fresh from the hen house

I was sitting on my little crate next to Georgi, the Brown Swiss, one morning last week while she was being milked. I’ll massage her udder, keep the hose out from under her feet that don’t always hold perfectly still, watch so an inflation doesn’t slip, etcetera, while sitting there. It’s dark out when we milk, and I’m always fresh from bed, quiet, calm, and cozy in my coat and gloves. My husband slipped out of the barn, and then I saw it, Georgi’s tail. Her tail started arching up then her back arched as well and I screamed “Nooooo!” as the pee started raining down onto the rubber mat, she was standing on, splattering up onto the claw, my boots and legs, anything within a couple feet of her rear end. I shot up and ran to get the bucket, the bucket that should have been by my side for instances like this. I was more trying to startle Georgi with my loud, high pitched, wake-up-the-whole-barnyard “Nooooo!”, my Jerseys are sensitive and sometimes a little scolding will make them not to repeat what they are doing, peeing in the stanchion for example, I didn’t think about the husband who’d just left the barn. He was back in a flash to witness my wide-eyed sprint to the bucket as pee showered everywhere. I’m not sure if he envisioned something else happening, maybe death by milk cow or, you know, bad placement of my foot. Whatever it may have been, I’m sure I woke him up a little more too. Now, Georgi, I think I just annoyed her rather than startled, she’s not sensitive and does not have a care in the world. We have tried other things rather than just my screaming to stop her from peeing. If she is laying down when we go get her to milk, she gets walked around in circles like a dog, giving her plenty of time to relieve herself before going into the barn, but really, it’s her choice whether she is going to cooperate or not and actually go in the time we give her. We really did read that some cows do not like the sound of their “mess” splattering in a bucket or catching the other “mess” with a shovel against her back legs, but our Georgi, she doesn’t care. She really doesn’t make a mess routinely in the stanchion, she just likes to throw us off once every couple or few weeks, like, ah, looks like a good day to get the milkmaid messy. Though she doesn’t mess in the stanchion too often, she does mess outside of it a little too often. My niece asked recently why there was so much poop in the barn, my answer, “Georgi”. She makes what we call a “poop trail”, the name should paint a picture for you on its own, while walking back to her pen. I frequently ask my youngest “what’s at the end of the poop trail?”, the answer is always “nothing” or a dirty look depending on the day. Georgi has come a long way since coming to our homestead and becoming a family milk cow, something she was not before, so even though she makes her messes, I still have to say she is a great cow, and her abundant milk is amazing. I’ll keep dealing with her occasional bad habit in the same way she deals with my hugs, just a shake of the head. Now, onto a cleaner subject!

My youngest went to the incubator Friday and said, “There’s more chicks, they just keep coming!” I giggled and asked “Don’t you like the chicks”? Her reply was, “Not when everything is exploding chicks”. Ahem, I guess I’m not going to tell her I’m the one who keeps adding eggs to the incubator.

We kept up our momentum in the garden after planting potatoes and onions the weekend before last. Before planting anything at all though, we had a rusty stock tank to remove from the garden. When we took possession of our home nine years ago, we had an infant baby along with painting and remodeling projects and much more outside upkeep. I used mineral tubs for a garden that year, they fit the amount of time I’d be able to contribute to a garden. The next year my dad brought up an old stock tank to be used as a garden, which was tiny compared to the garden I used to have, but it was the size I could handle with the rest of life. The next year, I had two stock tanks, the year after that the tanks were fenced in with a decent area of tilled yard. Every consecutive year after, my husband would expand the fence, ask me if I was going to want it bigger next year, I’d say no, and he’d cement in the fence, just to take it out again the next year, because of course I wanted it bigger. We left one tank in the garden before fencing it back in for the last time, I can say last time, because there is no way to expand it anymore. We made this fun herb spiral in the tank the spring after my mom passed and completed it with a concrete angel in the center. It was such a pretty sight in a place that already brought much comfort. The herb spiral did well the first year, the years after it just seemed to collect all the blowing grass and weed seeds, sadly it eventually became unmanageable. It was easier to keep the huge area around the tank weed free than the tank itself, I guess raised beds aren’t for me. The tank sat there last year, taking up room, but not our time, I just let it be. So, before planting this year, my husband emptied it and drug it out before tilling with the little tractor. After he was done, my oldest and I walked out and were just amazed at how big the garden looked without the tank sitting there in the middle. I couldn’t help but think when the tank was initially put in, she was just a little thing, now she’s almost as tall as me, things change so much over the years. We now have an area in our garden that we will reserve just for perennials. I had a ton of bricks from dismantling the herb spiral, so last week, I made a stair stepped herb garden in our perennial area, not without my two homeschoolers. They helped move bricks, helped me fill the wheelbarrow several times, and even helped get the wheelbarrow moving out of the soft dirt when it wouldn’t budge! When I finished filling the new herb area with dirt, my youngest said it wasn’t really done, not yet. She grabbed the concrete angel and placed her on the top step, officially completing the shell of the herb garden. We transplanted some of the herbs coming back from last year into the herb garden and can’t wait to fill it with more. We picked a spot around the herb garden to have an asparagus patch and got it in the ground along with garlic and rhubarb. We have a few more things to plant before we stop and wait until the ground warms up.

On these beautiful days, it’s a struggle to pick priorities. The garden needs to be readied for potatoes and more, the chicken coops need to be cleaned, laundry always needs done and can be hung on the line once again, meals and snacks need made thus making endless dishes, let’s not forget about keeping the house clean, and homeschooling thrown in there wherever it fits.