The Cow.

We love our cow. She is a Jersey/Holstein cross who looks like a short Holstein with a Jersey face. Her name is Bindy and she gives about 50lbs of milk per day... we think. LOL. Which is about 4.4 gallons if I remember correctly. Papa milked her out one morning and night and weighed the milk. I say we think because we have these two wonderful things called calves. The black one is Billy her calf from this spring and he's got those Holstein legs( you can barely see him in the picture. He's behind Bobby). The red one is Bobby a calf the neighbor gave us this spring. We think he was a twin as he found him in the field and all of his cows had a calf, but no one would take him. So he gave him to us. They are 11 days apart in age. And I like to say 11 inches in height but I've never actually measured. They only ever nurse like (with Billy close to Bindy) this as Bindy still does not like Bobby. She will let them both nurse while she's with them.. but again only like this.

So right now we only milk when we want to or have too:) So take this week. Papa is in camp (gone Mon thru Fri) so the cow is my job. Heck everything is my job. Normally the deal is I milk mornings and Papa milks evenings. I milk while Papa's gone and he milks whenever he's home. Which is great because I almost never have to milk on weekends. But when he's gone all week.. without the calves... I milk morning and night. Thank God for calves. These days I milk mornings because I have more time. Then I kick her out with the calves for the day and go get her at night to teather her at the neighbors patch of grass for the night so that I can milk the next morning.

This morning was a morning for 1sts. I went to get the cow and she was NASTY. So I tied her up to give her a good going over with the hose.. and the hose was froze. Now it was only 0C when I got up but it must have been much colder then that earlier. Fall is here. So I ended up washing her by hand 'shudder'-a 1st for this year. I also had to feed hay for the 1st time this morning. Normally hay is reserved for when there is no grass in a given area and while waiting for the next patch to be ready. (this only happened a few times this year) Or when Bindy was dropping weight in a attemt to keep her weight up. But today there is no more grass anywhere. We might be able to graze a couple of areas one more time, but it's pretty much done for the year. We may have another 1st yet today if it doesn't warm up I may have to make a daytime fire. I did have the oven on for a hour this morning so it's passible in here. With heaters in both bedrooms we keep nice and warm at night.

While getting hay I noticed that Patches, our momma cat, moved her kittens into the bales. Probably for warmth. Which is good because it is farther away from the house where the 2 male cats (Joey and Samson) roam.

Fall is here and it's time to start getting the critters, humans included, ready for winter. Burrr.. I think I may have to light that fire yet.
Gotta go, the Grigglets are up.