Daisy was in a bad mood yesterday and all last night and still yelling at me this morning. Bad. Bad. Bad. She stands at her gate and moos with quite the nasty tone.
Noisy, bolshy and scary. She has PMT. Cows get that too you know. Some cows worse than others. And Our Daisy is worse than all the others. So everyone was steering clear of her yesterday. 
Which was just fine with her thank you very bloody much. My guess at her coming into season was spot on though, weren’t we just talking about this yesterday? 
There was thunder too for a wee while and so the dogs hid in the barn. We even got a light shower.
Queenie the little heifer stood out counting the raindrops. She really needs rain as she is quite the dirtiest cow on the Farmy. Bobbly Blanc came over.
and they had a chat about how cows cannot help having a bad day once a month. Just stay out of the way, don’t say anything stupid and it will be over soon. 
Charlotte galloped over to join in and he’s off. Pigs gallop did you know? But their legs do not bend right so they run in a jerky up and down, stompy stomp, kind of way. And fast. Pigs are fast. But Baby Blanc is a racehorse. 
This is the healthiest fastest tallest calf I have ever raised. He loves to run. Just high tails it out of there at any opportunity.
“He’s a bit flighty.” Says Charlotte. “Oh” says Queenie. 
Charlotte the little pig nods sagely, “We’re still training him”.
“Ah,” says Queenie the little cow. “I see.”
Good morning. Daisy bawled at the house all yesterday afternoon and all last night. Sleep was difficult. She has a megaphone bellow that she whips out and directs straight at my open bedroom window. I went out twice in the night and she was immediately quiet but I cannot stay in the field all night. And when Daisy is in season she will literally rear up and onto other farm animals. Me included. So it is best to stay on your own side of the fence. Milking her yesterday afternoon was like milking a wild horse. I had to use stern language when she kicked the cups off twice! Though I was ready for her the third time. All the milk had to go to the pigs though as the cups hit the floor and were no longer judged clean. Naughty cow.
I had forgotton how noisy and belligerent she is when she is in heat.
Best I gird my loins and go take on the wild cow! Her mood is all over in 24 hours so by tonight all will be quiet again, and in 21 days she will start over. The cycles of the farmy.
Have a lovely day. Today is Sunday here. I don’t cook meals or clean up after cooks on Sundays. Sunday I make cheese and ice cream. Then clean up after myself and someone else will take over the kitchen. So I hope to have time to visit you.
Now, I had better get going outside before Daisy takes out a fence trying to get my attention and you know as well as I do that she is perfectly capable of doing so. Darling girl.
celi
PS A year ago today I wrote a post attempting to explain why we are doing what we are doing. It is called Breaking in New Ground is Old. Once this is rewritten, (I have learnt a lot since then,) this piece will also be included in the introduction of the Farmy Book.
We missed one old post because I was distracted yesterday, but that is OK. Not everything in the past is worth revisiting!
c
The Kitchen's Garden 
80 responses to “High tailing it Out of There!”
True, not everything in the past is worth revisiting…Cows in heat are very fearsome. We used to have a cow that would hollar until Terry came out…she was his cow…I had mine…then she would follow him around telling him she wanted a bull. If he didn’t listen she would jump out and go visiting until she found a bull. What mess. Then we had to go find her (in a five mile radius) and bring her home. Very contented.
Our second cutting of hay is down and it has rained on it for two days. Sad…no rain and then when we NEED sun we have huge down pours. The down pours are a blessing on everything else on the farm…just not the down hay.
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
http://deltacountyhistoricalsociety.wordpress.com
What a bugger about that hay. Isn’t that just the way. I hope there are not bulls across the creek I can just see Daisy lumbering along the creek to get to one, dragging a fence behind her! Oh dear! Will you still dry and bale that hay/ What do you do now?.. c
Just agree with whatever she says… I mean look at those great shots of calves and TonTon. Gotta run…
Exactly.. word to the wise!! c
That Daisy can look quite fearsome when she’s in a mood! A brave woman you are to milk a cow in that state. I can just see you high-tailing it out of there (sort of) like Bobby Blanc. He really does run like a colt! Happy Sunday, and cooks day off!
I am having a grand day off! c
thank god for menopause! i used to act just like daisy too!
don’t let on though!! c
Daisy’s issues aside, it really is something to see how fast the youngins are growing. I noticed Minty the other day but here’s Bobby Blanc looking huge and Charlotte is hardly the piglet she once was. They sure do grow up fast on the farmy!
Max is romping with “Rocky,” his BFF and foster dog, at day care today while I join my friends for another Cubs game. Have a great day, Celi!
Enjoy your game, i think that John is going to get out the crank and try and wind his old tele up and watch it too! c
If John watched the game, he may have seen a friend grab a foul ball. He went to stretch his legs and we watched as a foul ball dropped in front of him on the other side of the stadium. Too funny!
In the UK the T in PMT is for tension and I think it´s a wonderful thing – we can blame so much on it! And when that´s over we can blamne the menopause…or man-o-pause as my pals also like to call it 😉 Love that shot of Bobby Blanc racing around!
AND no-one is allowed to point it out!!! How did we get on this subject today!?.. c
My only claim to understanding the farm rhythm is the summer I lived in upstate New York, milked goats and had a nearby friend who lived on a chicken farm. They were battling a problem with Cropsy that year.
Except for my experience with a miniature horse living in the tool shed in our back yard (story on my blog. (Hi, Ho, Silver) and the time we won a pair of Chinese Pheasants in the hospital auction, I am not too knowledgeable about farm animals. So Celi’s blog is very educationally interesting to me.
I remember reading that story, didn’t you go for a ride in the country or something with your childen then come home with a wee horsey! Hilarious! c
[…] Light, the architect of understanding, is from a conversation with a friend, which turned up in my notebook of happy phrases. in a jerky up and down, stompy kind of way is from a post on Celie’s blog […]
I want to hug all of these animals! Even the moody ones 🙂
maybe tomorrow .. today daisy has them all a little jumpy! c
Daisy is putting everything she has into that moo you captured. She’s like a baby howling.
Oh she is.. a naughty baby!! c
Loving the Farmy photos – and your calf is just BEAUTIFUL:) Happy Sunday!
You have a lovely sunday too! c
Chocolates, lots of chocolates perhaps that will put Daisy right on her off day. If not one can always nibble on them yourself. Virginia
What an excellent idea, they say chocolate does wonders! I have our ice cream chilling in the fridge Virginia.. your recipe is marvellous, your tips worked like a charm i am giving everyone the link tomorrow! c
Now this makes me very, very happy. V.
Great farmy post Cinders, especially the Daisy Drama!…loved the photos…as always! How did your John or why did your John decide to shift gears back to the old way of farming on his family’s land, if it had always been farmed a certain way? Or was it that he was trying to get back to the way they farmed it when his great grandfather was alive? What about his grandfather and father? Did they farm the land also they way you are doing it? Oh, that’s way too many questions but I think you get my drift…don’t you? :))
Celi, I loved this post and the photos. Aren’t you thinking about a children’s book? These conversations among the animals are priceless and could be the start of just such a project (minus the focus on Daisy’s “cycle,” I guess!).
I also went back and read the post from a year ago and enjoyed learning more about the history of the farm and your process of reclaiming it. Something you said reminded me that when I was very small, my grandmother “kept” a cow and some chickens, even though we lived “in town” (it was a *very* small town, indeed, but still). I have a little ledger she kept that dates back to the Great Depression era where she recorded sales of milk, butter, cream, and eggs, mostly to her neighbors, and literally for pennies. It’s an amazing testament to her perseverance and self-sufficiency. My granddad had come back from WWI with tuberculosis and was never well after that. My grandmother could grow anything. She maintained a huge garden, too, and grapevines, and there wasn’t a flower that didn’t thrive under her hands. I believe her growing things was her expression of creativity.
So there’s a little story of my own for you. Maybe those roots are one of the reasons I enjoy your writing about the farm so much! Have a lovely Sunday.
Thank you Gerry, what an enterprising woman your grandmother was..and how wonderful that you have that little book.. those women worked so hard to keep their families fed, they never stopped.. thank you.. c
Your posts are always filled with little tidbits I catalog in the back of my brain. Cows in heat and their changed behavior make sense, though I never would have logicked it out. I have seen pigs running though! Lots of wild pigs here. So cute. Daisy mounting anything in sight, including you, reminds me of a foal I raised. I’d turn my back and he’d try and mount me. Small as he was, this was NOT a behavior I would have wished to encourage. Too much, these domesticated creatures! Love to you out there on the prairie.
Agreed,, a 1500 pound thinking she can climb in me is not a good thought, I only ever made that mistake once. It is true about domesticating them, they think we are part of the herd..albeit the alpha.. hopefully.. c