Calving

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve written on this blog.  Our Jersey cow, Fancy, calved this morning.  Jenny, Matty, and Russell were there to watch and take pictures.  Fancy managed the whole thing all by herself.  Birth on the farm.  Unfortunately, Fancy does not seem to want to let Hazel, our new girl, nurse.  Hazel is doing great on a bucket though and drank a quart and a half of colostrums tonight.  We’re looking forward to getting back to drinking and selling cow’s milk.  We’ve also got a very pregnant goat and have no idea when she’s going to kid.  It’ll be kind of a surprise.  Hopefully we’ll wake up some morning to a couple of kids.  She threw two boys last year.  We are hoping for a girl or two this time.

The garden is full of life too.  Much of it weeds unfortunately.  There are some great sections of summer squash, winter squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, lettuce, potatoes, radishes, broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, tomatoes, beans, and basil.  The corn, beets, and carrots are a total loss.  We’ll replant a fall batch of carrots in raised beds though.  No pickled beets this year though. 

We’ve learned, though, that there are deaths on the farm too.  Of twenty-five new laying chicks, only 6 have survived.  Seems they learned a way out of the chicken run and were probably eaten by hawks, coyotes, or our dogs.  On the other hand, all 25 of our meat birds survived and we have been butchering chickens like crazy.  Maybe we are crazy.  We also took on four orphan lambs.  We were looking forward to shish kabob.  Unfortunately, two did not last the night and the other two were later killed by predators.  The dogs are also suspect in these deaths.  The dogs are on probation now.  They will be kenneled and walked on leashes until the calf is big enough to defend herself.

We’ve been working the farmers market selling raw goat cheeses.  Chevre and feta.  We coat the chevre with herbs and we pretty much sell out.  We’ll start selling cow’s milk cheeses as soon as her milk comes in.

Birth and death on the farm.  To everything there is a season. 

And I’ll leave you with a passage from Matthew 7,

“Ask, and it will be given to you; search and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.  For the one who asks always receives; the one who searches always finds; the one who knocks will always have the door opened.”

I don’t know exactly what made me think of this tonight.  Maybe because I have been facing some personal demons lately.  Maybe because I’ll be facing some personal challenges in the next couple of weeks.  I’m sure I’ll get through them though.  Hopefully with a little bit of Grace.