What a day! Iced over water troughs, frozen water hoses, frozen water lines and a frozen nose to boot! I would include a photo with this blog, but I don't want the camera to freeze. Can camera's freeze? Everything else seems to be quite capable. Including the pump on the tank sprayer. Not sure about that though, would have to go back out into the cold and inquire just how that very major problem has been resolved, if it's been resolved.
The entire day has been focused on busting an inch plus deep layer of ice on all of the water troughs every few hours, and figuring how to get the tanks refilled. It was apparent the water lines were quite comfortably frozen and the sun wasn't going to show up and give us a thaw. Two of the water troughs are close enough that we can string together water hose and refill them. But, it seems we didn't leave them in the old trailer with the heat running quite long enough to clear them completely, so it's a slow fill of those tanks right now.
The biggest probems was the BIG herd, as I call them. My bright idea was to fill the tank sprayer with water and haul it to them. Sounds plausible. We've used it to haul water for lots of other things, and that antique tank sprayer has always been reliable. But not today! Not so far! The last word on that, before I hustled into the house to tend the fire (I like that job), was an old-fashioned syphoning of the water from the tank sprayer to the trough. Hopefully, if that is the last resort, it works. We have a spare pasture and water trough we can move the BIG herd into, but my plan was to leave that for tomorrow.
My weatherman, Mike, says it will be even worse tomorrow, and so no guarantees the two faucets we managed to get running will give us the slightest gurgle tomorrow. Worst case scenario, I'll pull all but one bull, open up all the gates, and let the herd meet and greet each other and go to the pond to water. Kind of an Open House at the ranch for my British White girls, let them graze the buffet in one another's pastures.
All this effort and worry about the cows and the extreme cold! They're enjoying every minute of it! Getting extra alfalfa rations, seeming to grow longer fluffier hair right in front of me, while my own is in a perpetual squashed down bad hair day deluxe. They look at me in my heavy insulated coveralls and strange hat pulled low, and just about shake their head in wonder and I swear think I look kind of scary. It could be that I'm kind of walking like the little bundled up boy in A Christmas Story -- definitely not the normal human they are accustomed to.
If this is Global Warming and more is yet to come, I'll definitely start making plans for more stock ponds. Or maybe lay in a mile long supply of water hoses and provide them with their very own heated storage area. Of course, we could have thought to drain a few of the ones we own before this hard freeze hit. But, hey, we aren't in Alaska for crying out loud! Who knew they'd become so vital today -- a simple water hose, or rather, several simple water hoses, preferably thawed.
UPDATE: Just came back in from feeding Donny, my old horse (who has a new stable coat thankfully!), and checking on the water situation. Mike and Brian were filling the last water trough with a big blue fire hose looking thing hooked up to a generator, which was all hooked up to the tank sprayer somehow, and with major water pressure! I was very impressed to say the least.
On my walk back to the house I remembered a couple of things I intended to mention here. Cow Patties. I picked up somewhere along the years of my life that Cow Patties/Paddies? can be used as fuel for a fire. I have never stopped and thought that through at all. Today, it hit me. Frozen Cow Patties, they are like bricks! You could probably use them to clobber somebody - I know they kick across the pasture pretty well. I've always thought, yuck, about using cow patties, actually picking them up and piling them up? Couldn't figure it. Now I can figure it.
Muddy Boots? If you live in frozen country, it's not a problem! The big plus to the past couple of days is walking on in the house with your boots on, and leaving them inside and warm and ready for the next trek to the troughs for a little ice-breaking.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Thursday, January 7, 2010
From the BornAgainAmerican.Org Web Site
Received the link to this web page in an email today, I think it is so very much something we all should watch and listen to. The message is beautiful and compelling, as are all the people. Click the embedded video below, or visit the web site by clicking on the blog title link.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
The American naturalist, Volume 21 By Essex Institute - Establishing the Presence of a 'dun black' or white Hornless/Polled breed in 9th century Ireland
Click the embedded pages provided by books.google.com for additional reading...............
"The fourth is the Maol or Moyle, the polled or hornless breed similar to the Angus of the neighboring kingdom -- called Myleen in Connaught, Mael in Munster, and Mwool in Ulster. In size they were inferior to the foregoing although larger than the Kerry, or even the old crook horned Irish, but were comparatively few in numbers. In color they were either dun black or white, but very rarely mottled. They were not bad milkers, were remarkably docile and were consequently much used for draught and ploughing.
"....The range of date of that crannoge has been fixed from AD 843 to 933. From these localities as well as in deep cuttings made for the same purpose, and in peat bogs, etc other specimens of bovine remains have been deposited in the museum. I have selected twenty heads of ancient oxen and arranged them in four rows each row characteristic of a peculiar race or breed viz the straight horned the curved or middle horned the short horned and the hornless or maol all of which existed in Ireland in the early period to which I have already alluded. According to my own observations we possessed four native breeds about twenty five years ago.
. . . .Third the Irish long horned similar to but not identical with the Lancashire or Craven. The fourth is the Maol or Moyle, the polled or hornless breed similar to the Angus of the neighboring kingdom, called Myleen in Connaugh.t Mael in Munster ,and Mwool in Ulster. In size they were inferior to the foregoing although larger than the Kerry, or even the old crook horned Irish, but were comparatively few in numbers. In color they were either dun black or white, but very rarely mottled. They were not bad milkers, were remarkably docile and were consequently much used for draught and ploughing.
"The fourth is the Maol or Moyle, the polled or hornless breed similar to the Angus of the neighboring kingdom -- called Myleen in Connaught, Mael in Munster, and Mwool in Ulster. In size they were inferior to the foregoing although larger than the Kerry, or even the old crook horned Irish, but were comparatively few in numbers. In color they were either dun black or white, but very rarely mottled. They were not bad milkers, were remarkably docile and were consequently much used for draught and ploughing.
"....The range of date of that crannoge has been fixed from AD 843 to 933. From these localities as well as in deep cuttings made for the same purpose, and in peat bogs, etc other specimens of bovine remains have been deposited in the museum. I have selected twenty heads of ancient oxen and arranged them in four rows each row characteristic of a peculiar race or breed viz the straight horned the curved or middle horned the short horned and the hornless or maol all of which existed in Ireland in the early period to which I have already alluded. According to my own observations we possessed four native breeds about twenty five years ago.
. . . .Third the Irish long horned similar to but not identical with the Lancashire or Craven. The fourth is the Maol or Moyle, the polled or hornless breed similar to the Angus of the neighboring kingdom, called Myleen in Connaugh.t Mael in Munster ,and Mwool in Ulster. In size they were inferior to the foregoing although larger than the Kerry, or even the old crook horned Irish, but were comparatively few in numbers. In color they were either dun black or white, but very rarely mottled. They were not bad milkers, were remarkably docile and were consequently much used for draught and ploughing.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
One Cowboy, A Deaf Dog, & 723 Steers Moved with No Stress...........
Check out this video! The link was included in Cattlegrower.com's newsletter today. Many of the steers in the video look like they are out of a British White bull; a very high number of them are white with black ears.
It was posted by Bob Kinford with the blurb: Taking 723 steers through the second gate of a three mile, six gate move with only one cowboy and a deaf dog with no stress. The Kinford's web site is NaturalCattleHandling.com.
It was posted by Bob Kinford with the blurb: Taking 723 steers through the second gate of a three mile, six gate move with only one cowboy and a deaf dog with no stress. The Kinford's web site is NaturalCattleHandling.com.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
A British White Bull Gets Himself in a bit of a Jam
Original Blog Posted Sunday, October 21, 2007:
This picture was Sunday a week ago today, and it was, as is often the case, a weekend just as busy as a week day. Mazarati, better known by the nickname Mo, had made his way along a puzzling course in the hay barn, until he'd reached a dead end -- much like a maze meant for humans that takes many attempts to find the right course out. Unlike a person, Mo couldn't figure out that if he just took those same steps backwards he would be able to find his way back to the beginning. It could have been a disaster, fortunately, he was not injured.
Amazingly, he was quite calm about the whole ordeal; though his new owner, Carol Diodene, would agree with me that he wasn't exactly happy -- his eyes were quite a bit rolled back as tried to look up at us. The first question a cattle rancher would be sure to be asking themself right now is how did he gain access to the hay barn. Well, that would be my fault; and, yes, I am generally a stickler about those gates always being secured even if you are quite sure you'll go right back through that gate within minutes. But, the day before I obviously failed to do just that.
Another herd bull, King Cole, was headed to his new home in the Canton area on Saturday morning, and I opened the hay barn to get a hefty handful of alfalfa droppings from the floor of the barn to use to coax him on into the pens -- and I didn't go back and close the gate, it was merely pushed together, and thus a perfect trap for an unsuspecting cow or bull with access to the corral that adjoins the hay barn. And of course Mo and the two bred heifers leaving for Ocala, Florida had access.
I can't tell you how happy I was to see Mo stroll out of that hay barn with no obvious injury from his ordeal. Two 12' high stacks of 3x4x8 alfalfa bales had to be removed to give him a way out. With all but the bottom row removed, Gentle Mo didn't lunge at the open space as I feared he might -- I could see how easy it would be for him to now try to climb over that remaining 4 foot high bale, but he didn't. Perhaps it was because Carol and I were patting him on the head and telling him to just wait a bit longer, or perhaps it's because he is a British White and his calm disposition saved his life from serious injury while trapped and during his release.
Most amazing perhaps is that Mo didn't bolt out into the corral following his release. He merely strolled and inexplicably stopped to munch on one of the alfalfa bales that had been removed to give him passage out. Carol was great through the whole ordeal, and convinced that this was surely a sign that Mo was meant to join her farm in Ocala, and I think he was as well. He arrived safely at his new home the following day, along with a pot load of great females that Carol found at the British White and Lowline auction in Henderson that weekend.
See Carol's Southern Cross Ranch web site at this link, give her a call if you'd like to hear more about Mazarati and his calves.
This picture was Sunday a week ago today, and it was, as is often the case, a weekend just as busy as a week day. Mazarati, better known by the nickname Mo, had made his way along a puzzling course in the hay barn, until he'd reached a dead end -- much like a maze meant for humans that takes many attempts to find the right course out. Unlike a person, Mo couldn't figure out that if he just took those same steps backwards he would be able to find his way back to the beginning. It could have been a disaster, fortunately, he was not injured.
Amazingly, he was quite calm about the whole ordeal; though his new owner, Carol Diodene, would agree with me that he wasn't exactly happy -- his eyes were quite a bit rolled back as tried to look up at us. The first question a cattle rancher would be sure to be asking themself right now is how did he gain access to the hay barn. Well, that would be my fault; and, yes, I am generally a stickler about those gates always being secured even if you are quite sure you'll go right back through that gate within minutes. But, the day before I obviously failed to do just that.
Another herd bull, King Cole, was headed to his new home in the Canton area on Saturday morning, and I opened the hay barn to get a hefty handful of alfalfa droppings from the floor of the barn to use to coax him on into the pens -- and I didn't go back and close the gate, it was merely pushed together, and thus a perfect trap for an unsuspecting cow or bull with access to the corral that adjoins the hay barn. And of course Mo and the two bred heifers leaving for Ocala, Florida had access.
I can't tell you how happy I was to see Mo stroll out of that hay barn with no obvious injury from his ordeal. Two 12' high stacks of 3x4x8 alfalfa bales had to be removed to give him a way out. With all but the bottom row removed, Gentle Mo didn't lunge at the open space as I feared he might -- I could see how easy it would be for him to now try to climb over that remaining 4 foot high bale, but he didn't. Perhaps it was because Carol and I were patting him on the head and telling him to just wait a bit longer, or perhaps it's because he is a British White and his calm disposition saved his life from serious injury while trapped and during his release.
Most amazing perhaps is that Mo didn't bolt out into the corral following his release. He merely strolled and inexplicably stopped to munch on one of the alfalfa bales that had been removed to give him passage out. Carol was great through the whole ordeal, and convinced that this was surely a sign that Mo was meant to join her farm in Ocala, and I think he was as well. He arrived safely at his new home the following day, along with a pot load of great females that Carol found at the British White and Lowline auction in Henderson that weekend.
See Carol's Southern Cross Ranch web site at this link, give her a call if you'd like to hear more about Mazarati and his calves.
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