Feeding the Bummer Calves-Training

It's that time of year again when a few calves need to be fed by hand because they don't have mama cows to feed from for one reason or another. This year Cynthia is going to do most of it, but we tagged along for the training session because we'll be backup feeders.

First Dave showed us how where to find the bottles and how to fill them up with warm water.

Then he measured out the milk replacer. "Milk replacer" is a nice, simple, descriptive name. How come none of the baby formula manufacturers use it?

Next is the explanation about the nipples, with smaller holes for the younger calves and bigger ones for the older ones.

Finally, put the nipple on and shake it all up!

Desert Boy decides he wanted to get in on the action. He volunteered to carry the giant bottle out to the calf pen. He had to be told a couple of times that the bottle wasn't for him, no matter how much he wanted to give it a try!

Then Dave put the bottle in a holder to feed to this two-week old calf. She's a twin, and her mom only took one of her calves, so now she's growing up in the bummer calf pen. Our dog Henry is about the same size.

She's quickly adapted to her alternate feeding and is happy to eat.

This four-week old calf's mom died, so that's why he ended up here.

He's also a really good eater. There are several more pens, so as the calving season proceeds, probably a few more will be abandoned and brought in. It's sad to see them without their moms, but at the same time it's nice they have a second chance.

Tomorrow is our first day to go and give feeding a try by ourselves. We'll see how well we learned!

One Month

Desert Girl turned one month on Monday. Yeah, she can't believe it either!

She says, "Hey, Mama, make sure you photograph my good side. And photoshop out all that baby acne."

It's amazing how much like a teenager she is in other ways, too. She likes to be up at all hours, eat huge amounts around the clock, make a lot of noise, and get lots of attention.

Fortunately we don't have any attitude problems. Yet.

Time to Eat

I wasn't sure if I was going to post these pictures, but then I figured that this blog has lots of posts about nature and what is more natural than eating?

Desert Girl was getting hungry one day, and Desert Boy offered to feed her. I said sure, he could give it a try. Here are the results:

Needless to say, the "feeding" didn't last long!

It was very nice of Desert Boy to offer to help. But once was enough for him!

Unexpected Visitors

I was napping when I heard some heavy footsteps outside the bedroom window. I figured I was hearing cows, because they've been in the meadow below our house. They are heifers (first time mama cows), recently arrived with their new calves. I hoped that they were outside the fence, but when I peeked out the window, I saw one in the yard. And then another. And then I went to the kitchen and saw the view above out the window.

I grabbed the camera, because cows in the yard are usually a fun subject to photograph, and sure enough, this was no exception. This heifer went up to Henry's water dish for a drink.

Another heifer thought that might be a good idea.

I decided to open the door, and this is what I saw...

Hello, cow! It took her a moment to realize that she wasn't being invited in. Then she raced off the front steps and back into the driveway.

The heifers had come in through an open gate, but they didn't want to leave by it. So I opened another gate and gave them some room (and made sure Henry was with me). These heifers had come to visit because they were bored, but now they wanted to get back to their calves, so they didn't waste any time leaving through the gate and heading back to the meadow.

I enjoyed my extra bit of afternoon fresh air walking around the yard. Now I've just got to watch my step a bit more, because there are some extra fresh, juicy cowpies decorating the yard!

Future Olympian in Training

Watching the Olympics has our competitive juices flowing. Plus Desert Boy got a cute athletic outfit from his great-aunt and the weather has been better. Mix all that together, and we are raring to go outside! We offered Desert Boy the sled for his Olympic practice, but he declined. I guess he didn't think we had enough snow to make it work.

Or maybe he realized how Eurocentric the Olympics are. When thinking about this post, I was contemplating that we are watching the Winter Olympics, yet it is winter for only half the earth. For the other half, it's summer. Do the people in the southern hemisphere feel slighted? I think I would. What is Rio de Janeiro going to call the Summer Olympics when they hold them in winter? Hmm...deep thoughts...

I don't have too many deep thoughts on this blog, but I figured it would be totally okay if Desert Boy was practicing for the Summer Olympics in winter, because after all it is summer on half the earth right now. And the sport he's practicing for is biking. It's still not apparent what kind of biking he'll be doing, but for now he's working on being king of the training wheel bicycle competition.

On this particular day we forgot his helmet, but ever since then we've made sure he has it because he crashes so much. He's got a plethora of bumps and bruises to show off, and he proudly shares them as badges of his riding dedication. He's got strong little legs; the first day we took him out he rode nearly two miles. (He also walked a mile when he got stuck with Daddy in the South Meadow. Needless to say, he slept well that night!)

Here's a short video of Desert Boy riding on the pavement that's not too far from our house. Getting to the pavement is a little tricky, but he's getting better at it. I wonder what the kids who live in the northern part of the valley do--some of them have to go over an hour to get to pavement. Yet they still have a school with grades K-12; those kids certainly have a different story about growing up than most everyone else in the U.S.

In this second video, you can see some of the beautiful mountain scenery near us. It's always nice to see snow on the mountains--and have our roads down in the valley clear!