that ranged from a decent cup’o’joe to high-octane tar.) I remember the bare lonely bulb hanging in the changing room of her sauna and eating raspberries off the bushes as I walked back to the house after washing up. I remember the cracked vinyl on the 70's era floral-print toilet seat cover displayed in proud prominence in the outhouse (even in her later years, my great-grandmother refused to get indoor plumbing). Mostly, though, I remember her barn. It was massive to my little kid mind, rising tall in the twilight hours when the bats would fly out of the rafters to catch the mosquitoes buzzing about. Though long empty of farmyard animals, it was still home to the bats, some birds, and I am sure the occasional wild barn cat. It, like the house, had long ago turned to the faded gray of aged wood and was starting to sag around the edges though it was still used for storage. I always wondered what it was like inside when the animals were still there. I imagined the smell of bedding, cows, and horses. I pretended that light filtering in through the cracked window panes transformed the dusty bare floor into a blanket of golden straw. I could hear the sound of cows chewing their cud, the ‘whoof’ and stomp of the bull as he shifted in his stall, the meow of a hungry barn cat. To open my eyes would be to admit it was just an empty old barn. In my mind, I was transported back 30 years, to a time before I was born, when it was home to those animals. I fell in love with old barns and buildings as a young girl visiting my aging great-grandmother but to this day, I can’t drive past an old farmstead without wondering what stories those old homes and barns could tell. Perhaps that's partly why I ended up out here milking cows for a living...

The Truth about Chores

Here's a secret...I don't actually mind doing chores. Even at 8 months pregnant, I don't really mind doing chores. Despite the bone-chillingly cold temps we have had recently, I don't mind doing chores. It's crazy but it's true. I am tired of having to pull on three layers of long johns, undershirts, T-shirts, pants, wool socks, sweatshirts, and jackets that no longer close over my belly. I am tired of having to go bathroom before we leave for chores, before I start chores, during chores, before I leave the barn, and when I get home from chores. I am tired of having to crawl out of my nice cozy flannel sheet-covered bed on chilly mornings only to have to put on barn clothes that seem to shrink with each wearing and venture out into sub-zero temps to deal with poopy, temperamental bovines.

But chores, themselves...It's relaxing. There is this almost poetic rhythm that becomes second nature once you've been milking for a while. You move from cow to cow dipping, wiping, putting milkers on, taking them off. There's the soothing click of the pulsators that sound out the steady heartbeat of the milking system, the swish of milk through the hoses, the clunk of the pump turning on, the metallic *clink* of the milkers being hung up. It's music, after a fashion, with harmonies of swatting tails, tip-toeing hooves, and the 'whoof' of a cow coughing up her cud. The beauty of milking is that it's never the same. Different people milking, different cow order, added cow pie cleanups, etc. all add to the musical elements of chores. It's a randomly precise choreography that varies in texture each time yet with the same results in the end-a large increase in the milk level in the bulk tank.

Perhaps I am just crazy, in a sane sleep-deprived way that is, but I really don't mind chore duty. I just wish I could do chores without having to wedge my burgeoning belly into too-tight barn duds and brave the chilly, icy outdoors to get there.

Brrr...It's Cold Out There!

We got down to -31 degrees last night. That's cold. I was pretty happy to be able to sleep in this morning as it was -18 (I think) when Lanny left for morning chores. I don't milk if the temp is -20 and I guess he figured it was close enough. Chores this evening will be chilly but they shouldn't be too bad. It's those more extreme negative temps that cause problems. At -15 degrees, everything starts freezing in the parlor. Hoses freeze, hands and feet get chilled, boots get slippery, and anything wet that hits the floor freezes within a short amount of time (not instantaneously but it sometimes seems that way...)It makes for some treacherous walking if one isn't careful about spreading ashes or sawdust on the icy patches. Still the cows prefer to be outdoors rather than in the barn. They come in with frosty 'beards' on their chins, snot-sicles the size of baby carrots, and frozen manure blobs hanging from tails but still they would prefer to be out on the manure pack. I'll stay indoors and leave the frozen noses to the cows.

Only On This Farm...

We were doing morning chores yesterday and Lanny came to interrupt for a few minutes. He had something to show me in the doghouse. The in-laws had two dogs, Rascal and Ruffin. For some reason, the black one (Ruffin) disappeared a few weeks ago. (Interestingly enough, the neighbors have also had a black dog disappear right around the same time.) Anyhoo, Rascal has been awfully lonesome since his buddy disappeared. Since he doesn't have a buddy to play with anymore, he makes do with the animals he can find. Lanny discovered that Rascal was sharing his doghouse with none other than a real live....pigeon. You could peek in and the bird would just look at you, fluff it's feathers and settle back into the straw. Rascal left it alone (amazing to me since Mindy would have devoured it in seconds) and it wouldn't bother him either. Guess he's a bird dog and we didn't even know it!

In other news, the baby is no longer breech according to the doctor. Yay! Had a checkup yesterday and everything looks good. Measuring right on schedule, weight gain around 16 pounds, all my baby clothes are washed and ready to go, and only 5 weeks left!

Calving Time

Well, it's that time of year again...The cows are starting the Fall Freshening Season. So far, we've had eight heifer calves, seven bull calves, and one calf that didn't survive birth. We are about par for the course at this time of year. Calving season is always a hectic time of year and, while it's nice to see those cute calves, I do breathe a big sigh of relief when the season is over. (I also breathe a very big sigh of relief when the calves are all weaned and hauled to the calf barn.) Each season bring about the miracle of birth but it also brings about the need for ALOT of patience. No matter how many calves you have at one time, you will be guaranteed to have at least one that can escape any kind of pen you have it in, a few that get sick, a few that are too stubborn to learn how to drink properly from a bottle, and a fewer than you would like that do everything right. So far I've had a calf fall down a fox hole while trying to run to Momma out in the pasture, two calves who could wiggle out of the 12 inch opening in their hutches, and, currently, a stubborn bull calf who protested his being taken from Mom by refusing to drink his bottle. And this doesn't include the cows...We have several cows who regularly wander up to the barn to bellow for their babies who, being penned up, can't respond with anything other than a pitiful little bleat. We also discovered we have some pretty messed up breeding records because we have cows giving birth two to three months before they are scheduled to do so and, in a few cases, without us knowing they were even pregnant! It's frustrating, amazing, and funny all at once. Well, I guess that's just life on the farm.

Climbing on my soapbox

L got an email from one of his sisters with a link to an article on how the US produces so-called 'cheap' food. It's called "Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food." I agree with it's premise that the food industry has gotten to be just that-it's all about the almighty dollar instead of raising healthy food. The article also talks about what we can do to fix our food situation. It's amazingly simple: go back to small family-owned farms and use less chemicals/antibiotics to raise crops and animals. I totally agree with the premise that the American food industry relies way too much on scientific and chemical means to grow more food in less time and with less cost. For example-many small grains are harvested after being sprayed with Round-Up so it can be harvested faster and cheaper but don't all weed killers have 'Toxic-do not ingest' warning labels on them? According to the author, we are doing everything right on our farm. Our cows are allowed access to pasture and the outside world on all but the most inclement winter days instead of being cooped up 24-7. (Even on subzero degree days, the cows still love to go outside so it's got to be really bad out there before they want to stay indoors all day long.) Our crops are averaging reasonable yields yet we don't spray or use any chemicals of any kind. We use natural fertilizers, minerals, and crop rotation to keep the soil healthy. We treat our cows with homeopathic and natural remedies with higher success rates than my in-laws saw using conventional treatments. Yes, it's more expensive to farm this way, but I feel so much better about eating what we produce because there aren't the chemicals there. I don't want to blow my own horn here, but simply point out that we don't do things 'conventionally' and are still yielding much the same results. My challenge to you is this-read the article and think about it's message. Do you agree or disagree with the article? If you don't agree, I don't expect you to change your mind. I just want you to think about it. I didn't come by my opinions on organics overnight and I don't expect anyone else to either.

That's a BIG bunch of bull..

I really do mean that. Our bull is a big boy. The guys are pretty proud because 'Bulldy" is even college educated. (We bought him from a university that has a dairy research program.) Unfortunately, I don't know how much he learned while he was there... Yesterday, he couldn't figure out heads from tails when it came to the cows. Lanny claims it's actually a common occurance, but I just had to tease.

(If I can, later I will repost this with a picture of big bad Bulldy boy.)

Oh Happy Day!

Yay! This came yesterday. We've been on the Organic Valley truck for a month but this just makes it seem 'official'.

I posted on FreeCycle and got two responses to my Free Puppy ad already! Hopefully these cute little girls will have homes sometime next week. I'm getting too attached and it's gonna be hard to give them away.