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Hi Everyone,

               Our week did not go as planned—but it went really well! For the last few weeks our phone has literally been ringing off the hook with people wanting to buy Jersey milk cows—young heifers, bred heifers, and cows in milk. I do not know how they find us, but they say that they searched the internet and found our website. Funny thing is when I do a search for A2/A2 Jersey cows for sale—Shepherd’s Hill Farm does not pop up in my search engine. I will not complain though for the Lord has truly blessed us with the sales of quite a few cows and calves which will come in grand handy to pay for some projects that we desperately need to get done.

               Monday morning just as we finished milking the cows a couple showed up to take a look at our heifers—the older weaned ones and the younger ones that are still nursing (but need to be weaned). The first two that they picked out had already been picked out by a young couple the previous Friday afternoon. By the time they left they had settled on Elli Mae’s young bull calf and a four month old bull (that they would steer), but they were not sure which heifer they wanted. Wednesday afternoon Mike and Leslie returned to look over the heifers again, and settled on Maria. My friend Lydia named Maria when she was visiting last July. Maria’s mama’s name is Abby—and since the nuns on the movie Sound of Music live in an Abbey and they sang the song “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” she named the calf Maria. Some of our cows have very interesting stories behind their names. When we were done milking the cows on Thursday Mike showed up to learn how to band a bull in order to castrate it, and to help load up the bull calf, steer and the little heifer—Maria. We then delivered the trio to their farm which was 50 minutes north of us. They had a lovely farm and have accomplished so very much in just eight months of living there—some very goal focused new farmers. We visited with them for a few hours and then we headed home. It wasn’t until later that Mom and I realized that we had just dropped off a three week old bull calf in a huge pasture with no way to catch him—how were they going to feed him a bottle if they couldn’t catch him. Friday morning Mom and I had the same idea—the reason we sold the bull calf is because his mama (Ellie Mae) has a nasty case of mastitis and he was going around nursing on other cows along with nursing on her which could cause the other cows to become infected with the bacteria that causes mastitis. Since Ellie Mae is old, and we cannot milk her we thought that it would be a good idea to take Ellie Mae over to Mike and Leslie’s and let Ellie Mae nurse her calf—and they wouldn’t have to worry about bottle feeding him. So as soon as we got the cows milked, the milking equipment washed, yogurt made, dinner in the oven and a bite to eat for lunch we loaded up Ellie Mae and headed back to their farm. Ellie Mae had been mooing greatly for her calf, and as soon as she saw us come toward the field with the trailer she got up and met us at the fence and loaded right into the trailer—and she is 15 years old and has never been on a trailer before (she was born here). Fifty minutes later we unloaded her at Mike and Leslie’s. Her calf had escaped into the field with their beef cows and so Papa and Mike tried their best to catch him up—to no avail. So we walked Ellie Mae over to the fence and when her little bull calf saw her he went to bawling. We finally managed to get him to walk down the fence toward the gate and when he reached that gate he ran straight for his mama and tried to nurse. I do mean tried—because as soon as he reached for the teat Ellie Mae kicked him. Every time he reached for a teat she licked him—but he was not giving up! She walked over to the feed trough and began to munch on the alfalfa pellets, and when her calf went to nurse she kicked it, turned around and hit it with her head, pushed him around and flipped him upside down into the feed trough and when he squirmed his way out of that he landed on his back on the ground. We began to get worried for it looked like Ellie Mae would never let her calf nurse. Leslie realized that they had an old pen off to the side of the field and she and Papa walked over to see how secure it was so that we could lock the calf in there so that they could catch it in order to bottle feed it, and we would just load Ellie Mae back on the trailer and take her back home. As they were checking out the pen Ellie Mae and her calf headed out to the middle of the field where an old bale of hay was and Ellie Mae stood perfectly still and let her calf nurse—and nurse, and nurse and nurse! Finally! We decided that Ellie Mae was being a good mama and was disciplining her calf for running away—what she didn’t know was that her calf was kidnapped (he didn’t run away). Never the less, once she had thoroughly scolded him she calmed down and gave him what he needed most—a tummy full of mama’s milk. So I guess Ellie Mae will be on loan for about six months so that she can raise her bull, and they won’t have to bottle feed him.

               As I said, people are calling left and right wanting to buy their own milk cow. One family bought a bred heifer from us last January and has enjoyed having their own milk that they decided they wanted another cow that would be on the opposite calving cycle as the one they had. Their cow, Ava, calved in October and so they wanted a cow that would be due in April. We had one heifer that fit that description that we were willing to sell—her name is Anne, and the interesting part was that she is Ava’s sister. They were very excited and had planned to come and pick her up the second week of January—but life happened and they couldn’t make it. Then last Tuesday night as we were finishing up working in the garden we noticed a cow way off in the back of the cow field. She was by herself, kind of—for she was licking a newborn calf. We knew that Merci was due to calve on Monday, but the cow didn’t look like Merci. Ana was due on Thursday, but it didn’t look like Ana either. So Mom and I drove out to investigate and found that Anne had calved. O no! She wasn’t broke yet, and the people needed time to work with her, and they wanted a cow that would calve in April—not January! A few days ago a lady called us and asked if we had a cow in milk for sale. We told her that we never sell our milk cows, because we need them for our business. Once we break a cow and she starts giving milk she is ours. Well, the very next day the family that wanted Anne decided to not get Anne and they would just pick out another heifer. So we had a decision to make—what do we do with Anne? We had not taken the time to break her, so we would have to be diligent for a week to get her tamed—and Clayton isn’t here anymore to give us that helping hand of strength during milking time to help us break heifers. Then we remembered the family that was looking for a cow in milk—and Mom made a quick phone call and that lady was more than ecstatic. So on Tuesday they will come and pick up Anne and her little heifer calf.

               We had a long list of things that we all wanted and needed to get done before Clayton left—and most of that list got done, but not everything. One of the things on that list was to break two more heifers. Noel and Paisley were now two years old and I had planned on bringing them into the herd with the bull on January 1st—but life wouldn’t slow down enough for us to bring them in. Last Monday night as we finished up working in the garden Mom decided that it was time to put Noel and Paisley in with the bull and the other milk cows. I was surprised at how easy it was for Mom and Papa to separate them from the other heifers and get them out of the gate by themselves—and then they bucked and kicked and ran over to where I was standing at the gate to the milk cows. It took all of about 15 minutes. The next day we were ready to start getting them tamed enough to come into the milking parlor. Some heifers walk right in their first day, some will only come to the edge of the concrete, some won’t even come to eat out of a bucket—all are different. Mom was able to get Paisley to come into the stall to eat the first day. I had left the parlor already so there was no one to help with Noel who wanted to come in too. So the next day I stuck around and Paisley came in—but the wind kept whipping the tarp and scaring her out. Thankfully she kept coming back in and she finally calmed down enough that the wind and the tarp didn’t scare her anymore. I worked with Noel. She wouldn’t come to close—and she wouldn’t eat out of the bucket as long as I was holding it. I could put the bucket on the floor and move it a little closer to the parlor every now and then. The next day Anne was eating in her stall and the gate was open and Paisley decided to come on in on her own—but the stall was full. Some cows get used to one stall and never know that there are three more to choose from. I grabbed a bucket of alfalfa and jiggled it in front of Paisley and was able to coax her over to the next stall—so now she can eat out of two stalls. Today Anne wouldn’t come in and so Paisley came in all by herself. Noel has even made it into a stall. I am glad that these two heifers are easy to tame so far—I wonder if they will stay calm when we tie them in.

               While most of the week was spent “selling cows”, we did manage to spend some time in the garden. On Monday Mom and I weeded a 50 foot row in the East Tunnel so that we could plant potatoes on Tuesday. Then on Tuesday Mom planted the yellow onion starts in the Food Pyramid inside “Martha’s Vineyard”. I had to prep the row for the potatoes—and the first thing I needed was to cover it with chicken compost. Clayton wasn’t here to be my muscles, so Steve came to the rescue. As soon as he grabbed the black wheelbarrow he noticed that the tire was flat—and he loaded it up into the Gravely and took it up to the house to fill it up with air. That tire had been flat for months and I just thought we needed a new tire—and that is what I told Clayton. I had no idea that all we had to do was fill it up with air! Oops! Sorry Clayton—I know that it sure was hard to push a wheelbarrow full of compost with a flat tire. Once Steve had the row covered in compost I sprinkled wood ash all over it. Then I took my new tool, the tilther, and tilled the amendments into the soil. Since I was going to be growing potatoes there, I broadforked the bed in order to loosen the soil very deep. Then I took the tilther back to the row to level and smooth everything out. I grabbed my zipper tool and zipped open the dirt so that I had two trenches to plant potatoes in. Then I laid out a measuring tape and placed a potato every foot. Since I had two rows about a foot apart I set the potatoes in a zigzag pattern down the two rows keeping them all a foot apart. Once I had the potatoes spaced where they needed to be planted, Steve came and used the post hole digger and I would pick up the potato, Steve would dig the hole with one jab of the post hole digger and I would drop the potato in the hole and he would then drop the dirt back in. It went really quick and easy for us. We planted 84 potatoes, but where did we get them from? Well, about two months ago Mom ordered two bushel of red potatoes in order for us to can them. We only managed to get a bushel and a half canned—and the other half began to sprout. So we decided to use them for our seed potatoes this year.

               Well, I think that it is time to say “Good Night” for this computer has shut off on me twice so far while typing this journal. Thankfully I only lost a few sentences each time—but I will not complain because we got rain! Did you know that in 2022 we only got around 35 inches of rain the whole year, but in 2021 we got well over 50 inches of rain? So we are grateful for whatever rain we get since we have winter grasses planted and slowly turning the pastures green.

Serving you with Gladness,

Tiare