I have some cow pics for you. These cows and our chickens too are such a part of our family...like a pet. Of course the steers are for eating, so they aren't really the same as a pet. But, the cows are endeared to our hearts. Our girls are so big and strong for being around them. Everyone except Abigail who likes to hide her head when we bring her near.

The first picture I want to share with you is of Ruby and Jewel. Do you remember Jewel? Here she is last March:

Here is Mom and baby now.

Doesn't Jewel look like she needs to be weaned from her Momma?

The next set of pictures is of Little Ann. We may have to sell her... :-( ...but it isn't that sad because it's all working out well. My husband wants to switch over to Red Angus...which is great. I wasn't as fond of the Black Angus cows and the Pinzgauers aren't easy birthers. We'll still keep a few Pinzgauer Mommas(the red and white cows) Yeah! our most tame cows are Pinzgauers. But, in order to afford to buy more Red Angus Mommas we can't keep every Momma we have, we have to sell some. So, we might sell Little Ann. Little Ann isn't really little. We just call her that because she's the baby of Dora Ann (we didn't name her).

Here she was a few days old.

Here she is now. Isn't she gorgeous? For a cow, of course.

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Gardening is always an opportunity for me to adjust my attitude and realize that life is a process and things don't have to be perfect. I can't do everything for one thing. Plus I have young children. I really can't do everything. I was hoping for a bumper crop of tomatoes and green beans and zucchini and broccoli this year. None of the above turned out. Several factors influence this I fear.

Lime

First off, we have extremely acidic soil here and naturally it's practically straight clay. We've amended it a lot. But, we have to constantly remember to amend it more. We skipped the lime this year and I think that was what was up with the green beans and several other crops which just didn't "take off".

Compost

Secondly, compost. Well, we get some compost from our cattle. But, we didn't get that ready early enough in the year. To prove my point, my husband dumped a large portion of what compost we had on the tomato beds. They are huge. Unfortuneately, I don't think they were warm enough - they haven't ripened yet and I'm not sure there is much hope at this point as the nighttime temperatures are dipping below 50 degrees F. Now, it's warmer in my greenhouse, but so far the tomato plants in there haven't fared any better. They only got small amounts of compost.

Pests

The other thing I've been fighting this year are pests. Slugs and grasshoppers to be specific. They ate every bit of the broccoli and a lot of my starts. Well, I really don't want to use a chemical solution for these things. I mean, I eat my produce, you know? Sometimes, when we have to we use certain chemical solutions such as spraying the Bull Thistles with Round Up. The round up goes to nothing in 72 hours anyhow and the Thistles are away from our garden and we keep the cows away from them after spraying. We also treat our cattle for flies. It's just in-humane not to after a certain point. That's also an "approved" organic choice in certain circumstances - not that we are officially organic.

Well, I want to avoid the chemicals, so I've been researching other options for these pests.

NATURAL SLUG TREATMENTS

FLOWER POT Prop a flower pot upside down with a stick to allow the slugs to get in. Check the pot toward the end of the day and remove the slugs.

BEER Place old plastic containers in the soil around damaged plants and fill with beer. Dump in the morning. Repeat every evening.

COFFEE GROUNDS Surround the damaged plants with coffee grounds. Slugs won't want to cross and you'll fertilize your soil.

COPPER Put copper flashing around your plants, it will shock and repel slugs.

VINEGAR Spray vinegar on slugs that aren't on your plants. It will kill them, just don't spay on your plants, it will kill those too.

Toads, rove beetles, lightning bugs, and ducks all eat slugs or their eggs.. I'm fresh out of the first three in the Northwest and somehow I think putting a duck in the garden would be a detriment to my garden, not just the slugs.

NATURAL GRASSHOPPER TREATMENTS

Chickens will eat grasshoppers if they have access to them. My problem is that our chickens don't have access to our garden or my greenhouse.

Sink glass jars into the soil. Fill to the halfway point wit a mixture of 10 parts water to 1 part of molasses. The hoppers are drawn to the sweet smell of the molasses, they dive in and drown. Clean traps as needed.

Black Strap Molasses: combine 4 ounces of this with one quart of water. Spray directly on hoppers. This will clog their pores so they cannot breath resulting in their death.

The other encouraging thing I read is that there are worms that eat grasshopper eggs and when grasshopper populations go up, then the worm populations go up and then eventually grasshopper egg populations go down.

Also, just a note in years past, we've dealt with other problems.

We've dealt with flea beetles on our tomatoes. I was happy to treat my tomatoes with a concoction made of garlic, hot peppers, onions that I sprayed on my fledgling tomatoes. It worked. It kept them off enough for the tomatoes to develop. And, funny thing is we haven't had a problem with those since.

Last year we had corn borer worms in our corn. We just cut off the ends of the corn and we put that end of the corn in our burn pile. It was a pain, but we didn't have a repeat with the corn this year.

It's cyclical and rather than killing off all bugs and creating super bugs and risking potentially harmful residues, I'd rather take the extra steps. Oh, I'll just have to learn that things don't have to be perfect.

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Here is a picture of our newest calf. This Momma wasn't supposed to have a calf. She was a twin with a boy. Those are called Free Martins and they usually are meaty enough to give as much meat as a boy cow. Even though Free Martins are female, because of the extra boy hormones they get en utero, they usually can't have babies. But, she got pregnant. And, Jon (my husband) was blessed enough to notice the event. So, here nine months later is our little calf. She looks like she will be a good Momma.

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Just a little vent.

Anyone been noticing a continued downturn in the quality of produce? My oranges from Fred Meyer are now from Australia (probably due to the California government not letting orange farmers water their trees because of a supposedly rare fish in the water supply). They taste like lemons. I keep trying them again in hopes... Then, I noticed that my Fred Meyer only carries seedless watermelon as of this year...and you may not have to spit a seed out, but they are tasteless, tasteless, tasteless. So, I go to a local "fresh produce" store. Ah, they have watermelon with seeds. Oh, but I get it home and crack it open and discover it is quite old and not so yummy. Green beans - I can only ever trust the ones from Costco to not mold in a day or two - and then only if they have a lot of them and I can tell they are fresh.

My garden and my greenhouse are supposed to offer some relief, but so far, I don't have much relief. My watermelons never formed fruit. (Perhaps I needed two plants?) My tomatoes still aren't ripe. Green beans have been slow in coming. The slugs ate the broccoli so far. I have lots of scallopped squash, but only one zucchini squash survived and isn't ripe yet, and you can't eat scallopped squash for dinner every night. I think to some degree our garden has been slow in coming because we didn't lime it this year. We added our freshly made steer compost, but the soil on our property is not exactly "sweet" - it is highly acidic and clay based. Well, that's my rant. Maybe I should check out one of the corn - maybe that's ready...

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I went down to see the new calf today. He was born a few days ago in the field and this is the first time I've gone down to see him during the day. Don't you agree he is cute with that spotted tail? I personally like the red over the black color better, but the black and white combination is awfully cute too. I guess we were a lot more relaxed with this calf. He was born to a seasoned cow and he had a Black Angus (known for small calves with smooth shoulders) dad. His Momma is that red/white Pinzgauer though. She is a really sweety.

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Hello to all. I have been too busy with home and work to even think straight lately. So, sorry to have not written anything too exciting - it hasn't been too exciting. Until today. I...actually...plucked feathers on chickens today and cut them up (this is not new). I did not gut them, DH did that. Nor did I do the deed. Never. Nor do I have any pictures. Not of that. But here are some pictures of the yummy chicken cooking on the grill.

I must tell everyone that this isn't a Titwad Tuesday sort of a project. Just in materials they cost us the value of the meat. Not to mention the value of our labor. I'm exhausted. But there was something satisfying in the process and even more satisfying to know where this chicken came from.

You all have a great week. I hope you are having some great summers.

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OK. This is what happens to photos that I have a little creative fun with.

Here is a Photoshop "Painting" of Little Ann being released with her momma, Dora Ann on Saturday:

She has been doing well and has been staying put where her mom "tucks her".

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Hey, just to let you all know the calf is doing great. Yesterday we headgated her Momma and walked the calf over to nurse. She nursed well, but still looked tired afterwards. I had been reading about calves being dehydrated and so we tubed her with a salt water/baking soda mixture to help hydrate her. By morning she looked spunky! She was up nursing herself and nursed three out of four quadrants dry. We headgated her Mom again and put her on her mom for the remaining quadrant. Plus she was up jumping around tonight! We will still need to watch her carefully for the next three weeks.

Little Ann

I think we are going to name her "Little Ann". Do you remember "Where The Red Fern Grows"? Our kids love that movie. We were reminding the kids she won't be little for long. I still have a black cow I couldn't come up with a name for. The cows we've named this year were Ruby and Jewel - Marion and Blackberry. This one's Mom's name is Dora Ann. So the name kind of matches.

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Do you ever have days like this??

I do. I did. We had a calf born yesterday morning. The long overdue and worried about calf. Her mom lost her calf last year. We were hoping it would go well. We made sure to get an extra low-weight bull this year (well, low weight for a Pinzgauer bull). The birth went fine - at least it went fairly quickly. Yet, when the calf was born, she seemed less than peppy. We waited for her to get up. At close to an hour, she didn't. And we tried to help her. But she was uninterested in eating. We moved her to the barn and unfortuneately this seemed to make her Mom really upset. Normally, she is a really tame cow. We called the breeder we got the Momma Cow from, to get some advice. We waited. At about two and a half hours, she got up. But when she got up to nurse - them mom kicked her away. The breeder said the Mom probably got nervous because of our early intervention. She said to wait more and leave them alone. We waited. Around five hours we decided to get her some Colostrum. Then, the breeder said, leave them alone. Well, today, the calf is still not eating. And isn't peppy. And when we get her up to nurse, the Mom is still kicking her. Jon headgated the Mom and milked her to relieve the pressure. The Momma Cow may be kicking because a) she's nervous and b) it hurts. Jon got the calf on Mom, but the calf isn't sucking resilantly. (This sounds like my experience with my youngest breastfeeding.)

In hindsight, we would have tubed her with Colostrum at two hours. We had never done that before and it proved to be easy. And, we would have been more low-key, and except for the tubing, left the two alone. I really want to keep the Momma. She is so sweet and so pretty. I am thinking that in the future we can just breed her with Angus (I prefer Red), for easier births. She is such a sweet Mom.

But, for today, we are unsure what to do and a little worried about our calf. We are thinking of milking and supplementing, or of just headgating and tying that leg up and having the baby nurse. Eventually, if that baby gets enough good experiences and the Mom gets used to being nursed, she should learn to nurse without intervention. I'm going to read and re-read the chapter on calf care in our Cow Book.

Well, say a prayer for our guidance and for our little calf if you get a chance. Below are some pictures from yesterday. Above was my mess when I was trying to mix up the Colostrum supplement yesterday.

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My Greenhouse's Done
And I'm Going To Get To Planting
Hey-la Dey-la
My Greenhouse's Done!

If you ever listened to oldies when you were a kid...you might get the song going in my head today. :)

The really sad thing is that I totally started this day with GRUMPINESS. I thought my camera was broken and I'd have to send it in to the manufacturer. My world well...I just wouldn't like it so much...if I were without my camera... Then I was discussing my camera with my husband and mentioned sometimes the lens was the problem with this error99 code. He said, "well, did you try your other lens." Sure enough it was my lens (probably the contacts) and it wasn't even my favorite lens. Shame on me for being grumpy!

Later when we got home Jon finished my greenhouse. And, when I mentioned to him that it was time for peas to go in the ground (and not in the greenhouse), he put compost on our garden. The greenhouse is mine, but the passion for the garden, well...he is even more passionate about than me. He's a crazy farmer and gardener.

This is Jon blowing me a kiss. He must really love me.

Compost - cows are handy sometimes

Can anyone guess what these are???

I'll give you a hint, the first picture is related to this picture.

And related to this picture...

And, unrelated to planting, I just had to share this picture from today. Mariah is always game to do most anything...

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