WATER
I am really bad at drinking water. Our well water here is so high in iron that it smells. So when you have to carry in all your drinking water you are less likely to just chug it down. I should though – on good water days I am so much more energetic.
But the animals are another story they drink gallons and gallons of water a day. And if they are not drinking in it they are stamping in it or lying in it. Water is the real “staff of life” for them. 
They don’t care what it tastes like as long as it is fresh. I have one outdoor tap with a five hoses all joined together and every day I drag these from cows field to pigs field and chickens coops filling their water. 
This new Bobby drinks a lot of water as well as his bottle of milk twice a day.
Molly the sow is still endlessly upending her water container because of the heat so I am endlessly carrying out buckets of water for her. She is bellying down nicely. 
Although Wai the Wonder Pig has water under the magnolia tree over by his garden bed, he still gets up two or three times a day and trudges noisily all the way to the barn and his own bedroom to loudly slurp up water from his own water bowl.
Alex once again spent all day under the big tree with her two front feet in the small calf water trough. She makes such a mess of that water I clean and refill it every evening so at least it is available t drink in the night time.
I cannot imagine the horror of the flooding and devastation in the wake of these hurricanes, when people cannot get good drinking water. It puts a lot of things in perspective doesn’t it. And there must be many small farms like my own hit. Poor people.
Yesterday Lady Astor milked very well. She let her milk down completely and quickly so it pounded into the milking bucket with reassuring force. It may have helped that the new bobby mooed to her when she disappeared from his sight. I am not sure. But up until yesterday I was coaxing out each drop, doing a lot of hand milking. Her production is now quite low so I will go to once a day milking tomorrow if she stays clean. She is not allowed out in the fields at all for the meantime, and is being fed grass hay and vegetables – no legumes at all, no grain. If the bloat and her milk are connected (and she shows signs of mastitis each time just prior to bloating), then I want her quite dried up before she goes out again. This deterioration is new to Lady – she had been a good solid milk cow until this season. I think the milk fever she had in the spring unbalanced her metabolism.
Poor old cow.
And time for me to get to work.
I hope you have a good day.
Love celi
WEATHER:
Monday 09/25 0% / 0 in
Mostly sunny skies. Continued very warm. High near 90F/33C. Winds light and variable.
Monday Night 09/25 10% / 0 in
Clear skies. Low 64F/18C. Winds light and variable.
Sun
6:43 am 6:44 pm
Moon
Waxing Crescent, 31% visible – 11:56 am 10:12 pm
40 Comments on “WATER”
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It’s good to hear that Lady Astor is feeling better.
She is doing much better today – less lying about..
Sounds like having the new Bobby around may have done the trick for Lady A, and hopefully that lighter diet might stop her bloating; I know that no legumes does the trick for me!
She will get thin on this diet so hopefully I am not milking her for too much longer
I find it very difficult to drink water. I can drink tea or even coffee if I have to… but ..water.. yuck! I know it is good for me..it will help me to lose weight and will balance my body fluids but all this knowledge goes nowhere ….give me a cup of tea ( well it is coloured water)and I am happy….Love your pictures
Sent: Monday, September 25, 2017 at 2:19 PM
I am definitely a tea drinker too – or bubbly water –
There is a part of the James Rebank’s The Shepherd’s life where he talks about how a farmer is never just doing nothing. The bucolic picture of a farmer leaning on fence staring is not a picture of a blank mind, it’s a picture of a very very busy mind. They are ALWAYS watching the animals and the fields, assessing their well being, thinking about all the things that could be wrong and what they could do to make it better.
I totally ‘get’ the busy mind image – I have to be always thinking hard lately
I love this comment, itsa. I can’t think of any successful and interesting person I know in any field who doesn’t have a constant (sometimes, like at bedtime, too much so!) buzz of brain exercise going. As an artist (visual and verbal), I would guess that even on my longest and most visibly productive days a large percentage of the time is spent doing strictly internal work.
Problem-solving, puzzling, and inventing only happen well when the fence-leaning time is consistently spent on Meaningful Nothingness, if you will. Letting the many moving parts get into place, with occasional nudges from the doggedly persistent undercurrent of thought. It may not look like much, but oh, boy! Perhaps this can be the motivation for water-or-tea breaks: time to let the brain take over completely from the brawn momentarily. 😉
Kathryn
Celi, maybe putting out a gallon of the clean water that you should be drinking daily in a place where you’ll see if often as you pass by will encourage you go chug it down as you pass by. I, too, struggle with drinking the amount I know my body needs!
very good thinking – when i take out my flask in the morning it always gets drunk by the end of milking ..
I wonder if she had another shot of calcium if that wouldn’t at least deal with threatening milk fever and mastitis, won’t help much with her bloat issues? National Heritage Day holiday here today – otherwise known as National Braai (BBQ) day.. We are all eagerly awaiting our summer rains, very dry and dusty here. Laura
Nave a great Braai! c
It is hard to fathom what horrific time people are having in the wake of all these disasters. But we must think of them. Because that perspective is necessary to our living our lives well and with gratitude. Wai is looking fabulous, by the way. He is very proud of his dainty pink feet, I think. (Speaking of Wai, he has given us quite a lot of perspective as well. I think of him often.)
Yes we cannot forget that they are still digging themselves out of a horrific situation and some with no electricity or clean water or reliable food for weeks yet -terrible
My best friend from childhood came back with me from our high school reunion in our Ky. hometown to spend last week. She came into my studio one morning just as I was reading this blog. She saw the photos & read it too & remembered when I posted lifted pix on my fb page & said she wondered then if I was going to go to farming in my golden years. I told her no I wasn’t, but the enchantment of the animal & human lives involved & the real problems, hard or minor & their solutions, the occasional cliff-hanger sagas & of course the wonderful writing that relates it all drew me in & keeps me reading the first thing every morning with my cup of tea. The Kitchens’ Garden blog is a priceless, precious pleasure from the ether every day you post. Thanks so much, Celi. The new Bobby is a handsome boy & a welcome gift for Lady Astor just now in her time of troubles.
You are so welcome – it is a pleasure to be able to share my days with you..
I think perhaps having the new Bobby is helping Lady Astor. I too forget to drink water until whoops I am very thirsty! The idea ofputting out a container of water to remind you is a splendid idea! Have a super day!
Evidently if you are feeling thirsty you are already dehydrated .. scary
God news about Lady Astor. I probably take water a little too much for granted in England. In Spain we had shortages and often couldn’t drink our tap water…how quickly we forget.
Yes, i think city people here are the same
I can see by the difference in his face that Wai is still losing weight. Such a sweet face: ). So, did you have a start point to know what he was at to compare with how far he’s come, C? And, do pigs talk to themselves, I wonder?
LOL, I can’t help myself; every time you mention it, I get this mental picture of Aunty Anna “cooling her heels” in the waster trough… Such a smart girl!
Thank you, Deb, for “liking” my comment. I don’t know how to to “like” a comment. I have searched everywhere for a button to push as I would like to do that too sometimes. But “reply” is the only button I can see to react to something someone has said. Puzzled (often <[:~D). I like yours above too, especially, the wonderment about pigs talking to themselves. I get a mental picture of Wai grumbling about this & that as he traipses too & fro to drink from his very own water bowl in the barn. Wouldn't you love to know what he is muttering to himself about? Makes me think of Wilbur & Charlotte chatting with each other.
You’re quite welcome JM! But it is strange that the option isn’t showing up for you. I (most often) read Celi’s posts on the WordPress app on my phone, so I’m not likely to be much help, sorry! ):
She may see our little conversation here; but, just in case she misses it, perhaps you should mention this in a comment to Cecilia? Take care, Deb
Hi JM. Just went back and had a look to confirm, but on this format at least, the like “button” is immediately adjacent to “reply” at the bottom right of a comment.
Oops, make that lower LEFT of comments; )
Oh yes, I have a start point alright must have been four months ago now?
Yes, he’s come a long way over the Summer (but I actually meant a start point for his weight loss from then to now; )
Oh. No I have never weighed him
Well regardless, he is looking so much better and it’s wonderful to be able to see his dear curmudgeonly face: )
I can only ‘like’ using the app- so I Am no good at all
Wei Wei looks so much better, really good in fact. Congratulations and well done for the good work you’ve done.
He is a dear wee pig – very grumpy – certainly talks to himself!!
And isn’t that a day brightener right there when you see him grumping along grousing to himself? Percy does the same and it always makes me laugh!
WaiWai looks magnificent. What a spectacular transformation. And the new Bobby is awfully cute. I love his markings. His forehead like Auntie Del.
I’m sensitive to taste and smell of water but love to drink it, and usually have a stainless steel water bottle at hand, even at home. A habit carried over, I think, from many years sitting at an office desk when coffee, tea and water were necessary to get through the day. I love the rainwater direct from our tanks but we are still waiting for rain, therefore preparing to pump water from the river -while there’s still some running in it- into 2 of our tanks. In perspective, in this we’re fortunate, people are spending $$$ buying water and some water carter wait lists are weeks long. Then I’ll be back to boiling drinking water which I also had to do when we lived in the city and tap water was from the chlorinated, fluoridated supply. A lot of the traffic on the road passing our house are trailers & trucks loaded with hay, people bringing it in as there’s no feed in the paddocks. Yet elsewhere, as you say, there is catastrophic water inundation, and its effects.
We take water for granted in NZ. At the moment we have too much! We had our normal annual rainfall in the first 4 months of the year, and it has rained solid ever since. The ground is so waterlogged that when it rains, it just puddles everywhere, or flows away in great streams. Looking forward to summer!
I have a 1.5 litre drink bottle which I fill at the start of every day, and sip throughout the day. Then I know when I have drunk the amount I should have by the end of the day! 1.5 litres is enough for me, I’m only little. I always feel so much better when I drink water regularly, one of the first signs I notice if I haven’t drunk enough is that my lips and fingertips get all dry.
I hope it does stop raining for a few weeks at Christmas when Mama comes to visit!
Have always loved water above any other beverage [even wine 🙂 ! ]. Since I have been able to do paidwork from home for many years have one full glass next to my working table, one in the kitchen when I go to stir whatever is cooking for the day and one in the bedroom for my little ‘rests’ and phone conversations! Works for me!! Thank God our quality is good enough: I don’t even use a filter . . . . try to keep it to 2 litres as otherwise necessary minerals are leached out of the body . . . . just love it . . . .
Wai is looking great .. isn’t he funny travelling back to the barn for a drink. How old is lady Astor Celi?