Cow

A Milking Machine!

December 13, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I have been milking cows by hand for about 12 years, and loving it. I was never even tempted to use a machine. It’s so much simpler to milk by hand. You can tie the cow up anywhere and milk her, and cleanup is so easy—just wash the bucket. However, our heifer Pansy changed my mind. When she calved in September, her teats were so small that milking became quite a chore. Try getting 8-10 liters (over 2 gallons) of milk out of a set of teats that are each the size of my thumb. That’s hard work! I managed, though, until Poppy calved in October. She’s easy to milk, with lovely, large teats, but the two cows together were giving 35-40 liters (9-10 gallons) of milk a day. My arms gave out! After just a few weeks of that, we decided it was not going to work. We solved the problem temporarily by letting Pansy feed the two heifer calves, and just milking Poppy. We also started getting set up so that we can milk with a machine! The first step was to level the floor in the shed. This is a carport that Simon built for his vintage Austin, but that has been moved to his house. He got a start on the floor before he got hurt, but then the project sat for a week or two. Then, a neighbor offered to help concrete the floor, and organized with the local concrete company to pour the floor the next day, a Saturday! Suddenly, preparations swung into high gear. It looked nearly impossible to be ready in time, but the job was finished that day!

Simon dug out too much soil, so we had to fill in with gravel, and compact it.

Some of the extra concrete got poured under the rain water tank.

Isn’t that a beautiful sight? I like it, anyway!We let the concrete cure for a week before using it for cows. During that week, Gayle and the boys built the stall and head catch. Now, the two cows are walked up to the house every morning and milking. Poppy never flinched, either at the cups going on her teats, or the noise of the vacuum pump. Pansy took a little longer to settle down, but she’s happy to be milked with the machine, too. And, it was none too soon for her. The calves were on her for just a month, but she has huge sores on three of her teats from them sucking. At this point, it’s impossible to milk her by hand, but she is all right with the machine. And, we’re overrun with milk again!

This is Pansy, waiting impatiently for her turn, while Poppy goes first.

Mr. Diligence has done most of the milking so far. He can’t bring the cows up, because of his knee, so he milks and rinses everything down. He keeps the shed and equipment spotless!

Fishing and Milking

February 15, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

One Saturday afternoon in January, a friend invited us to go out to the sea with him while he put his longline out to see what fish he could catch. Gayle and Mr. Sweetie were already in town (Greymouth is along the coast), so our friend took the other boys with him. Esther and I and the little girls went later, when we learned that everyone else in our church was there, too! They caught 11 elephant fish, a kind of shark. Someone put one of them in the coals of the fire that was going, and we ate it while we were there. Someone else took several of the fish home with them, and we brought eight of them home. The boys and Gayle filleted them the next day (they were in a chilly bin on ice overnight). Yum! This is Mr. Intellectual with one of the fish right after taking off the longline.

Simon starting to fillet one of the fish.

Those are big fish. One of them is more than enough for a meal for our family.

One morning I finally remembered to take a camera along when I went to milk. Mr. Intellectual had to go out and bring the cows up to the shed. The cow, Poppy, is in the lead; the heifer, Pansy is following.

Poppy goes into the stall with no hesitation; she knows there will always be treats waiting for her.

Pansy wants the treats, too; most of the time, she comes and tries to get them.

They actually spend a lot of time hanging around the shed, chewing their cuds, it seems like. Most of the time lately, they’ve been waiting for me there when I go down to milk.

See the roses climbing high in the tree?

The neighbor’s rose hedge was amazing when it was in full bloom! By now, it’s done blooming, and last week, she pruned the whole thing back to not much. This kind of roses grow very fast, though; soon it’ll be beautiful again. I walk past it every morning and evening when I go to milk.

Turkeys, Cows, and Projects

October 26, 2019 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We have a small breeding flock of turkeys that we kept when we moved here. Last year, we kept the tom and two hens in a run that Mr. Diligence built, and they hatched out 10 babies. After they hatched them, we moved the adults into a small movable pen and let the young ones have the run. We were given some more turkeys after that, from ones we had given to our friends when we moved, so we added the females to our breeding flock. For several months, we discussed what to do with the turkeys for this year’s breeding season. They multiply best when they are allowed to free-range, and the paddock we were given for the cows is a turkey’s paradise. There is open area for them to forage in, and brush in which to find hiding places for nests. We asked the owner of the property if we could put the turkeys there, and he agreed. The next problem to solve was how to feed them, and catch them when we need to. Mr. Diligence built this hut with a slide-out feed trough. It works for feeding them! We were hoping that they would go in when they were fed and we would be able to trap them with the side doors. Unfortunately, they must not be hungry enough for that to work—they don’t come for feeding! We’re hopeful that we’ll get babies in another month, though, as most or all of the hens have disappeared. We’re hoping that they are sitting on nests.

This cat followed us all down when the men took the feeder down. She gets quite upset when she goes so far from home, and keeps yelling at us to turn around and go back!

After the feeder was put in place, the boys carried the turkeys down.

Just a couple of days later, the cow calved. We weren’t expecting the calf to come just yet, because she hadn’t bagged up. He was born nearly two weeks early, and was quite tiny, but very healthy and he’s growing fast. The cow started bagging up within a day after calving, and only a few days later was producing quite well. We’re very much enjoying having milk and other dairy products in abundance again!

Mr. Intellectual got the idea this winter to build us a picnic table. His daddy helped him draw up plans and figure up the timber he needed, and he worked at in in his spare time. We enjoyed one meal outside at it so far, and expect to use it more this summer!

Simon bought this van a few months ago, hoping to fix it up and resell it. The rust needed to be repaired before it is legal to be on the road again, so he got started on that awhile ago. He ground off the rust and repainted it. To do so, he needed to take out the front windscreen. He got it out with no problem…but cracked it putting it back. Oops. That added quite a lot to the cost of the project! He’s learning a lot!

Milking Shed!

June 22, 2019 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

For six months, while we lived at one particular rental house, I had a shed to milk my cow in. She hated it. Otherwise, I have milked out in the weather, except for a few times at a different house when it was raining and blowing and I took her into a shed. The most recent house we lived in had no shed that would work, and we didn’t have anything here, either. However, in this region it rains a lot! I have just been tying my cow to a fence to milk her anyway, because that was all I could do. There were some very frustrating milkings, with rain pouring down in sheets and the wind blowing. I got drenched, and the cow did not hold still. In case you’ve ever wondered, it’s hard to milk when the cow moves sideways every few squirts.

Then, Mr. Diligence came to my rescue! A few weeks ago, he got started building a portable milking shed. Portable, because part of our problem is that we are using someone else’s land for grazing the cows, and we shift them from one place to another every few months. His dad helped him with the design, and he used all recycled timber and roofing iron to build this masterpiece. Today, it was finished, and the fellows all worked together to take it down the hill to where the cows will be for the winter and secure it in place.

Here are Gayle and Mr. Diligence working on the first part of the frame.

This was a week ago, when they got most of it put together.

Yesterday or the day before, Mr. Intellectual and Mr. Diligence finished the roof.

Today, they loaded the shed onto the trailer and took it down the hill. Once down there, they chained it to a fence post and pulled it off the trailer.Here comes Poppy to see what is happening in her paddock!To prevent wind from blowing the shed away, they pounded a standard deep into the ground at each corner, and screwed the shed to it.Mr. Diligence built metal brackets so that boards can be slotted into the sides for times when we need to hold a cow from swinging back and forth.Poppy and Pansy investigating the car.Mr. Sweetie and Little Miss supervising.This is the view I get to enjoy while I milk!

The real test came tonight when I milked: Would Poppy accept the new place to milk? She did! We had to push her in, but she quickly relaxed and stood still better than she ever has before for me. She even started chewing her cud before I was halfway done milking, which she has never done before.

Odds and Ends From February 2019

March 30, 2019 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

One evening, I took the camera down the hill to where I milk. We are deeply grateful to a local man for allowing us the use of this large paddock, and Poppy appreciates all the grass in it! Pansy has her own fenced-off corner to keep her from direct contact with her mother (for obvious reasons), but they can be fairly close. Notice the mountains across the river? I enjoy seeing them in all their different moods.

To get into the paddock, we cut across the fence near the top of the hill, using this stile that my boys built (on the suggestions of the property owner). Then, we scramble carefully down a very steep hill.

I wanted to make lasagna one day, so Mr. Imagination helped me make the noodles. Yum!

This was one of our first big pickings of tomatoes. Last week’s, about a month after this photo was taken, we got about twice as many as are in this picture! We’re very thankful for such a good harvest from our 104 plants. Today, I’m making the third enormous batch of salsa, since my big boys eat so much. We just happen to have very spicy peppers this year, which makes the flavor they enjoy, so the popular vote this week was to make salsa instead of bottling whole tomatoes and juice. We had about 110 pints from the first two batches; I think we’ll have 60-70 more after today. Hope that’s enough! Hard-working teenage boys eat a lot, and one of them was eating it by the cupful when I asked for taste-testers this morning. Notice the pink and black tomatoes? We had a bumper crop from our heirloom plants this year. We’re loving eating those super-tasty ones!

Little Miss is watching me write this. She wanted me to write down her story, too: The man was picking apples. Then he saw the big, bad wolf, and then he made a brick house quickly and then he went in it and the big, bad wolf said, “Let me come in, let me come in.” Then the guy said, “No,” and then the big, bad wolf said, “Well, then, I will huff and I will puff and I will blow your house in.” Then he huffed and he puffed and he couldn’t blow the man’s house in. He said, “There’s a farmer’s tree down the road. Will you get up at 6:00 in the morning and come with me to the farmer’s?” The end.

Evening Walk

May 26, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We don’t have enough grass here for our animals, so we graze the cow on the roadside during the day. We bring her home every evening before dark, to milk her and keep her in our paddock overnight. Seth always used to bring her home, and after he died Mr. Intellectual took over the job. One day around the first of February, though, I went to get her when everyone else was away and decided it would be a good way to get my daily walk in. I do it when I have time in the evening. Usually I take Little Miss in her stroller, but one evening in April I invited Mr. Imagination to go along instead. He was thrilled to get to go, and rode his bicycle ahead of me. One treat was seeing the moon rising over the hills to our east, the other side of Cheviot.

There’s our cow, waiting for us!

It’s a Bull!

July 28, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

The calf has arrived! As I said in yesterday’s post, our cow was looking very close to calving last evening. Mr. Handyman checked on her at 6:00 this morning, and nothing was happening, but I went out a few minutes before 8:00, to find her laying down. As I feared, she couldn’t get up. She has a history of milk fever, which is a sudden crash in calcium levels in the blood, so I knew what the problem was. Normally, this happens a day or two after calving, but this cow has gone down while she was in labor before. So, I called the vet as soon as they opened at 8:00, and he came out within half an hour. He gave her calcium intravenously, as well as a drench, and a few minutes later she was on her feet. We kept a very close eye on her all morning (one of the boys had trouble focusing on school—he’s still not done!), and at 1:00 the exciting news was shouted around the house that “something” could be seen. By about 1:45, we were excited to have witnessed the birth of a beautiful little bull calf. Both mother and baby seem to be doing well, although we need to continue giving her extra calcium for a few days as her body adjusts to producing milk again. We’ve named the baby Speckles.

Proud mama!

I got this picture from the house of the children watching the birth while eating lunch!

The calf’s father was a White Galloway bull belonging to a neighbor of ours. He looked a lot like this one.

Now, for the winners of my giveaway! Dianne was the only one who guessed the right day; she will receive a code for a free Kindle copy of Sweet on You, the first Meddlin’ Madeleine book, by Chautona Havig. Only Dianne and Dannielle guessed that the calf would be a bull, so Dannielle will get Ante Up!, the fourth Aggie’s Inheritance book, also by Chautona Havig. I’ll send you both your codes as soon as I have them. Enjoy!

What Day Will it Happen? Contest!

July 17, 2016 by NZ Filbruns 12 Comments

We are eagerly anticipating fresh milk again soon. We’ve been drinking frozen milk since I dried off the cow about the first of June, but it isn’t the same. The cow has started to bag up now, though, so we’re getting excited about having a new calf on the place again–and did I mention, fresh milk? And cream? And butter? We ran out of the frozen butter today and have to use butter from the shop now.

Anyway, I’m having a contest! I have a free copy of each of Chautona Havig’s two most recent books, Sweet on You and Ante Up!, so they will be the prizes for this contest. To enter, please comment on this post or on my Facebook page (with the link for this post) with the day you think the calf will arrive and whether it will be a heifer calf or a bull calf. The cow is due on July 23, and these pictures show how she looks today. (No, it’s not twins; we saw the calf when we had the vet do a scan to confirm the pregnancy in November, and it was definitely just one calf–this cow simply gets huge!) I’ll give one of the books to the person who guesses closest to the right date (or draw from all the right guesses), and the other book to someone who guesses the right gender. The contest closes when the calf is born–sometime in the next two weeks! The book you get will be a Kindle book, but you do not have to have a Kindle to read it. If you have a tablet or a smart phone you can easily get a free app to read Kindle books, or you can read them on your computer. So, make a guess and you may get to read a book by my favorite author!

Lots of Water!

May 27, 2014 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We still have the aftermath of the big flood Easter weekend. Directly out our living room window, we can see this lake; in fact, I took these pictures out that window! Surprisingly, the boys have only played in it the one time. It’s about too cold most of the time this time of year to want to go swimming. The lake is larger now than when these pictures were taken, since we had another torrential rain a week or so ago. Thankfully, the creek didn’t flood around the buildings that time.