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Hi Everyone,

                Well, it is 7:23 and I just got inside from doing the evening chores. Papa is at the Men’s Prayer Meeting at church, so Mom and I had to do his chores. Lately we have been leaving the milk cows on hay during the day, and then at night when we separate the calves we put them in a green grass field to eat all night. Papa said that it is real easy to separate the calves—you just block off the lane at the barn, and then you let all the cows out of the “hay” field. As you walk down the lane through the cows you are supposed to encourage the calves to run ahead of the cows and into the barn—it sounds easy if everyone cooperates. Mom closed the lane up and I let out all the cows, and then the trouble began. Dijon—the bull, decided to be “Bully”. He stood in the middle of the lane blocking all the cows and calves from going down the lane. When one would dart past, he would take off after it and herd it back to the herd. We did manage to get all the calves down to the barn area—but they were enjoying the weeds and green grass on the outside of the barn and therefore, didn’t want to go inside. One little bull calf was being too spunky and rebellious. He was going around kicking up his heals and running back into the cow herd. So often when the calves do not want to be separated they go and stand right beside the bull and look at you as if to say, “Come and get me if you dare!” He kept darting in and out of the herd—but not in the direction of the barn. Mom finally managed to get all the cows into the green field so that we could focus on just the calf. He took off lickety-split up the lane. I jumped the hotwire in order to get ahead of him to close of the pasture they had just come out of. In the meantime, he ran under a rope that was supposed to keep him from going the wrong way. He then decided to stand still and look at us to see what we would do. While trying to close off the field I got the wires tangled, and the delay caused him to jump another hotwire fence and enter a 2 acre field—of which he ran lickety-split to the other end. We opened the wires and I headed out to pasture to herd him back down to the lane. Thankfully that wasn’t too hard, and once in the lane he only had one direction to go—towards the barn. Once the calves were locked up for the night we headed on down the lane to feed our old Bull Flag and his companion Yasha, a great Pyrenees dog. We then continued on our way south and entered into the pond field, aka—sheep territory. This year once the winter grasses turned green the sheep went on strike toward hay. They roam the farm going from field to field eating every blade of green grass they can find. We finally had to fence them off in the pond field so that they didn’t eat up all the Jersey milk cows green grass.  Once we were in the field we headed over to feed Jill, the great Pyrenees dog who guards the sheep. Then we went into the field where the chickens reside for now and fed Sheba the great Pyrenees dog that guards the chickens and we gathered 174 chicken eggs from a little over 200 chickens. We noticed that something had gotten our last old rooster—an ameraucana rooster whose spurs were a couple inches long.  The new chickens have 10 roosters, so we shall have to split them between the two flocks. The next stop was the garden chickens—where about 13 chickens are working hard to weed one of the garden beds for us. They are very old, but they did give us 4 eggs. Our final stop was the poultry barn—where the new chickens are still residing because they have to be moved to their portable chicken house at night time. Finding the energy to go out at dark to catch 100 chickens has not been found. When we do plan to do it—it rains! Out of 100 chickens, we are getting around 85 eggs—that is real good production! We used to have 400 laying hens, but we couldn’t sell all of the eggs, so we cut down to 300 chickens. I noticed this year that 300 chickens fed organic, soy and corn-free feed laid as many eggs as 400 chickens that were fed conventional GMO soy and corn feed. Moral of the story—Feed the chickens good quality feed, and they will give you an abundance of eggs. When we finally made our way back to the house I watered the plants in the green house, and came inside to journal—and that was an hour ago and I haven’t even journaled about last week yet.

                We have five two year old heifers that were added into the cow herd last year. Daisy came right in the first day, and I could pet her all over. Mom was working with another heifer named Emma, and Mom couldn’t get her to stay in the stall, and she couldn’t pet her. I would brag on how well Daisy was doing and that I could even pet her and she wasn’t tied in. Then we had company one day and Mom asked me to tie Daisy in so that she didn’t come out on someone. Well—Daisy didn’t like that and she panicked. It took me a week to get her back inside the milking parlor, and then she wouldn’t stay in the stall. I guess pride truly comes before a fall. By this time Mom had Emma perfectly trained to come in, be tied in, and be able to be petted. America was another heifer that came right in the first day. I could also pet her—but the day I tied her in, she panicked and became hard to get back into the stall. Jenny would only peek around the stall and eat out of a bucket. Ella would come nowhere near the milking parlor. After months of bad manners we decided it was time to take action. We bought three halters. Getting the halter on America was easy—for I had finally gotten her used to coming in, and with the help of a 2 by 4, she was blocked in. We would bring her in, put the board behind her, and then we would brush her down. After a week, she was much better. Since Daisy and Ella couldn’t be caught, we took them to the panel pens and caught them up and put the halters on them with a long rope attached. For a few weeks they wore their halters and ropes, but nothing else was done. Mom and I really wanted Papa to be the cowboy, but he was very seldom done with his chores by the time we were done milking. So on Monday, Mom and I decided it was time to be Cowgirls! Daisy is a sold cow, so we only have one month to halter train her—and she is making the best progress. So on Monday, as soon as we were finished milking we started to work with the three heifers. Mom got Daisy in with some work, and I was working with Ella—but Jenny kept getting in the way (and she didn’t have a halter). We had Moises take a bucket of feed out to pasture to get her out of the way. We then managed to get Ella in a stall. On Tuesday we were ready for our second training day. Mom worked with Daisy and was able to get her in the stall. On my side Jenny wanted to eat, but I really wanted Ella. Jenny didn’t have a halter, and Ella did. Then I got an idea. I grabbed a very long rope and made a loop. I hooked the end of the rope around a board, and then draped the loop around the feed bucket that Jenny was eating out of. When Jenny put her head in the bucket, I put the rope over her head. I caught me a cow! Mom asked me what I was going to do now. I told her that I didn’t know. We sat there and watched as Jenny began to fight the rope. Mom was finally able to get Daisy in on her side, and now we needed to work with Ella. I got a rope with a hook on one end and a loop on the other. I hooked the loop around a boat cleat and waited for Ella to come eat out of her bucket. When she got close, I hooked her halter with the hook—and I had caught another cow. We then heaved and hoed to get Ella into the stall—and we won. We put a board behind her and she contentedly stood there to eat. Now we could focus on Jenny. Mom found an old halter, and the goal was to get it on Jenny who was jumping and flopping all over the place. Once that was accomplished we could remove the rope from around her neck and hook it too her halter. Then we hooked it to a board at the other end of the stall and began to wench her into the stall. We got her standing in front of the stall but she wouldn’t pick up her feet and climb in. I picked up one foot and sat it inside, but all her weight was on the other foot and there was no way to pick it up. I then decided that I would tie a bunch of ropes together and wrap them around her rump and pull her forward while Mom pulled on her halter. I thought that if I put it around her back legs that it would make her walk, instead I pulled her back feet right off the ground and down she sat. About this time Ella had finished eating and decided that she was going to leave. Since she couldn’t go backwards because of the board, she decided to turn around. We tried to calm her down and prevent her from turning around—because there really is no room to turn around. She would take no advice and the next thing we knew she was standing upside down on her head with her back end up in the air. Ella wiggled around and soon found herself sitting on the ground. Once she recovered, she stood up and she was now facing out, so she just walked under the board and left. Jenny was standing back up now, and we went back to pulling her into the stall. We finally realized that we just couldn’t do it—so we called Steve to come help. We finally got her in, let her eat and brushed her down. Wednesday we didn’t have time to work with the heifers, but Thursday, Friday, and Saturday we did. On Friday we were blessed that it only took us 10 minutes to get all three heifers into their stalls. Saturday we had to work hard with Ella, but this morning Mom was able to grab the rope on Daisy and Jenny and they walked right in. Ella on the other hand kept her distance. On Monday the cows smeared their dirty noses all over Mom’s jacket, so I washed it. On Tuesday they did the same thing. Mom told me that if I would wash it again, she wouldn’t get it dirty on Wednesday because we wouldn’t have time to work with the heifers. I washed the jacket, but on Wednesday half of her cows decided to go poop in the parlor and her jacket got dirty again!

                While we were able to spend Monday and Tuesday working in the garden, Thursday was spent upstairs in the sewing room working on some dresses for my niece Makenna’s birthday present. Friday found us rejoicing to finally have hot water back in the kitchen, dishwasher and washing machine. Saturday found me trying to find some time to plan out the spring garden, but in the midst of it I heard a noise in my bedroom window. I turned around to look and to my dismay the ants were coming out to play. They hibernate when it is cold, but come out when it is hot. This time we had a problem—all of our vacuum cleaners are broken. How in the world do you clean up hundreds of ants without a vacuum cleaner? I grabbed a big bucket and filled it half full of soapy water. Then I grabbed a broom and dustpan and began sweeping them off the floor and dumping them into the bucket. The ones on the window seal I just brushed off into the bucket. Once we got them under control, then I sprinkled some Organic One on the window sill, and they haven’t come back. When the water lines are replaced in my bedroom wall, then we should be able to get rid of the ants that are living in that wall. After the ants were taken care of we headed to town to try to get groceries along with the rest of the world. We discovered that when people face quarantine they eat potatoes, onions, beans and rice, canned vegetables and they use a lot of paper towels and toilet paper. We had to do some shopping at Home Depot on Friday, and they had toilet paper all over the store. We meant to buy some, but we forgot. At Publix on Saturday we found the shelves empty—so we thought that we would just go back to Home Depot. Well, their shelves were now empty too. I have read about pandemics in the past, and have been amazed at how people were quarantined when sickness broke out. While the measures that our government is taking with the coronavirus may seem extreme, I am thankful that they care enough to want to protect as many people from the virus as possible. Pandemics in the past have been very deadly, and if all that our government is advising can help reduce the effects—then Praise the Lord!

                I hope that you have a great week, and that everyone we know stays healthy.

Serving you with Gladness,

Tiare