the miracle of death

i came into the barn this afternoon to find willy had aborted her calf. the poor little thing the size of one of the barn cats lay in the gutter in a pool of blood, pink and white and cream colored. looking like a kids drawing of a calf - all the parts there, but the proportions skewed. i thanked the calf for coming to our farm and covered it up with hay before sending it on it's way out to the manure pit.

willy lay in her spot, chewing her cud, seemingly undisturbed by the event. she probably even felt better, having expelled the masses of dead and dying tissue from her body. but i knew what this most likely meant for willy: a trip on the beef truck.

a cow that aborts her calf is not a cow to keep. She may have other problems causing her to abort that will only become evident later, it may be difficult for her to become pregnant again and she will certainly cause the farm to lose money because of her extended dry (non-lactating) period. On a farm that happens to not have many replacement animals, she might get a second chance, but we have 5 heifers about the calve waiting outside still for a spot in the barn. Better to ship her. "Out of sight, out of mind" as our old vet used to say.

But a cow is not the same as a printer or a motor or a widget. A cow is a living thing. (Maybe on a huge farm with a thousand cows it is easier to think of them as a commodity, but I went to a huge farm once and the farmer found his favorite cow to show me, a cow without a name, only a number, and still scratched her behind the ears and let her lick his hand.) You were probably there when this cow was born as a calf, fed her from a bottle, got her through her first lactation, took care of her when she was sick, brushed her and talked to her and fed her every day. She is also large and warm and reasonably affectionate. To send her off to be made into Campbell's beef stew because her body did what it had to do seems unfortunate, to me. Yet, that is what happens to most spent dairy animals.

Them's the breaks. Monetarily and realistically speaking, every animal on a farm cannot be kept. That's why they're farm animals and not pets. And the miracle of death is just as natural as it's much touted counterpart. It is something that must simply be accepted.

Still, I wish that every animal could live out their whole life on the farm where the farmer and the consumer could know that they had an existence that was as pleasant and natural as possible. This could include on farm slaughtering of bull calves and cows no longer suitable for milking. Then the products from these animals could be processed by local processors and marketed directly to people in the area as food for people, animals or as compost (http://www.youtube.com/HighfieldsComposting). I wish that these animals and their bodies were respected as the vessels of life that they are, even in their passing.

wanted: size 6 left boot

I want to make a website called rubberbootswap.com. I always get a hole in my left boot first. I don't know if it's from how I walk or bend down or what, but I end up either wearing a holey boot until the right one finally gives out or getting a new pair when the right boot is still fine. but on rubberbootswap.com, those single boots could go to people who need them!

i wonder how much it would cost to ship a rubber boot?

So we'll wait for it to come around on the guitar, here.

On Thanksgiving, Libra had her calf. We usually try to give the calves names that have to do with the moms' names. That way the families are easy to remember. We have Cakes, her daughter Pies, and Pies' daughter Brioche. Gem had Ruby and Jewel. Gizmo had Izmo who had Zmo who had Mo (really). I guess Gemini or Virgo would be a good name for Libra's heifer, but I think we should name her Alice.

whose barn? run's barn!

In the winter-time we clip the cows' udders and their flanks (like shaving your head) so they are less likely to be dirty. I am really compelled to try and shave "RUN DMC" on one of the cows.

why i won't have any kids

This is from a website where people can submit funny stuff that happens at their job.


http://worklols.com/post/896126262/theres-a-cow-in-my-kitchen

This would be cute, if the cow was housebroken. Can you housebreak cows?

ahh ... the miracle of life

One thing about the barn at the farm is that it doesn't have a maternity stall. This is usually not a problem as the cows mostly calve outside where it's always clean and where they can totally abide by their bovine instincts. But in the winter, they have to have their calves while they are tied up in the barn.

Yesterday, Nutty finally decided to have her baby. She had been holding her tail up all during morning milking and by the time i was done cleaning the barn her waterbag had burst and two little perfect white feet where poking out.

I always feel that birth, inspite of the fact that most living things got here this way, is an odd and amazing thing for me to watch. While I was doing my other work I observed as the feet went out and in with a little more coming out each time. Two steps forward and one step back is mostly how calves get born. Then the nose started to come out. Then you could see the eyes. This is particularly bizarre since the eyes look around sometimes from behind their protective membrane covering and you can tell that baby is thinking "what the fuck is this?". Like a human baby, after the whole head comes out the rest is usually pretty easy.

Nutty gave birth standing up and the 3 foot drop always seems a bit cruel to me. But it does knock any fluids from the calf's mouth and lungs preventing pneumonia and allowing them to breath. Outside, this would be when they mom turns around and starts cleaning off her baby. But the mom is hooked in her stall so this was when Ivy tries to, as gently as possible, lift a slippery, flopping, wet, squirming, 70 pound baby cow up over the lip of the stall and up to the cow's head so she can clean it off.

Use your knees, not your back.

By the time I came back from lunch 30 minutes later the calf was standing up and looking for a drink and Nutty was grunting contentedly at her baby. I like that part.

a followup

perhaps you'll remember that i wrote about the veal calves i was raising back in April.
(http://britchen.blogspot.com/2010/04/making-call.html). We'll they've both gone on to greener pastures and everyone who has eaten some rose veal reports that it is succulent and delicious.

some of the perks

I'm not too into getting up at 4am to go to work. It's a little bit of a drag. But some mornings, I get to the farm and the stars are so bright and so numerous and the sky is so black, but the trees still stand silhouetted at the edge of the fields. The moon hangs like a tiny sliver of fingernail near the horizon. And I think ... how many other people are up at 4:30 enjoying this?

more fun than shooting wolves with sarah palin

Once the dust has settled tomorrow and you're not ready to start speculating on whether or not the Democratic party should pick someone other than Obama to run in 2012, head over to Lettuce Link and start limbering up for the other big legislative event of 2012 - The Farm Bill!

http://lettucelink.blogspot.com/2010/10/detangling-farm-bill-very-short-very.html

good news for people who love bad news

It's election season, a time of year when people (and now corporations and unions, thanks supreme court!) shell out hundreds and thousands of dollars to influence the way you choose the largely ineffectual elites who will represent the lobbyists' interests in our state and national capitols. It's also a time of bitter divisions along party lines. But here is a chance for the left and the right to unite under an idea that seems important to both sides of the political spectrum: the right to choose what food one eats without excess interference by the government.
Morningland Dairy in the Ozarks of Missouri is being ordered by the feds to destroy 50,000 pounds of cheese. The reason for this is that a sample of their cheese tested positive for listeria months after it had left their farm and gone to a store in California.
The FDA is unwilling to comply with the law requiring the producer of a product that is discovered to be tainted to be given a sample on which to conduct their own testing. Tests taken at the farm have all come back negative for listeria. The farm has offered to test every batch of cheese leaving the farm, but to no avail. The farm has been told that they have no legal recourse and no ability to appeal and that they should busy themselves with destroying 8 months of work. They were forced to dump their milk for 5 weeks and now are only allowed to sell it to a wholesaler (probably at a loss or close to it). This farm has been making cheese for 30 years and has never had a complaint of illness.
After my experiences at a farm in Connecticut, I have become pretty suspect of the FDA and their testing procedures and am really more likely to believe that a witch hunt is going down on these poor hardworking people.
Their website is http://morninglanddairy.webs.com/
and you can read about their fight against the FDA's orders here (and make a donation if you see fit) http://uncheeseparty.wordpress.com
Many of the people leaving comments seem to be fairly right leaning - reporting that they have notified Glenn Beck and Anderson Cooper of the situation at the farm. But it's nice to know that at least there is something people can come together about. In the interest of balance, I wrote to Amy Goodman to let her know what's going on.