Meanderings tonight.

Gertrude is finally going to have her calf.

She started bagging up a couple of days ago, so we’ve been trying to get some calcium into her. It comes in a tube similar to a tube of caulk, with a gun like a caulk gun. The directions are to put the tube into the cow’s mouth so the gel is squirted at the back of the tongue. Yah, right... I ended up with most of it all of me, and even inside my sleeves.

So this morning I tried putting a dollop of it inside a slice of bread and folding it over. It worked fairly well the first time I tried it, but then she caught on. A couple of hours later Christian and I both attempted it again, and we got more in than came out. The trick is prying open her mouth (I sure am glad cows don’t have upper teeth in the front), shoving the ball of bread as far back into her mouth as I can, and then after all of the sandwiches are gone, follow up with a piece of plain bread so when she spits it out, it’s just the plain bread. We got almost a whole tube in her today (half of what she should have). Hopefully, tomorrow morning when I go out, a nice health cow and calf will be waiting for me. Then the fun really starts, as you can see from this photo, she’s going to need milking out for quite a while until the calf gets older.

I got some cute photos of Suka the other night teasing Christian with his monkey, trying to get Chris to chase him,



Obligatory bird photo, I do like these guys with that flashy red head,

I’m still having fun making murrini,


And some new beads that I’m listing tonight,