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| Senior Cow, Princess |
November 17, 2021
Mike and I intentionally kept today quiet, avoided any
unnecessary work, and spent the day just enjoying being together for his 61st
birthday. Of course, the girls and
grandkids called to wish him a happy birthday. He received some cards in the mail, a few
phone calls from friends and family members, and text messages from many
wishing him the best. I had asked him if
he wanted to go someplace special, or if there was anything that he particularly
wanted to do. He said he would just as soon be right here at home. Of course, that suited me just fine.
Monday and Tuesday had been busy days for us. We travelled on Monday to Charles City,
Virginia and picked up a young bull we will use as a herd sire with my younger
heifers. With the distance taking us
right at 9 hours round trip, we didn’t have time to stop for pleasure as we
needed to be here to take care of the animals first thing in the morning and again
that evening. Besides, it’s difficult to
find places to park a big truck and pulling a long, cattle trailer makes things
even more complicated. We took along a
picnic basket and I made pimento cheese crackers and peanut butter crackers on
which we snacked as we traveled back home.
Before Covid, we ate out on occasion but not often due to how limited I
am in finding something that I can actually eat that doesn’t make me sick. Since Covid, we have only eaten out on two
occasions that I can remember and that was when we were travelling a long
distance from home for my grandmother’s memorial service. We keep a picnic basket handy and can throw
together a light meal for us quickly. It
has become a way of life now to take our own food from home rather than stop
somewhere.
It was a long day
and the older we get, the harder those types of trips are for us to take. We enjoyed visiting with our friend while we
were there and found it hard to break away from the conversation even though we
needed to get on the road. The trip went
well, the young bull was a great traveler, and all went smoothly before and
after as we took care of things at home.
I was, however, exhausted that evening and slept a solid 8 hours without
waking.
Tuesday was a day for me to catch up on the things left
undone with our absence on Monday. Mostly,
I needed to empty the refrigerator of extra milk with which I made an 8-gallon
batch of Colby Cheese. I also attacked a
pile of laundry and walked Buddy for an extra long walk because he had been
neglected the previous day. One does not
step away from the farming or homesteading lifestyle without work piling up in
some capacity.
November 18, 2021
Mike and I have always had an affinity for Dottie, our newly
freshened, first calf heifer. Not only
is she very small but she has a gentle, shyness that is endearing. She has always held back from the others a
bit, perhaps because she is smaller and easily pushed around by the larger
animals. However, her curiosity about
humans and her love for attention has meant that we have been able to love on
her and make her a natural pet. We don’t
force our animals to be pets. We have
some that love to be scratched and hugged and others who simply perform their
duties without seeking any extra attention.
Dottie began seeking us out shortly after we weaned her from her momma
and has continued that pattern to date. However,
Dottie’s shy nature made her hesitant about coming into the milking parlor once
she had calved and since we thought we had another month before she calved, I
had just begun working with her to get her use to that routine when she calved
earlier than expected. Even a seasoned
cow will sometimes be hesitant to leave her newborn baby to go into the stanchion. It sometimes takes several days of coercion until
they feel comfortable leaving the calf.
Dottie, not being use to being in the parlor and really not even use to
having grain treats, was very nervous about leaving her calf to start the
milking routine. The first couple of
times we went through the routine, her nerves about got the best of her and I
wished there was some way I could make it easier for her to understand that she
didn’t need to be timid. That’s when an
idea came to me and I tried something I have never done previously. I decided to use our old, retired cow,
Princess, to show Dottie there was nothing to fear.
I have had a theory for a very long time that although we
don’t halter break or lead train our heifers, because we raise generation after
generation of dairy cows, the younger animals learn by example from the older
animals. When we were in Staunton, we
had a simple set up where one cow at a time came into an old box trailer and
stood to be milked. Often, the younger
heifers would stand at the gate and observe their dam being milked. Hearing the sound of the machine, watching
the routine, realizing the treats were inside, it seemed they at least had some
idea of what was going on when it was time for them to start the process of
being milked as adult cows.
We know for a fact
that a cow’s demeanor is passed on to her offspring. An anxious or aggressive cow will teach that
to her calves just as a cow with a calm disposition often passes that on to her
babies. Even with our beef herd, if we
had a cow that was particularly jumpy or had an undesirable attitude toward
humans, we culled her. That is how we
kept a calm and quiet beef herd. One
crazy cow can ruin the whole herd! Knowing
this, it just made sense to me after observing my cattle over the years, that
they surely pick up cues from each other not only regarding disposition, but
also to help them assimilate other helpful information.
With her advanced arthritis and a severe limp, grazing is
difficult for Princess, and we had been supplementing her diet with grain and
hay to make it easier for her. However,
we had not been bringing her into the parlor because she is so slow
moving. She still has the desire to follow
the same old routine and we must turn her away from the parlor door daily. It occurred to me with how much Dottie clings
to Princess for guidance and comfort, that allowing both of them access to the
milking parlor at the same time might help Dottie get over her timidity. Am I ever so glad I followed my
intuition! This method of training a new
heifer has been unbelievably successful!
Part of the reason I guess it never occurred to me previously is because
in Staunton I didn’t have a set up where I could bring in more than one cow at
a time, I am aware that most family cow
owners do not have a nice dairy barn like we are fortunate to have at this
phase of our lives. However, being able
to bring in a calm, older cow to teach the younger cow has got to be the
easiest training method I have ever tried.
Princess is happy to be in the stanchion, Dottie is calm and responsive
to training, and everyone wins!
November 20, 2021
Suddenly, Thanksgiving is only a week away and before we
know it, Christmas will be here. Even though we keep the holidays simple, it
feels like there is so much to accomplish in a short amount of time. Thanksgiving will be “simple” if one calls
travelling almost three hours one way to have a meal and visit with family for
a couple of hours and then reverse course and return home with another three-hour
drive. Holiday traffic and weather have
both been factors the years that we have travelled over Thanksgiving, One year
we hit a deer and all but totaled our car which ended up in the shop for over a
month before it was returned to us. Another year we were caught in a heavy
snowstorm pulling a trailer and how we made it home without wrecking or getting
stuck, I have no idea. The travel makes me nervous and if Mike were
not doing the driving, we wouldn’t be on the road. However, I am always on board as we continue
to make the trip for Thanksgiving. The
day is so important to Mike’s mom and we strive not to disappoint her by not
being there. I don’t think we have ever
missed a Thanksgiving meal at her home in the 16 years we have been married. Being married to Mike means there are no
wasted trips. Anytime he makes a trip to
Staunton, he is usually pulling a trailer, and Thanksgiving is typically no
exception. If we have nothing else to
haul, there is hay to transport from one farm to another. As I said, no wasted trips. This year, we are going to be transporting
beef and pork that we had processed here in Southwest Virginia and delivering
it to customers in Augusta County. I
cringe to add more to an already busy and stressful day but that’s how my
husband seizes every opportunity to accomplish as much as possible in one
trip. Add to all of that the care and
feeding of the animals and the milking of the cows tacked on like book ends to
an already filled to the brim day! Makes
me tired to even think about it. But we
will make it through and crash in bed late Thursday evening and be thankful for
the opportunity to share time with loved ones.
This past week has taken the two of us away from home two,
full, long days and Mike away for the greater part of another day. Juggling the daily farm chores and being away
from home for the greater part of the day makes for a long day. I truly admire those women who work full time
outside the home and still manage to preserve their garden harvest, milk a cow,
make cheese, bread or other products from scratch. And those women who have small children at
home and manage to do anything other than keep the children clean, fed, and
properly supervised have my greatest respect.
I realize that I did it as well when I was younger and had children at
home, but the older and more tired I get, the more I admire those who are clinging
to old fashioned values and ways of life in a world in which it gets
increasingly harder to find balance between the old ways and today’s ways of
living. There are still some people
choosing to live completely off grid and follow a true homesteading way of life
and those people I admire so much. The
romanticism of this type of existence soon falls by the wayside once an
individual begins the journey and the difficulties become a reality. My one regret in life is that I did not jump
in with both feet and experience all the elements of the homesteading life in
its complete harshness and beauty at one time.
Instead, I have experienced it in pieces over the years. I wish that I taken the opportunity to push
myself and see if I had what it takes to completely isolate and test all the
skills I have learned in one setting, even if for only a year or so.
Instead, at 54 years of age, I take all those skills that I
have practiced and learned and live as close as possible to my ideal yet with
the modern comforts of electricity, running water, and living within 20 minutes
of a small town with all the necessities (and 45 minutes from larger cities
that actually contain a Walmart and a Lowes).
I could run to the restaurant 15 minutes away if I wanted a meal cooked
by someone other than myself, but we choose not to do so, eating at home or
taking a picnic basket with us. I immerse myself in the daily cycles of preserving
and preparing food that will keep us healthy and free from the preservatives
and additives that cause so much distress to my digestive system. If I did not love it, it would be a drudgery,
but I have known since I was a small child that this was the life I wanted and
I am thankful that finally, all the elements have come together for me to enjoy
this life, even if I will never test my skills in a completely off grid,
isolated setting.
As I considered how difficult it is to go off the farm for
any length of time and still take care of necessary on farm business, I was
reminded of the time I spent in a cabin in Goldstream Alaska without running
water. I have written of it previously,
how we made weekly treks even at 50 -60 below zero to get water from a spring,
waiting in line behind others who lived like we lived in that area of Alaska
where mostly the water was unfit for drinking.
On the drive home, we would have to scrape the ice from our interior
windows so that we would have a small hole to peer through. Once home, the water had to be kept inside
the small cabin where it would not freeze.
There was no bathroom, only an outhouse or the porta-potty that we had
to dump every few days which we kept in a small closet area so that we didn’t
have to take our two children, three and four years of age, out in the extreme
weather to go to the bathroom. There
were no sinks or tubs. I heated the
water and bathed myself and my children in a big, wash tub. The children were easy to bathe as they were
so young and didn’t require much water.
When I bathed, I squatted in the tub and poured water over my head to
wash my hair and then bathed my body in the remaining suds and water. Every bit of water hauled in had to be hauled
back out and dumped. I washed my clothes
in an old-fashioned wringer washer and then hung them on a line inside, across
the ceiling of our cabin to dry. I
requested for Christmas clothing without zippers or buttons for the children
because the wringer washer would smash the buttons and tear up the zippers of
their clothes. Those days, I rarely went
anywhere. My days were spent simply
keeping us clean, fed and warm. Occasionally,
on a Sunday we would attend a church service and getting everyone ready and out
the door in those conditions AND making us all look as if we had not stepped
out of another century was so difficult that I realized we were living in two
different worlds. It was during those
days in Goldstream when I was in my mid-twenties the reality hit me that one
must choose to fit into one world or the other because you can’t truly live a
real homesteading lifestyle and be flexible enough to fit in with rest of
society.
These days, I don’t live such an extreme life. We have all the modern conveniences and we
often slip away to enjoy friends, neighbors, family and participate in church
activities or other occasional events.
No one can look at me who doesn’t know me and say “Oh, she must be one
of those extremists who preserves the harvest grown on their farm, milks a cow,
makes her own cheese, and strives to live a simple life.” I don’t look like someone who once bathed in
a small wash tub, washed clothes with a wringer washer, and carried water in
and out of a cabin with no modern facilities.
I am thankful that we can step
away from the farm and enjoy other things at this point in our life, but I am
still very aware of the fact that it’s very difficult for an individual to live
in both worlds. I have tolerated and
made the best of “the other world”. I have
had some wonderful experiences and been able to try so many things that helped
me realize how much there is to life and how many tasks I am capable of doing
if I only set my mind to them. Yet, I am
an old soul and always will be. My heart
has always been and continues to be enriched by the simple yet all encompassing
activities necessary to live as close to a homesteading life as possible.
November 20, 2021
Sixteen years ago today, Mike and I waited while the church
cleared of Sunday worshipers, and then we made our way to the front. As planned, a few friends and family members
gathered and sat in the pews closest to the front. The pastor met us there and led us in saying
our vows to one another and to God. In
that simple ceremony, we were married.
It hasn’t been all wedded bliss. We have had our share of difficulties. Life doesn’t give any of us a free pass. We’ve encountered all the universal
disagreements, hurt, weariness and struggles of married couples. Perhaps we have had less to overcome than
some and more than others. For sure,
losing a child and dealing with the grief that goes along with that had a huge
impact on our marriage. I want my
children and grandchildren one day to know that our struggle was real and so was
our love. None of us are perfect and it
takes a multitude of grace given and received for any relationship to
flourish. I guess, if anything, that is
the beauty of our relationship that despite all the mistakes, we always end up
offering each other grace. I never had
that before.
November 21, 2021
It’s been ages since I have been to church, but I made it
today. My views on organized religion have
changed over the years but I still find comfort and encouragement from joining
with others and focusing on the Creator.
The Church (Universal) and its people often disappoint me. Some of my
deepest wounds have come from those who claim to be servants of Christ. I don’t need to go to church to pray or meditate,
but I like the organized quiet time that allows me to be “be still and know”. Personally, I enjoy liturgical services and
derive much from responsive readings and written prayers. Not everyone is the same and some may find
these types of services routine or boring. I believe in a God who is so big that diversity
among His children makes Him smile. I
believe He loves to see all the different ways believers find to draw close to Him
and experience His grace. I am glad that
I don’t have to be anyone but me and that God meets me where I am. That doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t seek
growth and change in my life as I understand more of His plan for me. It just means I don’t believe God is nearly
concerned with organized religion as the church would like us to think He
is.