Dolly Parton and Her Big Teets

We got a milk cow!  We had one before, her name is Beulah, but when we got her she was dry and needed a break from milking.  So we bred her this last summer and she is expected to calf any day now. But in the meantime we bought another milk cow, one that is producing milk right now! Although, when we bought her we weren't expecting to have to milk her... Apparently there is a discrepancy with what the term "dry" means to dairy men versus cattle men.  Or simply that it means two things and Partner #1 and the dairy farmer had their definitions transposed. When we asked if she was dry, we meant "is she producing milk?";  when they said dry, they meant she is not pregnant at the moment.  So we brought home a dry, not-dry Brown Swiss milking cow.... meaning she is making milk, but not currently making a baby... You keeping it straight?

So we got her home late one night last week, and as we loaded her off the trailer, we're standing around scratching our heads, hmmm, her bag looks kind of big...? (Bag is a technical term by the way. If your are also a mom like me, you may feel the twinge of mild indignant offense at hearing that term too. If you don't know the sign language for 'milk', you should look it up. When applied to breast feeding, it is also mildly offensive...But not in any serious way).  Turns out when we bought her, she was producing 15 liters of milk A DAY at the dairy farm! Unless you have a family of 20, and are a pro at making cheese, no one needs 15 liters of milk a day! All 3 of us, being complete amateurs, managed to get 4 L out of her that first night. But she needs to be milked twice a day, so we began collecting around 8 liters of milk every day.

So we named her Dolly.  After Dolly Parton.  Because she's got huge teets.... You have Partner #1 to thank for that gem.

Turns out when you have no idea what you are doing in that department, hand milking is a 2-3 person job. 1 person to milk, 1 person to hold the bucket, and 1 person to hold her rope.  It doesn't help that she had never actually been hand milked before, only machine milked, and because we didn't know what we were doing we were (/are) very slow, She started to get very impatient and probably a little sore. Poor thing. We have had to start hobbling her because she wont stop kicking and more or less dancing around, making things even more difficult then they already are.

What we have discovered about Dolly, is she is kind of a wing nut (again, technical term) and more or less like a big dog. We closed off a couple fences to contained her to our yard area and for the first little while just trotted around sniffing things! You almost expected her to lift her leg and start peeing everywhere. We guessed that she had never been on grass before, so she was like a machine just mowing the place down like it wasn't ever going to grow back again!

So then! Only a few days after getting Dolly, Partner #2 and I were due to leave on a trip to Kelowna and Merritt for a home school convention and to visit some family. Faced with the prospect of having to do a 3 person job by himself, as well as all the regular ranch chores plus the rest of Partner #2 and I's regular chores, Partner #1 decided that purchasing a couple of orphaned bull calves was a good idea! That way they would do the bulk of the milking, we can still get what we need when we need it, and for the duration of our trip, Partner #1 didn't have to worry about milking her every 12 hours.  So now we have 2 of the most adorable Jersey calves meandering around our yard. And the greatest thing is that they have both been bottle fed their whole lives, so they are super friendly and you can pet them, and their super curious and kind of follow you around.

The unfortunate part is that, true to ranch form, these two will be sold off more then likely to be made into meat, so naming them or otherwise getting attached to them is not highly recommended.  I learned this lesson the hard way this spring when I named our first lamb of the season and he ended up meeting a very unfortunate and horrible early death. As much as I would like to think I live on this happy, sun-always-shines, and nothing-ever-dies, Ole' McDonald farm, the reality is I live on a working ranch, where sometimes unpleasant things happen. However! Don't let that burst the warm and fuzzy bubble that I am sure reading about the happy little calves has cultivated! It is still pretty wonderful.

I realize this has been a rather long post. I feel like I haven't written anything in quite some time. Really nothing exciting has happened in quite some time, with the exception of this recent adventure to Kelowna, and the arrival of Dolly and calves. Lambs are popping out left, right, and center; the garden is soon to go in; calving is still in full swing. Same ole', same ole' I suppose.

Just a little side story, Partner #1 has a system where when a lamb is born, he spray paints the lamb (with safe livestock paint, don't worry!) with a number that matches the mom's ear tag number. That way it is easy to identify lost lambs, or to find the mother if she abandons it, or for just record keeping for next year. Anyways, last night we had one lone lamb born so I went out there to spay paint him.  This was my first time doing this by the way, so don't judge me, but I ended up holding the can way to far away from him, so now his whole right side is just one big red smudge.  And when I tried to paint his left side, I didn't do much better, although it is sort of legible. So I told Partner #1, if you see a lamb out there that looks like its been recently massacred, that one belongs to #43.... Against my better judgement, and perhaps to the lamb's detriment if you are superstitious, I named him Alfred Hitchcock.

Also, if you haven't had a chance, or just plain haven't yet, check out my last post, Meet Owen!, about my little cousin and his amazing family.


More things I've learned since moving to the ranch:
23) Even in cow town Williams Lake, if you go to Starbucks in cow sh** covered boots, you're going to get some looks...