Yesterday morning the big beast, the Hereford steer, walked away and stood all alone in the West Barn separating himself from Carlos and his cows. I smiled. Thank you very much I said and I shut the barn gate on him, gave him extra feed and decided to proceed with the big shift.
I had been waiting for just such a move to begin the big jig. The plan was all in my head, the dairy cows were ready – all I needed was a little push. The Steer provided that little push just nicely by separating himself from the cows.
The rejig of the jig saw puzzle of cows could commence.
Part One was to separate the girls from the boys. (the boys need the fattening with high protein alfalfa hay, the girls get the lower protein good quality grass hay). The rest of the winter and into early spring will be girls and boys dormitories – except for Carlos who stays with the pregnant girls for a bit longer because I am not sure if Aunty Anna is pregnant yet.
With the big boy waiting at the West Barn I came back to the home farm to bring out the two little heifers. So I opened the gate to Sheila’s paddock and sent Boo in to bring out Tia and Txiki. Tia comes to her name so I called her out and Boo bounced along behind Txiki sending her out as well.
These fields are small so it is easy work for Boo. Txiki might have a look about her but she really is a sweet little heifer – she is a Dexter crossed with a Mini Angus and very short and stocky.
Once they saw that the big car had hay in it they sauntered over there, into the yards and I shut the gate. They will spend the winter in and out of the big barn so I can continue working with then and gentling them. They will sleep where the dairy cows have been sleeping.
The dairy cows were in the waiting room waiting to be milked. So far so good. The second part of our three part day was to bring the big Hereford Bobby back to the home farm in the trailer (he would join the two other steers and Sheila in the rat house paddock) and while the trailer was here at the home farm, I would milk the dairy cows, run them down the corridor and straight onto the trailer then transport them to the West barn as far away from the thought of being milked as possible so they can dry up.
Are you still with me?
So John got out the big truck, we drove over to the West Barn, backed up to the trailer and as I was directing him to reverse up to the old black trailer I saw that one of the back tires was dead flat.
It was getting dark and time to start milking so we had to abort the mission. That was annoying. We milked the cows and as the heifers were already in their space we left them altogether and will start the big shift again today.
After the milking John got out the tractor, started it up and smoke was pouring everywhere. He popped the lid and discovered that the turbo part had spat the dummy and released oil everywhere. This is a very expensive problem evidently.
By this time John was in full retreat and went to take a bath and discovered that the hot water cylinder was not working. I came in later to find the igniter on the oven had given up the ghost and the ambient heat in the coop was no longer working.
By this time John was at the end of his very short rope of patience and I was cooking on the woodstove.
But that was yesterday. Already the hot water has been fixed. Then next on the list is changing the tire on the trailer this morning. It is very, very windy now (of course yesterday was a calm day) and rain is due to fall about 9am, so hopefully we can get that done in time, then I will proceed with the jig saw puzzle of cows and John can get onto fixing his tractor which will not be as easy as it sounds and very expensive, evidently. But John is always negative about everything so you never quite know. This is not an exaggeration. He believes if you set your expectations of success very low you won’t be disappointed. I am exactly the opposite. Profoundly the opposite.
Thankfully John is still not working and has a well stocked workshop over at the big farm for fixing machinery and the tractor has already been loaded onto a borrowed trailer and hauled over there for a hospital stay. So things will proceed at their own pace.
Isn’t life an interesting collection of big breaths!
Have a lovely day.
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
64 responses to “One of those days”
Yep, Mercury is in retrograde again, anything that can go wrong does. See here for more info http://www.astrologyhoroscopereadings.com/2017-mercury-retrograde-calendar.html
Laura
Hmm – old Mercury aye! c
Now that was a full days work plus some! I love the pictures of your animals and farm!
Thank you patricia – have a lovely evening.. c
Tima walking back down to the pasture since she found nothing on the porch worth eating with Ton as her escort. What a day of catastrophes! I might have been compelled to sit down and have a good cry, but get back up again and carry on. We are having problems with the laminating machine that lives in the library today. Three times, we tried to get it to work without success. I finally turned it off to cool down and am going to try again. It is a cantankerous machine at its best, but I will win! Good luck!
I hope it worked for you – often turning things off works for no apparent reason – c
These things have a habit of going wrong when the weather is just about to turn bad.
By the way I keep meaning to say thank you for the pictures you always publish, yours is the one blog that I can read with my three year old daughter as she always wants to know who everyone is and what they are doing 🙂
That is the loveliest image – I LOVE it when children are entertained by the animals. c
Some days it rains. And some it pours. Best to let it do it’s worst and make plans for when the weather breaks. And that goe s for the weather, too.
Yup, the weather is pretty rubbish today too! c
What a day! Big Man too is the one who will forsee the problems (most of which never happen) and I’m ever the optimistic one…we balance each other out 😀
A Perfect relationship.. lovely c
Never Victorious, Never Defeated reminds me of title of book by Taylor Caldwell
That does not sound like a fun book!.. c
I had to laugh at your comment about John being negative. Brett and I are polar opposites in exactly the same way.
Gosh so many of us have this same problem.. c
Funny, my husband John and I are the same. He is always the negative one, and I always find the good, ever cheerful about another new day. Ah well, it takes all kinds!!! Love the photos of Tima and Ton, Boo and Txiki, and Tane and the rooster. Perfect.
Yes it does – takes all kinds! c
You must be very good at endless games of chess and backgammon to be able to juggle back and forth thus . . . . in ‘my world’ I make a written list and get huge satisfaction when more than half of it is ‘ticked off’ . . . bestest with the motor!!
I do make notes in my diary of important dates- but generally it is a picture I keep in my head.. c
Me too with the bloke thing… I look for the upside, the G.O. believes it when it happens and mostly opts for the worst as the default reaction. I guess it’s balance, and the end result is the same but there are 2 things in life I find challenging: negativity & disorder.
same.. c
oh mama mia what a frustrating day!
So glad to hear I’m not the only one living with a “negative Nellie”. Odds, sods and bodkins – my big guy drives me crazy some days. Everything is negative and I just don’t like living like that. His mum is the same way, and while I understand that being 90 and nearly blind is a hard way to live, really we need to be positive at least once a day. Let me tell you – it’s a good thing the big guy is cute and handy around the house – otherwise one day he might find he has a really good reason to be negative!
I love the “room for more wine” and the “interesting collection of big breaths” – many days that describes exactly what I’m feeling.
Chris S in Canada
There are quite a few of us aren’t there! who knew! c
Well, Ceci, you made my day with gales of laughter! I need new glasses! BOY do I need them! Your last comment about the “collection of ‘ big breaths” is not what my eyes saw or read! …………………. still laughing! Big Hugs, SunnyMarie (aka Lois)
Hi Lois – sometimes what we think we hear is better than the real thing! Glad you got a laugh! c
Oh yes it is a collection of breaths .. and sighs 😃 Best of luck! Sent to try us .. why I have no idea! Hugs