Written by: Sherri
3/3/2010 9:09 PM 

As I write this, everyone in the household (except me) was in bed by 9pm..and I will be shortly after I finish this entry.  Everyone is extremely tired, as we've given it our all the past few days.

If you've kept up with our blogs, you remember that Monday was the "no crying over spilt milk" day.  Except that wasn't ALL that happened that morning.  While the milk was still on the barn floor, we got a desparate cry for help from James on the walkie-talkie.  It seems that our young heifer, Rosie, escaped into the bull's pasture and was kicking up her heels and having the time of her life!  James is responsible for checking on the bulls, giving any needed hay, etc.   As he was doing that chore,  Rosie slipped by him as he was going through the gate.  He was desparately trying to separate Rosie; however, that is not a one man (boy) job.  So the crew headed over to help James while I helped direct them from the upstairs window.  After much coaxing, Rosie got herded back into the girls' pasture.

Tuesday morning was going smoothly right up until the time for me to leave for Denton (I travel there every other week for co-op and other business).  Right at the time I needed to be heading out the door, Joshua yells that there is a chicken hawk on one of our chickens in the pasture.  Sure enough, there he was over one of our hens.  We looked over at Tara, our Great Pyreneese dog, and she was fast asleep.....tied up (she has taking a great liking to our chicken mash feed so we were tying her up until the chickens finish it).  We all go yelling and running out the doors, some out the back door pulling on rubber boots as fast as they can, and others out the side doors trying to get Tara's attention.   But it was too late, the hen was dead.  Fortunately, it was one of our older hens that we had debated several weeks ago about taking out of production...but found we really didn't have the heart to do that just yet  .    Meanwhile, the hawk had NOT gotten anything to eat, so he was still flying around.  Off goes Tara whenever he strayed over her territory.  He soon learned that was not where he wanted his next meal.  Shortly after that, I had to leave for Denton.  But James told me that Tara stayed very close to the chickens the rest of the morning, and visa versa.  Even at one point when she was taking her morning nap of being surrounded by the hens.  Now, being a day later, I have noticed that the hens are consistently staying close by her AND the hen house, and she is staying consistently close by the hen house.  It's like it has finally clicked with both kinds of animals that their relationship is beneficial for both.  It is neat to see when the animals work the way God made them.

Tuesday evening on the way back home from Denton I received a call from Ted that didn't bring good news.  Seems that while he and James were doing the evening chores they discovered a water break at the main barn.  That was one of those, "we'll put a cut-off valve on it someday" job.  Ted had no option but to cut the water off to everything.  So here I was, coming home to a hungry family and a car full of wonderful organic produce that needed attending to...but no water to do any of those chores.  To boot, James and Ted were extremely dirty after digging the needed hole to put the cut off value on.  They made a quick last minute trip to the nearest hardware store (remember, nothing is very close to us) and purchased a cap that was supposed to work so that Ted could turn on water to the house.  It didn't fit.  So we all went to bed dirty, very little supper, and produce stored in the garage (hey, it's pretty cool still)...also knowing that we could milk in the morning and do OK until we got to the point of cleaning up the equipment.    

Wednesday morning, today, didn't start off any better.  The crew was in the barn preparing to milk Pansy when the  vaccum pump on the milking machine decided to malfunction.  No vaccum, no milk.  I was called upon to try to hand milk ...a task that just about did me in last summer (though I did learn how to do it!).  I must say I didn't do too bad....1 1/2 gallons in about 15 minutes.  But my muscles and hands just couldn't do anymore than that.  Pansy has been giving us at least 4 gallons a day, so this really wasn't much relief for her.  With no other options, we decided to bring Pansy's bull calf, C.R., back into the pasture with her to relieve her of some milk.  Ted spent the rest of the day (after getting the cap on the broken pipe so the house could have water) fixing the pump, however, he wasn't able to assemble it in time for milking tomorrow.  So it looks like we'll be back to a hand-milk attempt again .    At least we all got showered, dishes washed and a few loads of never ending laundry done today . 

Stay tuned for more blogs on the "rest of the week" at Turning Ranch.

Copyright ©2010 Sherri Maines

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