Time Marches On

From August 2006, to August 2008. Maqua-Kil Blitz Mendocino. Daughter to Frieland Z Mandolin Rain. She is sired by Fustead Emory Blitz, out of an Ocean-View Zenith-TW ET daughter.

Firecracker and Dixie Rose

When you start, if you are extremely lucky, the calf, in this case Dixie Rose Delux, will be laying peacefully, munching on some straw. While at the same time, her stall neighbor, aka Firecracker, will be catching an early morning snooze.

Naturally. As soon as you get situated to snag the cutest of cute pictures, calf number 2, Firecracker, will hop up, deciding to fore go her siesta, in favor of chewing on the delectable denim of your work jeans.

Which will of course cause her neighbor, the original calf Rose, to leap to her feet, to try and get in on the action.

Cause after all, denim is the best tasting substance on the planet right?

With Rose munching on the available denim, what is a little Firecracker to do, but go after the next best thing?

Flannel of course!

Or perhaps the camera strap!

Leading me to the conclusion...if at first you don't succeed...

Fire your assistants!

And then hide all evidence that you tried in the first place!

Or post it on your blog for all to enjoy a nice laugh!

Wordless Wednesday

Fair Scenes

Alan and Frieland Kingdom Asaki-Red

Me and Asaki Intermediate Heifer Calf, Holstein

Me and Maqua-Kil Blitz Neon Moon Summer Yearling, Holstein

Class Discussion between family

Me and Maqua-Kil Blitz Mendocino Junior Two Year Old Holstein

More Fair Scenes

Me and Becky's Senior Three Year Old, Holstein, Frieland Ex Spec Lemonade

All three above photos, me with Frieland Z Mandolin Rain, Five Year Old Holstein

Me and Maqua-Kil Mecca Hazel, Junior Two Year Old, Jersey, 1st Place and Best Udder for class this photo from the Senior Champion line up

Still More Pictures

Me and Hazel

One of my favorite people's niece on my graduation calf Frieland E November. Intermediate calf Holstein

Me and Moon

Name the Calf....

Well I am doing it again! Holding another name the calf contest. This one for a calf needing a name starting with a "D". She is a really beautiful black inky colored calf. And looks SO much like her Momma Detroit. Little "Decaf" as we are calling her is in desperate need of a real name. Though if nobody has a suggestion, well, we might be stuck with Decaf. I wanted to name her after another "D" city, but I haven't been able to come up with one...more to follow!

Another New Baby...

We had another new baby last night. She showed up ten minutes to ten pm. I managed to get about five hours of sleep when all was said and done. She is doing well, and her momma, Hooter, seems to be feeling pretty good. That puts me to two Jersey pure bred calves and one Jersey cross calf, who we ended up selling, and all heifers.

Hi. My name is Maqua-Kil Moments Hicktown

The new baby, Maqua-Kil Moments Hicktown, and her lovely dam, Maqua-Kil TNT Hattie. The newbie is quite lively, but couldn't seem to figure out why, when it is called a feed cart, she wasn't getting any feed. Though apparently the one fitting on the lever tasted very good, as she just kept going back. Not to worry though. She was given a nice hot bottle of her Mommy's good thick colostrum both last night and this morning before I left for school

Oh What a Day

It has been a very fun (not) and exciting day here at the farm. As usual, I was up and out of bed getting my coffee as dawn hit the horizon. Let me just say, that standing in the big bay windows of our house, watching the sun peak out over the hills, lighting the fog and mist and sky a warm golden red and orange is an experience you just cant get in the same way in the city. Anyway. Anyone who knows cattle, knows that the cows you worry over the most at calving, tend to wait the longest and go the farthest over due every single year. I've been getting up early and staying up late checking these two cows, Rumpleteaser (my old Jersey Holstein cross), and Hattie(my first home bred registered Jersey), since about the last week in April. I stayed up until after 10 last night, which is really late for me, to check on them. They were not doing diddly. Notta. No mucous, no straining, no evidence that either was planning to have a calf within the next 6-18 hours. So I went to bed. And got up, usual time of 5 am. And got over to the barn, coffee and a slice of toast in hand, to feed the calves and my bull, and check on the two darlings. And there toddling around the barn was Rumpie's new baby. Almost 10 days late. And yet still a heifer. So awesome.

Anyway I dealt with the new baby, got all my other chores done, and managed to make it back to the house and shower in time to hop in my truck and still make it to class on time.

Then my lab this afternoon got out late because we were on yet another field trip. So I got home a bit later than usual. And decided to grab some more toast before I headed out to work. Becky came over and goes "your new baby is so little and cute." My automatic come back was 'little, try lifting the darn thing, shes freakin heavy'. And she goes, 'no, your other new baby'. My brain blanked. Then, suddenly, it hit me, Hattie calved. But nah, its gotta be a bull. I mean, whats the odds of two late calves being born on the same day being females. Nope, I was wrong, and I am very pleased to say that. She is a little cutie. Becky asked if we could name her 'Hicktown' after the Jason Aldean song. Sounds good to me. So Maqua-Kil Moments Hicktown she is, provided it fits on the registration forms.

And the last 'good' news of the day, Little Sugar has her 'official' name, and I hate it. Her name is Suzzette. While I have nothing against the name, it seems a bit ridiculous for a cow. So she will continue to be called Sugar.

I have a ton of photos of the new mommy cows and the new babies, which I will post tomorrow at school, where the computers run much faster than here at home!

A New Baby

I have a new baby.

She's cute as a button.

Almost all black.

And I have no clue what her name will be.

See, yesterday (March 31) was the Cobleskill Dairy Fashion Sale over at school. I went with every intention of bringing an animal home. Didn't know exactly which one, but I had a few picked out. One was lot 44. A nice, slick and correct two year old, sired by AltaMerchant out of a Durham, with an absolutely gorgeous, gorgeous udder. She was also just fresh. Had a feeling she would go pretty high. Everything was pretty hectic Friday when I went over to look at the cows with Brandon, so I didn't even look for her baby. But I marked down a couple of hip numbers on some other heifers and a few cows, and headed home.

There were a few other little babies there that I liked, so I had Dad put the calf box on my truck, and went back on Saturday. First I ran into Staebner, aka the Boss. He recognized me before I had even noticed him. He graduated last spring, and it was great to see him again, even if only for a short while. I've taken a lot of classes with that crazy man. He went on the trip to California back in Spring '05, and we convinced him to eat some pretty odd foods. He must have a black hole for a stomach, cause he is always, and I do mean always, hungry.

After saying hi and chatting with him for a minute, I wandered down to the sale table and picked up a bidder's number and a fly-sheet. And no, fly sheets are not used to swat flies. They contain the updates on the animals or other items in the sale, so that everybody can know pretty much all there is to know on the animals they want to buy. After getting all that squared away, I headed down to look at the critters that had shown up over night. And there she was. This little itty bitty black calf, hip number 44 1/2, surrounded by hay bales. Which made her hip number 44's baby. Which was really really good. Because the little sign above her read, lot 44 1/2, heifer calf, registration pending. I wanted her...Heck, I was gonna have her. A long time buddy of mine, Eric, was cuddling and petting her, and I told him he better not have any plans to take her home, cause she was leaving with me. He just laughed.

By then a couple of my other close buddies had shown up, and we wandered through the barn, checking out the changes in the cattle since the crew had finished clipping, bathing and bagging up all the cows. The changes in some were drastic. Still, I kept wandering back to the little babies. There were two that I really wanted. Little 44 1/2 and a bigger, early March calf by Rubens. She wasn't bad looking, but Rubens is not really known for milk production (or in his case a general lack there of), and her dam hadn't been classified, and didn't have any production records. I did bid on her, but didn't buy her. I thought she went for about $200.00 more than she was really worth. I bid on a couple of cows and some embryos too. Didn't get any of them. The embryos I would have most liked to have were five #1's from Mud Pie, a daughter of Muddy Water, who was one heck of an awesome cow.

Right at the start of the sale they had some donated pies and semen from various bulls. Steve (a guy I've known since 7th grade) and I are gonna split the one rack we bought. 10 units of a young sire from Taurus, for 2 bucks, one money. In other words, we got the semen for about 20 cents a unit. Not bad. And although we had no clue what the bull actually was, we figured at the worst he'd make a clean up bull. The funniest thing was when they were selling the pies. The auctioneer put aside two of the carmel pecans. No body could figure out why. At least not until he read off the ingredients. 'Now folks, this here, is a special pie. Carmel pecan, with white chocolate, and perhaps the most important ingredient, Bourbon. You gotta be 60 to compete'. Basically, he put in a bid of 50 bucks on this pie, he ended up taking it home for 70. I cannot imagine wanting a pie THAT badly. The other one was the same thing, only with dark chocolate. It went for 75. Nuts, absolutely nuts, and I mean that literally as well as figuratively.

And then we sat, through about half of the sale, waiting for the calf I wanted to go. Steve and I got sick of standing around half frozen, so we headed in to see when she would sell, and who we had to see to get the semen we bought. Well, as we headed back, they brought her and her momma out, up in five animals. So we quick ran in and talked to Julia about who the guy was that had the semen. Ended up doing us not a bit of good as he had already left. Then we ran back out to get a good bidding spot. We watched one nice big black heifer sell, and then they brought 44 in. She went reasonable, about 2200, which for a nice fresh heifer wasn't bad yesterday.

Then Robbie and a girl I don't know pushed that little black baby in. She bucked up and down, tried to push past them and get back by her mom, and just generally made their lives difficult. Bidding started at 200, and I went to 550, cause I recognize one of the other guys bidding, and had a feeling he was just running us. Sure enough, soon as it was just him and the other guy, he backed right out. Bidding stalled out at 575, so I waited about 20 seconds, motioned to my advisor who was taking bids that I wanted back in, and walked away with a sweet little calf, for $600. Granted I got busted on pretty bad for buying such a newbie for 'so much money'. But the one guy doing the worst busting got shut up pretty quick by his dad, when he pointed out that they spent 750 a piece for a bunch of week old grade calves.

Now the waiting game begins. What will little black baby's name be? I've been calling her 'Sugar', but I doubt that is what her name will be. Though I would imagine it will start with an 'S' as her dam's name was Suzelle. Ah well. When we get her papers, which will have her name, I'll let you know.