Believing the evidence of my senses, I am forced to accept that it is winter. As I don’t hibernate all winter (as attractive as that may seem at times), occasionally I push away from the computer and get out and about.
I pulled into the local building supply store to pick up some vent covers I needed to cover the holes in the ceiling of my wife’s basement gourd crafting studio after we put floor vents in upstairs to help get better heat circulation via thermosphoning when we are only running the wood space heater in the basement.
I parked a little farther from the store than I needed to in order to force myself to walk a bit, and was rewarded with this IwishIknewthis guy view:
Another day I made a too rare of a visit to the winter barn to see how everyone was faring. I was especially checking out the new cows and heifers and the oxen.
They seemed to be doing fine, with options for meals (this photo I took inside and as it was a cloudy day, the flash went off and made their eyes look weird).
They can eat in
or they can dine alfresco.
I had to go inside their area to get the outdoor picture. It got to be a little bit of a hassle because this jersey heifer was all over me.
I was holding my camera case in one hand and she kept trying to eat it, which made for some blurry pictures. I put that into my pocket and kept trying but then she was going after the lanyard which was dangling from the camera.
I did manage to get a decent picture, but it was hard because I didn’t want to exert any authority over her. At this point, Ray pulled in after feeding out hay. Note the hay spear for big bales on the tractor loader.
He solved the mystery of the overly friendly heifer. Apparently she loves apples and must have assumed I was there to give her a treat. He said, however, that she was the only one who likes them, none of the others are interested.
It reminded me of when I was a kid, we used grow 300 acres of potatoes. We would store them during harvest and then during the winter bring them out and process them — washing, culling, and bagging them, about a 100 tractor trailer loads a year.
The culls would go into a truck parked outside the wash plant, and then be hauled out and fed to the cows. After dumping them in the feeding area, they were liking them very much.
February 18, 2008 at 2:36 am
That truck is priceless, lol.
Visiting the barn is one of my favorite things, though a few of the oxen are a bit scary, to me anyhow. And in the summer, on occasion they’ll ‘break out’ and come up to near the house, and we’ll go out with Bear (our border collie) who runs down and actually circles them and helps herd them back over.
Please tell Vidya that her gourds are just amazing! I was SO delighted to receive the 2 of them from Bob for Valentine’s day! I had no idea they’d be so beautiful. I want to take a few pics and put them up on my animal rescue board as well, maybe get her some extra sales. Hugs to you both, and many thanks.
Deb B
February 19, 2008 at 9:22 am
I told her, thanks.