Category Archives: Family

2nd & 3rd calves 2017

TWIN GIRLS!!😮😮 Meet Maple and Syrup. Mike was delighted to see that one of our two bred heifers (Pinetar) not only had one cleaned-up, full-tummied calf this morning, but TWO!😱

Pinetar took really good care of her new babies…👏🏼

[click here to read about when Pinetar was born]

This is our first set of successful twins here, so we are pretty excited!🤗

Back in 2010 we had a cow named Amy who had one live calf and one deceased calf. (It was before blogging days, so I don’t have a link to share.) But click here to read about Peekaboo – half of another set of twins we had back in 2012.

Mike and Paul were able to get halters on Maple and Syrup pretty easily.👍🏼

Here is Maple:

And here is Syrup:

Maple was not as cooperative with walking as Syrup was… The boys took turns carrying her all around Mordor. (At least these girls were smaller than Rose was yesterday, lol!😂)

Paul carried her first…

Then Pinetar led us through downed trees/scratching posts…🙄😬

Next it was Michael’s turn to carry Maple…

And finally, we all made it through the gate and into the runway to the barn.👍🏼

Syrup walked the whole way down with her mama, and I drove Michael and Maple down in the chariot…😉

Whew. What a morning! Thank You, Lord!❤

Tally now 3 girls, 0 boys, and 8 more to go…WE THINK!😉🙏🏼

1st calf 2017

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Such a great way to celebrate the first day of spring – with new life! Welcome first calf of 2017!👏🏼 Can’t believe this is our 10th season of calving!😱

Mike found Tangerine with her daughter when we went up to do a calf-check this morning. [click here to read about her calf last year]

She is Tangerine’s 6th calf, and we decided to name her Rose. (Think: spring, flowers, roses…💐)

The 4 of us waited to go up so Tangerine could clean her up a bit and get her fed. Apparently she did that and then walked Rose over to the unrolled round bale so SHE could eat…

(This pic cracks me up… Guess she was hungry!😋)

It would have been nice if the duo would have walked down to the barn together, but that was not the case. Rose was tired. And Tangerine just wanted to eat, lol.😂

Mike was relieved Michael volunteered to carry Rose to the baby buggy.💪🏼

Michael drove them down to the barn while Paul & I waited by Tangerine. We were thinking that maybe the two of us could convince Tangerine to follow the 4wheeler, but that wasn’t the case.🙄

Once Mike & Michael joined us back up in Mordor, we worked together to bring Tangerine down. She was incredibly stubborn and frustrating… Had us running in mud and out of breath (at least Mike & I were, lol.)😬

Here she is taking a water break.

Thankfully, she chilled out after this and walked cooperatively down the rest of the way.👍🏼

Here is Rose all nestled in… She is a sweet calf!❤ Lord willing, we are expecting 9 more…🐮

Thank You, Lord, for holding off our first calf until a little warmer weather arrived. Prepare our bodies and our equipment to handle navigating through this slippery mud as we move from winter to spring. Teach us what You want us to learn from this year’s calving season. May we honor You with each step we take. Amen🙏🏼

Pastured pigs 2016

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Last year we raised two Berkshire pigs as an experiment – and they were SO cool!! They were a perfect compliment to our dairy, feasting on our discard of skim, buttermilk, whey, and scraps. They were moved through a couple of our pastures and we also added some soaked oats to their diet. It was important to us to not feed any corn or soy. {Click here to read more details about Dave & Buster.}🐷

It has been a joy to have pork in our freezer! We have been very pleased with the flavor of the meat.👍🏼

Since our experiment went so well, we decided to open it up to our customers for ordering this year. The response was amazing! We closed orders at 10 after a couple days because we didn’t want to be too overwhelmed in the jump from 2 to 10…🙏🏼

Today we headed to Loudonville and picked up 7. (The final 3 will come from a separate batch.) They are 7 weeks old. These will be named after the 7 dwarves: Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy, and Dopey.❤️ (Can’t wait to see who will get each name!!)👏🏼

So fun that our friend Jennifer stopped by when we were unloading them! She also raises piggies and was excited to see them!❤️

The last one! Wonder if it will end up being named Bashful?🙄🐷😉

Here they are in their new place. We’ll keep them in here for a few days to get used to us and learn what electric fence is. (You can see we have a line of fence strung along the side.)

The calves even came down to check out what was going on…🐮

Didn’t take them but a few minutes to start rooting around…🐽

No doubt, more posts will follow as they grow and the season progresses. Can’t believe May is almost here!🌷💐🌺

10th and final calf 2016

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We knew it yesterday, as we heard the forecast for the next morning: SNOW+WIND…❄️💨 WE JUST KNEW IT. Final calf would be born in a blizzard.😁

We. Were. Right.😏 Fiskars is Paul’s cow. {Click here to read about her calf from last year.} Last year she had the first calf of the season, and this year she closes out our season! Even though it was a blustery, yucky morning, we are all extremely thankful it all went smoothly.

Click here to read about when she was born, and here to go to a past post that contains links of Paul with Fiskars over the years.

Paul named her calf: Flapjack (think ridiculous cartoon: The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack🙄) He joins Clark as the only other bull this season. Final tally: 2 boys and 8 girls.👏🏼👍🏼

I walked up to Mordor solo since we had an extra helper this morning. The boys’ friend, Blake, got to join us for this adventure.😊

If you “super zoom”, you can almost see the clump of cows all the way back in the farthest corner of Mordor…🔍

Flapjack didn’t quite make it out the gate on his own, but we think he did pretty good given the circumstances!🐮

3 Amigos!😍😍😍

Horizontal snow!!😳

Flapjack got a nice rub-down…❤️

❤️❤️❤️❤️
Blake and his namesake…😏

Even though his mama had fed him some, Flapjack finished off a bottle, too. Can’t blame him. All that chaos makes for hungry tummies – calves AND humans…🤗

Well, Lord, what a whirlwind of a calving season this has been! Thank You for sustaining us through it, and for using it to build up our endurance for the next chapter here. We look forward to seeing more of Your plan unfold, one step at a time. May we stay focused on You. Amen🙏🏼

Thought I’d end this post with some fun stats from our first 10 years of calving. Kinda neat to see how our calving window has shortened up over the years! Perfect for our small, seasonal dairy.🐮

2007: 13 calves over 25 weeks

2008: 6 calves over 22 weeks

2009: 23 calves over 22 weeks

2010: 14 calves over 14 weeks

2011: 16 calves over 12 weeks

2012: 11 calves over 9 weeks (with a late one 4 weeks later)

2013: 13 calves over 8 weeks

2014: 8 calves over 8 weeks

2015: 9 calves over 5 weeks

2016: 10 calves over 3 weeks (Wow!!! No wonder my body feels so tired, lol!😱😉)

9th calf 2016

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Look what Mike found when he went up for a calf-check on this rainy/cold afternoon:
Yep. Disco had her calf – ANOTHER GIRL!!!😱 (That makes 8 girls and one boy.) {Click here to read about her calf from last year.}

Boys have named her: Ruby. (Totally random – though they DID say she has a rosey complexion, lol.😉)

By the time we were all suited up, Disco had moved her into an area with some trees. When Mike left them, she had fed her calf. And we were REALLY hoping she’d have Ruby all cleaned up. BUT, she didn’t.😡 Good thing I had brought some old towels to the barn. This ones gonna need some work.😁

Ruby is pretty large, and didn’t seem too interested in walking – especially in the muck & mire. That was fine by us, we weren’t exactly thrilled to be trudging through it either…🌧🌨💨

Michael had to make a quick detour and guard the fourwheeler… For some reason, Coco decided she wanted to beat it up.😳

Michael drove Mike & Ruby down to the barn. Paul & I stuck with Disco.

You’ll notice the few pics I have are from pretty far away. That’s because I couldn’t keep up with Michael’s driving! (I’m thinking of renaming him Mario…🏎🏁😏)

(I had to sprint AND ZOOM to get this one…😂)


Ruby got a nice rub down, and some fresh hay to snuggle down in.❤️

Well, it wasn’t exactly how we wanted to spend our afternoon, since the boys’ baseball game got cancelled DUE TO YUCKY WEATHER, lol, but that’s ok.😊

Almost done with 2016 calves!! One more left…🙏🏼

7th and 8th calf 2016

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What a morning! Outside temp was 22° – but it felt like 10° because of the wind!❄️💨😁 This is the txt I got from Paul & Mike when they went to do a baby check before we milked:

“Not one but 2 babies. Not Kidding.”

Lol. Ugh. So with full Carhartt gear and lots of layers on, we began our journey to bring down TWO MORE GIRLS with their mamas. (For those keeping track, that’s 7 girls and 1 boy!)

We decided to name the girls Tic and Tac (think breath mints).😏

ScotchTape had Tic. {Click here to see her calf from last year.} We decided to leave Tac with her mama, Uno for now, since she was still getting cleaned up and eating. (Uno was our other new heifer to calve this year, and we are so grateful she had no issues and was doing such a great job taking care of Tac!👏🏼 More about them further down in the post.)

Here are the pics from bringing Tic down.

Yes, THOSE ARE ICE CHUNKS IN THE PUDDLE…😖

Once we were out of Mordor, we put Tic in the wagon and Paul drove her down with Mike. Even though ScotchTape is a “veteran mama”, she was taking FOREVER to lead Tic down to the barn. We wanted to speed things up a bit because it was: COLD.😁 (Tic is also HUGE, lol, so I was glad Michael helped with lifting her to Mike.💪🏼)

It took ScotchTape a minute to figure it all out, but she finally did…(brainfreeze)🙄

Since Tape was so lolly-gaggy, there was plenty of time for the driving crew to open the gate to drive down on grass instead of the bumpy runway. (no shocks on trailer=sore human body parts…😏)

There she is: Tic.❤️

We were going to just have her wait to get her pen until after we moved the other 3 next door, but we changed our minds…

She was a hungry girl!!🍼

After we milked, we moved Natasha, Harriet, and Hope over to our barnyard to join the other 3.





So now we have 5 girls and one boy in Green Dragon.👍🏼 (Girls are already kinda shunning poor Clark, lol…)

Next up? Bringing down Uno and Tac.🤗

{Click here to read Uno’s post when she was born.}

Even though this was Uno’s first time with a calf, she led Tac down perfectly!👍🏼

(Couldn’t resist putting this pic in. Michael was down at the barn first and took this watching us coming down. Blake-the-cat was leading the parade, lol. This 10-year-old barn cat is always cracking us up!🙄😍)

Tac’s close-up…😉

And now? Celebration time!! We figured: two calves on one of the coldest mornings, another hassle-free heifer delivery, no time or energy to fix food to eat before afternoon feedings+baseball running…yeah – it’s time to celebrate, lol!🎉

So we headed to our friend’s local restaurant for 4 Chopper burgers…mmmmm!🍔🍟

Thank You, Lord, for Today. Grant us what we need to finish up this season. Prepare us for what’s next, and lead us always closer to You… Amen🙏🏼

Lord willing, two more to go…

6th calf 2016

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Banana had her second calf for us this morning. It’s a girl!!! {Click here to read about her calf last year.} Michael named her Harriet.❤️ (Her dad’s name is Harry, lol…)

Michael got a halter on Banana, too, so he was able to lead her out of Mordor a little easier than it would have been otherwise. (She’s kinda stubborn, but she cooperates pretty well for Michael.😉) Harriet followed well and made it the whole way down.👍🏼

To see some old posts featuring Banana over the years, click here and here and here.

The other nosey mamas waiting to see who is joining their group, lol…🐮

Natasha welcoming Harriet…🤗

Today is a little bittersweet. Banana has been special to Michael, and he’s spent a lot of time showering her with extra attention over the past 4 years. He really wanted her to make the cut and remain one of our dairy girls, but that’s just not gonna happen. Last year, her rumen stopped working and we needed the emergency vet out to help her. Her appetite recovered, but we couldn’t use her milk for our dairy, and we actually dried her up in July. We decided to give her another chance for 2016, but it appears she is the same… Rats.😕 Culling a cow from your herd that you are emotionally attached to can be hard, and I’m grateful for the time we’ve all had to prepare for this possibility. It’s just how farming goes sometimes. We are thankful for everything she has taught us, the wonderful memories of watching Michael take care of her, and for the two calves she’s had for us.❤️

Lord, use this experience to grow each one of us closer to You… Amen🙏🏼

5th calf 2016

4th calf 2016

3rd calf 2016

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This morning we found this little guy with his mama, Tangerine. His name is Clark. (As in “Clark Kent”/Superman, in honor of Batman vs. Superman movie that is debuting today…😉) {Click here to read about Tangerine’s calf last year.}

Boys had another early baseball day, so Mike and I were on our own again. Somewhere in this group of girls is Clark… Can you see him?😏

Thankfully, there were no hiccups getting them out of Mordor…

…until Tangerine saw the barn with Cookie and Gluey! She decided to SPRINT down the hill…ugh! So yeah – “faster than a speeding bullet” took on a whole new meaning to Mike and I as we did the best we could in our 43-year-old bodies to keep up with Clark’s full trot, lol… (Could have done without that part.😬)

It’s tricky to not drop your phone at this point… Can you see Tangerine’s udder swinging side-to-side??😂