So we’ve been googling all things dairy today, particularly following developments in the raw milk movement and legislation around the distribution and consumption of milk.

I’m going to write a post about it shortly, but in the meantime, I’m on the hunt for things like cream separators and butter churns. They’re hard to come by, and I’m looking for small scale domestic items, probably antique (scotch hands and the like), not big scale industrial machinery. Anyway, on Ebay I found a couple of churns that I’d LOVE to own…

This one… 

and

This one… 

feeling generous? got a bit of spare change? my self sufficiency fund, and hence your contribution to the raw milk movement would be most appreciative…

cheeky i know, but i’m desperate…

I put a bid on an antique pair of scotch hands (see previous post for pic). There’s only 1 other person bidding, no doubt some crazy feral raw milk fanatic who’s been searching for scotch hands to no avail as i have. i may have a battle on my hands…

more later

xxV 

…or have been, incessantly…

[aside and preamble - there is alot of dairy talk in this here post, so vegans and those of a lactose-intolerant persuasion might wish to skip those bits. I’ve been thinking how much happier i am to ingest a raw, unpasteurised wholefood than to drink soy or rice milks. The extraction and processing of these products creates a food which is not natural or whole. anyway, just a thought, which is not relevant for those who are ethical vegans or those who have a system which can’t digest milk…]

…today, happily, we see some sun, and maybe some tomatos will ripen and our perpetually soggy little calf will dry out a bit and her rain scalded little hoofs and legs will regrow the fur they’ve lost and i will get some vitamin D and my disposition will change from glowering to glowing and the chooks will lay and the worms that usually live outside under the soil but have made the big trek indoors in their hundreds will go back to their earthly home and so on.

I feel somewhat guilty bagging out the rain, since i know come too many sunny days in a row and i will be worrying about when the next rains will come… but ordinary day to day tasks become very difficult when the sog reaches a certain level and the water table is no longer below the surface of the earth…

So, be that as it may, rains and so on, things carry on and there are goings on to report, and some pics to illustrate said goings on.

We have a new housecow, and her name is Rosie. She is a beautiful jersey, about 6 years old, and she’s pregnant with her 4th calf. She comes to us via the generosity of Brian, Charlene’s boss. He’s a cool guy. Brian’s wife is named Rosie, and we could think of no better name for this much loved newest addition to our small herd.

rosie

Rosie has a very very placid disposition and from day one let us squat down at very close quarters around her back legs while we did things to her udder… It feels slightly precarious to be in such close proximity to a potentially swift kick with a hind hoof. I’ve seen the damage that can cause and a hoof in the face would not be pretty… but she’s a darling and honestly I really feel perfectly safe around her.  She’s due to be dried off in about 3 weeks before the birth (she’s due 15th July)and towards the end of her lactation her milk will become very creamy (and it is!).

pretty face

We are currently milking anywhere between 4 - 6 litres from her in the mornings. We have alot of milk product in the fridge!

 
the first milking - about 6 litres…

our fridge… full of milk and cream…

cream begins at the arrow…

separating the cream from the milk

Dried off heifers who are in the last trimester of their pregnancy are called "springers", and take a different diet to help build up their strength for the birth and for suckling their newborns, which takes alot out of the cow. After the birth Rosie will produce up to 15 - 20 litres of milk. Her newborn calf will drink about a litre and a half. Hopefully our little Luka will drink from her as well (we are currently feeding her Rosie’s milk via bottle or bucket). That will leave us a good 12 or so litres to strip out of her by hand! That is muscle building work! Brian suggested we take up squeezing stress balls to strengthen our hands for the ordeal…

With so much milk product I’ve been looking into making other dairy foods - butter, yoghurt, cheese…  I have no equipment to speak of, so I’m doing alot by hand and in a fairly ad hoc way, but the butter seemed to work just fine, we’ve had it spread on our toast and it doesn’t have a strong or sweet taste, but it’s soooooooooo good… i just have to experiment a bit more…

our butter

To make the butter I used about 500ml of cream (you can use as much as you have or want) and this made about 100 grams of butter.  

I used a bowl and a hand whisk (wooden utensils soaked in water are preferable, cos the butter won’t stick to them), but you can use a blender or food processor.

Whip the cream in the bowl until it passes through the whipped cream stage and then quite suddenly you will hear a sloshing in the bowl as the butter and buttermilk separate. Drain off the buttermilk into a jug (use it for drinking or baking).

The next stage is called "washing" the butter and is the process by which all the buttermilk is expressed from the butter. Marja Fitzgerald says that she washes the butter only once, and that by leaving some buttermilk in the butter the butter will stay sweet for about 5 days and then develop a "cultured flavour". I washed the butter many times, using a wooden spoon to pat and squeeze the butter until the water runs clear (my mum used to use "scotch hands" for this process). Then I drained off the last of the water and continued to pat and squeeze intil no more buttermilk came out. It comes out through the buttter in small beads and runs off. It takes some time, and i was pretty thorough, but i’m sure there was a little buttermilk left.

Further advice indicates that it is probably best not to use fresh cream (milked that day) for butter making. Best to use cream that is about 5 days ol. The taste will be sweeter, not so tasleless. If you use cream that has been naturally soured at room temperature just slightly, then you will have a culktured butter. 

Today I am going to experiment with yoghurt. It seems like a complex process with incubators and double boilers and so on, but i am taking Marja’s advice and keeping it simple. I’ll put a spoonful of storebought, unflavoured yoghurt (jalna) in a jar and pour just milked (and therefore very warm) milk into the jar. I’ll place it somewhere reasonably warm, wrapped in a wooly jumper and leave it for 24 hours, see what happens! I think Marja was probably living in the kind of farmhouse where there was an aga or other wood burning stove going all the time (as it was during my childhood), making the kitchen a very warm place. I have a fucking awesomely fantastic Ilve stove, but when it’s not on it’s just stone cold, and doesn’t do anything to keep the kitchen warm. Perhaps when the weather turns more wintry and we are having fires at night i can place the jars around the fire to do their thing. Anyway, I’ll let you know how it goes…

Enough with the dairy!

(phew! as i write this I feel the list of tasks that cover the concept "self sufficency" stretch out before me in a neverending scroll towards the vanishing point of the horizon… the produce to be dealt with by baking, preserving or eating before it is spoiled - limes by the score, bananas by the many hands, milk milk milk; the lawns to be mowed before the water table turns everything to sog again; the vegies to be tended and garden beds to be mulched, the animals to be cared for, and that’s just today… )

So Tashi has a new house. Goats do not like the rain. The only place Tashi had to go to be out of the rain was the verandah, and i’m all about keeping animal housing and human housing quite seperate… the old pighouse would have been ideal, but the other thing about tashi is her deep need to be near humans. she likes to be able to see us, be near us, and the pig house was too far away, she just would not stay. Even tethering her was useless. she just got herself into a terrible mess trying to get closer to us. So a house for Tashi was in order. Tashi has a good sprinkling of mountain in her, likes to climb, be at the highest point, so we decided on an A frame up off the ground that she could climb up to, be safe from the weather and be near us. Our man in Dunoon, John, made the house for us. Here it is. We need to spruce it up a bit, probably with a sign and some carnival lights, but she seems to like it…

tashi’s new house 

peeking out…

My dairygrrl is going well out at the farm. Apparently she’s onto the "second stage of learning", which is all about the cows and calves. Brian has been reading this blog, and laughed when I said they milked 400 cows a day. Actually the herd is 400 strong but of that 400 there are always cows who are not being milked because they are in the process of drying off and so on prior to calving. So often these mornings Charlene spends mornings wandering in the paddocks searching for the calves that have been born overnight. They are very small and hide in the grass, and play dead when you pick them up. She identifies them and then records every little detail about them before rosie comes to take them to their new home. In the calf pens they get warm milk delivered straight from their mums morning and night. They are kept in the pen to keep them warm, dry and safe from harm. This way they can be monitored for disease and given extra attention if they are struggling. She still comes home smiling every night, with that special aroma of cow in her clothes and hair.

One of our loved family members has hit the road, and we are sad to see her go. Our much loved farmboy Zhane has turned swaggie boy and is movin’ … Big adventures await her but she knows she always has a home here. I’ll miss her quiet presence in the garden, or feeding the animals, or smokin’ on the balcony while looking out towards the horizon. She’s been such a fantastic help on this sustainability journey we’re on, and we hope she comes back full of the world, full of the roads she’s travelled, full of color and joy.

Zhane … thinking of nuffin …

Zboy

So we have a new tenant, whose name is Bec. She’s a massage therapist, a naturopath and all things good, and we’re looking forward to the new energy she will bring to the farm.

I’ve been told I should wrap this up, it’s getting way out of hand, so wrap I will.

It’s been too long between visits, so I’l endeavout to wander out into the backyard a little more frequently.

Much love to farmfans everywhere.

 Vxx

Introducing the newest member of our farm family. Her name is Luka and she is a Murray Grey x Galloway. She is about 2 months old and is absolutely beautiful. She only arrived this afternoon after a harrowing ride in the car between Virginia’s legs. She had her ear pierced with her identification tag just moments before she left, so she keeps shaking her head. Anyway, everyone say ‘Hello’ and hopefully you will all get to meet her soon.

Charlene x

Once again, it’s been sometime since i have wandered out into mybigbackyard and taken stock of where we’re at, how the creatures big and small, four footed and two legged, beaked and billed, are faring.

I spoke of changes at Matiatia last time I wrote and it seems we are in a constant state of flux here, with some happenings causing sadness (see previous post) and others bringing joy and levity.

The family is settling into some sembelance of stability, with Zhane well ensconced now in the cottage, carnival lights and all, and Jax moving into the bails today. Deb arrives back from the UK in just a few days and Neha has returned to Oakland, on a mission to be back on the farm by June or July at the latest. We miss her, and look forward to her return.

We are enjoying living here as a home and family, now spread over the various dwellings on the property, without the place being part home, part business. It feels freer, knowing we can wander at will, play music loud if we want to, farm naked (if we want to), without frightening or disturbing guests. And we do all of that and more! There has been much productive activity, with me and my farmboy Zhane embarking upon lists of to do’s every day. Zhane is remarkable in her stamina for taking my mania for listmaking and tasking in her stride and remaining quite unflustered by it all…

Big news is Charlene’s new job! She’s working on a dairy! Rises at 4.45am for her first shift, comes home by half 9, and is off again for her second shift at around 3pm, home by 7. She’s usually quite aromatic and shit splattered by the time she arrives home but glowing and energised after milking 400 cows and so on… the farm she is working on is very lovely, green as green, on the banks of the richmond river, dewy in the early morning sunlight… the cows are pretty and docile, contented cows, not sad cows. Brian her boss is an excellent person. He works with a mixture of farming principles, including biodynamic principles, using chook manure instead of chemical fertilisers, feeding his cows lots of minerals, apple cider vinegar, epsom salts and so on. He knows every single cow and doesn’t treat his cows like milking machines, pushing the grains in order to get more milk gain from them. This can ultimately lead to "sad cow syndrome", where the cow’s system is very acid, and they become depressed and walk with dropped heads. He works alongside his dairy hands, talking 20 to the dozen about everything in the world and thinks charlene is the bee’s knees. All this is good. I went out wth her yesterday and took hundreds of photos of the dairy and the cows. Some lovely lovely pictures… i’ll post a couple here. It’s a great place to take photos, all that symmetry. Rows of legs, rows of shiny machines… Chatted to Brian her boss about minerals and weeds and honey locust trees which he has growing along the creek bank and about green mulch which he’s looking to turn to if his chicken manure supply runs out, which he predicts will happen because the price of chemical fertilisers have become so expensive that traditional farmers are looking for alternatives. He’s a 4th generation dairy farmer who has come from traditional farming roots and through his own learnings has moved towards using sustainable farming principles, so he’s interesting to speak to about things lke the soil and pasture improvement and animal rearing.

On the home front Zhane and I have been extremely busy in the gardens (in between rainfall) trying to get the grasses down to a manageable level. We’ve also been doing major gardening around the bails and caravan, in the secret garden, down around nick’s grave, around the clothesline and so on, all places we need to wander regularly. I’m hanging out to turn over the garden beds for the autumn planting… though we are still getting mountains of cucumbers, lots and lots of beans and the tomatoes and the greens never stop really. Pumpkins are so abundant that it’s a case again of two for the rats one for us… We’re thinking of making a sweet pumpkin pie (gluten free) with chocolate ganache lining the case… mmmmmmmm… And limes, my god limes to burn (but we’re squeezing them and freezing the juice for the lean times…).  We will probably preserve a whole lot, and then also make some baked goods and lime curd to sell. Lemons haven’t been ripening really due to lack of sun. It’s been a helluva season, no sun to speak of, so alot of the produce never really made it…

Our best task so far has been plumbing the drain for the outdoor bath in the bails. Michael already had it in place, so much of the hard work had already been done, but leveling it was a bitch, then digging out for the drain. We pruned many of the gingers and oter plants, weeded out tobacco plant and farmer’s friend, and it looks fantastic, and Jax is pleased to be able to use the bath, which has been a job going begging for such a long time… it really looks great…

the outdoor bathroom at the bails 

the plumbed drain 

no cheating, finding true level… 

level! 

We bought some new plants yesterday at the Lismore Carboot Market, which I love to go to, has everything from old playboy magazines to geese and ducks to vegetables and antiques and cool boots. We bought a crazy looking succulent that Zhane has put outside her new home, and a lemon myrtle tree and a native frangipani which is less perfect that the common frangipani. I’m keen on getting hold of some more native fruit bearing trees like finger limes…

I’ll be back again soon with more news. Perhaps about the acquisition of new animals… Stay tuned, farmyard friends…

xxV 

I had a trip to Sydney which i enjoyed greatly, catching up with friends and staying with my lovely and generous friend Sarah. All my plans to take inventory or urban gardens and friend’s sustainable inner city solutions and do a special backyard post dedicated to this came to naught, but i had many a fine dandelion latte with friends and went to parties and looked at the cloudy night sky from a trampoline and freaked out in pubs and didn’t like Inland Empire in the middle of the day when i decided to treat myself to a movie… I missed home, but learned to like the city a little more then when i left it…

There’s been quite alot going on since my return, mostly in the garden. matt, who did much of the landscaping for this place, made a too short trip from melbourne to do a summer overhaul of the gardens, which was much needed. I was feeling overwhelmed by the whole Wild Nature thing, and a bit unable to manage it on my own. It needed a huge slash and mulch, and Matt and the boys were fantastic. I can breathe! The taro, arrowroot, helaconia, gingers and so much more were basically slashed and I can feel the life ready to burst forth and bloom fresh and green and in living color… It was great to watch matt work, and to know just how far i can go in terms of slashing back the gardens. matt also built a duck run off the existing duck house where the new baby ducks are living which encloses the orchard. ducks, geese and orchards go well together. They eat bugs, slugs, keep the grass down and leave their shit around the base of the trees. We’ve trialled the run and it seems to work well. We went to buy some geese from the lismore carboot market on sunday but it seems they’ve taken christmas early…. i love geese. I love the sound they make

Speaking of the animals, there have been some changes. We have had to sell some of our herd since we can no longer afford feed for them. It’s been a big learning curve, and has raised alot of questions and clarified some of my thoughts around animal farming, and we have learned alot about rearing cows in a particular way, particularly hand rearing calves, and milking cows. We have learned about how to treat the animals naturally for a variety of ruminant ailments and some things about pasture and rotation and worming. I also have questions now about how to raise hard hoofed animals in a low impact way. We still have frenchy (see earlier posts for pics) and little girl, who we hope eventually to be our house cow. This feels more doable. I don’t feel so stressed. I don’t think it was an experiment that didn’t work, just a learning curve to be applied.

We have also acquired a goat. Tashi is her name and she’s an anglo nubian X. I love goats, and she has a sweet nature. Michael had a goat, May, who died from snakebite or something, and she’s been missed. We had a little hiccup in the acquisition of Tashi. We bought her from a farm out in a beautiful valley past Kyogle from a German family who had many goats, mostly nubian. We wanted a small goat, but their children wanted to keep the small kids as pets, so we were offered 3 year old Tashi, who has had a few kids. She’s very healthy and plump and has an amazing coat. She was scared to be taken from her herd, but we were quiet and gentle with her and fed her and showed her her new home. It was just on dark, Friday night, when we got her home, and i went to get her some feed, leaving her untethered for just a moment. When I came back she was gone into the night. I searched as far as i could in the dark to no avail. In the morning we put flyers in all the mailboxes of the area, knowing they probably wouldn’t look until monday, and we drove and walked for hours looking for her. By this afternoon I was despondent, thinking we’d never see her again. But at about 5 Charlene and I were feeding the other animals and Charlene who has keen eyesight saw *something* off in the distance on the next door neighbour’s farm. I ran down to see, and it was tashi! - shivering, frightened, starting at the sound of every car that drove by… I was very happy to see her. We tethered her near the house, fed her, brushed her and loved her. She’s very sensitive to her environment, notices all smells, sounds, everything.

here is Tashi:

our anglo nubian x goat tashi

So my best christmas present this year would have been…

Milkwood’s most recent workshop, starts TOMORROW! 

8 - 20 December 2007 - Mudgee NSW
Water is the major issue on every Australian farm. Water harvesting and storage earthworks need to be intelligently designed and well implemented. This three day intensive course taught by Geoff Lawton will give you the knowledge to design and construct earthworks that will act as an insurance policy against drought and increase the value of your property.

Failing that (well, having failed to acquire that), I would also like to attend:

Introduction to Permaculture - Sydney - Feb 08

9 - 10 February 2008 - Sydney NSW

Christmas wishlist.

I haven’t said anything about weeds for a while. I had made a post on a permaculture forum some time ago about my nascent weed thoughts, and noone made much comment, but recently a forum member did make a post which was helpful to me in my thoughts about weeds and how to live with them. I’ll post it here…

I was asking about control of weeds, whether things needed to be eradicated etc… 

Instead of slashing/weeding and burning you may try slashing and charing. Make a pile of weeds and ag. waste and partially cover with dirt and burn on a damp day. This makes the fire burn at a low temp, and low oxygen level. As a result, the carbon is sequestered in the material as well as some nutrients. Spread this char over the garden beds. Do a search on this site for "terra preta" or "dark earth" for a more in depth and accurate description. This process creates a great medium which acts more like a sponge, holding moisture longer and locking nutrients in place instead of them eventually being washed out.

This I will try, because i am very interested in carbon farming ideas…

It’s late for farmgrrls and i want to post a couple more pictures before sleep, so I’ll end here. Sorry i was away for so long… More updates soon…

xxV 

“You can fix all the world’s problems, in a garden. You can solve them all in a garden. You can solve all your pollution problems, and all your supply line needs in a garden. And most people today actually don’t know that, and that makes most people very insecure.” Geoff Lawton

I think the beauty of this quote is the idea of the garden as a world. Or of the world as a garden. In the permaculture system there is a harmony, a diversity, an interdependence. There is the necessity for problem solving that relies on lateral thinking and the interweaving of form and function. Everyone and everything is a giving, everything is part of a feedback loop. The feeling is a flowing, circuitous feeling.

Sometimes we spend alot of time just sitting in front of screens, and this is a kind of energy vortex for me. I can end up feeling very disconnected, very dissociated, sluggish and un motivated. It’s kind of a necessity because there’s admin, and there’s the business of working out where the next bag of feed is coming from and there’s the guests who make bookings and require customer service, and there’s the bucket tasks (the enterprise that *is* bucket, which is an evolving thing…), and the fact that the only way I really know how to make money is through multimedia production and related activities, so the screen is a kind of necessity.

 Today was one of those days. I had promised myself a gardening day, try to finish some of the replanting and make good use of some of the ENORMOUS amounts of cowshit that Maybe produces. It was not to be, so by the end of the day, I was feeling kind of woo woo, out there, space case, just somewhat not of this world…

By the time animal feeding had finished it was well after half 6, and the sun was sinking, moving towards twilight. I grabbed my seedlings and headed to the garden beds, Jimmy Jack, my gardening assistant in tow, biting at my gloves, the dirt, the seedlings, and conveniently digging holes to drop delicate baby plants into. If there’s one thing that will settle my spacey head (I’m very Vata for those of you who know what I’m talking about… it can blow out…) it’s dirt. Under my nails, fingers deep in the red composted earth, I can begin to feel a sense of calm, a sense of reconnection. I can begin to know who I am in the world. Earthing, grounding, whatever you call it, it defuses the electricity that humms like a high song in my ears and head…

So I often think of that quote.

The other thing which I find quite relaxing (and Charlene speaks about this pleasure too) is "herding" or walking with the cows, from one place to another. In an earlier post I spoke about sensory fields and points of balance with regard to human/cattle interactions, and how subtle those communcunications can be. We have our special stick, which is just right and very long. We never use it to hit or spank her with. If anything we touch her with it lightly, kind of stroking, on her flank or her stomach.

Mostly we use it to kind of "feel" the edges of her sensory zones, her personal space, and guide her subtly, moving the stick in the air around the edges of these zones. It’s a quiet time, walking Maybe back to her night time paddock, just walking with her, in her rhythm, not speaking. Just wandering, cow-style, across the pasture towards home.

Vx 

There’s been no mention of our Maybe for a week or so I guess, probably about the amount of time we’ve been holding our breath wondering of she’ll be ok… I guess we’ve become used to her tenuous grip on wellness, and don’t freak out now if she goes down for a while, even for some hours and can’t seem to rise. She always manages to get up at some point without assistance and always immediately begins to graze like she’s never seen grass before, then gets a bit bossy when we bring out her feed bin, sometimes managing to prise the lid off a chook feed bin and get her nose all covered in grain…

She’s still producing milk, not a huge amount, but enough for her baby Andy to have a 10 minute suckle morning and night. Andy’s learning to suck fast before we call "last drinks buddy!".  

We think we’ll return to a system of letting just one calf run with her in the day, locking her up away from her calf at night, milking her for ourselves in the morning and either giving that milk to her other calf (who’s struggling without Mum’s milk) or keep a little for ourselves…

Anyway, this is more of a recovery than we could have hoped for. Still have no clue what is wrong with her or why she’s like this, but we continue to love her to death and feed her all kinds of bits and pieces we’ve read about. Todays’ meal: chopped up mulberry and comfrey leaves (mulberry for parasites, comfrey for calcium), carrots (parasites and just cos they taste good), dairy meal, mill run, mineral mix, dolomite, sulphur, cod liver oil, molasses, crushed garlic in apple cider vinegar, all mixed together with a jug of warm raspberry leaf tea (for lactating Mums, to stimulate milk production). Yum!

To the naming business. We’ve tried many names out in the field, and momentarily alighted on Lucky, before slipping back into our habitual yelling of "MAYBE! oh I mean, um… whatever your name is… oh fuckit, MAAAAYYYYBBBEEEEE!" So despite it’s uncertain ambience it seems to have stuck… we’re too accustomed to her name… nothing else seems to work.

So Maybe it is… we just have to embrace her Difference I guess… Maybe the uncertain cow…

 More posts to come.

Love to you all, farmvoyeurs. Vxx

Good! Better than we expected (well, in my usual pessimistic fashion i expected Maybe to die…). So, after a few days of intramuscular medication (once again, thanks Charlene for your fortitude in slamming those motherfucking huge needles in Maybe’s flank), she’s up, walking around, rests but then gets up on her own, eats everything in sight and is constantly trying to get into the feed bins. So we *know* she is well improved since her appetite is huge… I milked her yesterday and this morning, and mixed the milk in with feed and minerals and fed this to her babies. I’m not game enough to put them back on her to suckle cos they’re rough, they go hard and really take it out of her I think. We’ll see how she is tomorrow. Might be just me bucket milking her then using this to supplement her calves’ feed…

So that’s all on the Maybe front for now. I shall post a video later today that shows she is much improved. Now it’s time for the weathergrrl…

Vxx

Maybe update… the vet is puzzled. She’s down, and can’t get up. She may have pneumonia. This tempers my happiness and ability to enjoy new life on the farm. We are now giving her medication via injections. I felt certain she would die today, but i hope that our ministrations, our will for her to stay alive and our quiet whispers in her ear will see her on her feet soon.

Vxx

So I feel a bit flattened, along with Maybe, who just seems to keep falling over, despite our best efforts to put a spring in her step.

She’s currently abed amongst the lush green pastures in the chook run. I thought she seemed poorly again this morning, her movements slow, a definite disinterest in food (most unlike her), her head down, a general look of unhappiness about her.

Her unhappiness makes me feel similarly down.

I expect she has milk fever, which my Dad surmised initially. It’s a calcium deficiency (hypocalcemia) which cows post-calving are prone to, since nursing calves takes alot out of the cow. Worst case scenario is that she dies.

When she was very sick a week or so ago, we injected her just beneath the skin with a calcium/glucose/magnesium solution (see previous post). This seemed to assist. We kept her calves off her for some days, and stopped milking her. While she hasn’t been doing the highland fling, she has certainly been on her feet and on her food and looking much better.

So we let her calves in for brief periods once in the morning and once at night to drink their fill, since they have no clue how to drink milk from a bottle or a bucket, and we limited their feeding so as not to deplete her.

One night, we left her in the chook run, cos the grass is so lush, and she really needs to have good pasture to turn into milk. In the morning we woke up and there, in the chook pen with her, was her biological calf, Andy! How did he get in??? Well, he, long legged calf that he is, found a spot where the fence is in bad repair between the pigpen and the chook pen and stepped over in his high heels…

This was a bit of a blow, since he would have been nursing on her all night, undoing our plans to keep her healthy by keeping the calves off her except for short periods of time.

Today we went out for a while and when we arrived home Maybe was down (there’s resting and then there’s resting…). She eventually got to her feet, but still not bright eyed and bushy tailed. Off to the chook pen, Andy finds the break in the fence again. Finally, so do I, and repair it. But not before Andy has suckled off her and I guess finished off the least bit of strength she has.

She’s down. I’m feeding her comfrey leaves and mulberry leaves and I’ve put apple cider vinegar in her water and given her some of her feed with minerals, but it looks like an unhappy situation, and may require another visit to the vet for more awful injections. (Charlene valiantly administered the last lot, with my assistance, but she’s not at all keen to do it again.)

The outcome doesn’t look bright. Probably the only way to keep her well is to wean the calves. This is kind of disastrous for us. We bought Maybe with her calves in order that she nurse them (Andy is her biological calf, and Frenchie is her foster calf), and we grow them on her milk, which is the most healthy way to grow them. We also bought her as a house cow, to provide us with our dairy needs. None of this works with a dry cow.

I just feel devastated. I really want to look out the door and find Maybe standing and eating, knee high in psychedelic green grass.

I am telling myself she’s resting, but I know she’s not. I know she can’t get up.

So I’m gonna get up now, and look out the door. Maybe she’ll be kicking up her heels.

xxV

postscript:
Well, Maybe is standing, walking, eating, for now. Andy THREW himself over my repaired and now-much-higher fence to get to her. Desperado. He’s the boundary rider, he’ll find any break there is. Mum’s milk is the whole world…