Chucky & Hershey have their last buckets of feed here Saturday morning.

Well, it’s been a noisy week on Hope Refuge Farm.  BoPeep did not like losing her young’un!  Not that I really enjoyed leaving mine behind either, but at least I didn’t scream my head off for 3 days after getting him settled in at college.  But all in all things went pretty smoothly with weaning, in spite of the bellowing.  Here’s how our week went.

Stephanie tries to make friends, but Hershey's not totally sold on the idea yet.

The cow herd had been moved to a newly fenced pasture paddock on the “horse side” of the farm before we left for Michigan.  So Friday (Sept. 2) evening I brought Bo, Hershey & Chuck (Eavie’s steer calf from last year) back to the cow barn.  I penned Bo in the barn corral like I normally had been for milking in the morning, and put the two boys in the front yard-turned-pasture paddock.  I knew things would go better if Hershey had a friend to keep him company, and even though Chucky is about 9 months older than Hershey they’re about the same size & get along great. (more…)

Mace seems to think this pile of dirt was put there just for him....and he LOVES it!

Hello again to all our friends & welcome to those who are new to our site!  One of the nice things about owning Dexters, which I forgot to mention in my last post, is all the great people you get to meet.  It has been a season of greetings for us here lately, so I’ll give you the scoop on our most significant recent “hello’s”.  And if you don’t find other information you’re looking for here on the website, or if you have further questions about what you do find, please don’t hesitate to give us a “hello” – we’d love to hear from you!

Mace settled right back in with the girls at home.

Welcome Home, Mace!

 We recently returned to Never Know Farm to say hello again to Hank & Zoh Murphy, and to Mace.  Our Little Man had successfully completed the job he went there to do, so it was time to come back home.  Hopefully their Mini Pearl gives them a nice little heifer this fall.   (more…)

Baby Maxwell in his stall hangout.

Jan. 19, 2009, S&H Hilltop Sara brought a strappin’ little black bull calf into this world.  The next day our temperature plummeted to give us the coldest weather we had all year…-2 F.  I kept them put up in the stall overnight, with the doors all closed, to protect the little bugger from freezing to death, but he didn’t even seem to notice that it was cold!  And thus began Maxwell’s life with us.

Max helps with the morning milking...2 for you, 2 for me.

Mama Sara is a cow who doesn’t like to let down her milk for anyone other than baby for the first several weeks after calving.  So, since I wanted to milk her, I needed help, and for the first month of his life, Max was my assistant.  They would be separated overnight so to keep him company I would put his big sister, Keira, in the stall with him, and she seemed quite content to babysit.  Then in the morning, I would take Sara into the parlor, clean up her udder & hook up the Surge, and she would let down nary a drop until I came back dragging Max in with the halter.  Once he had his teat, all was well!  (more…)

Yesterday was a hard day.  The hay storage room of the cow barn is now empty – not so much a comment on the amount of hay in it as the fact that Kitty isn’t there anymore.  My dear, precious mini jersey is gone.  Last Thursday morning Jeff found her fallen, stuck in the mud, belly bloated & legs sticking up in the air, but still alive.  It was a horrible sight.  We got her upright, blanketed, and had the vet come out to IV some goodies into her.  She was hypothermic, hypoglycemic and too weak to get up on her feet.  We had to get her into the barn.

Jeff rigged up a “sled” out of a piece of metal to pull behind the tractor.  We rolled her onto it and dragged her to the barn, where we rolled her into the hay storage area through the garage door.  She spent the next 4 days there, laying on a bed of hay, with us trying to get her to try to stand up.  Instead, she just got weaker and eventually gave up.  I finally had the vet come back yesterday to put her down.  I spent some time sitting with her before he got here, petting her & loving on her, and telling her what a good girl she was & that I was sorry this was the only thing I could do for her anymore.  And now the hay room is empty.

So, goodbye, Kitty my dear.  You were such a sweet cow, such a wonderful momma.  Thank you for what you’ve given to us.  I will truly miss you. 

Goodbye.