Our Milk Cow Belle

Belle came to live with us on April 11, so it's been almost a week, and the only thing I regret is not getting a milk cow 10 years ago.  I'm hoping I feel the same way when it's snowing and blowing outside!

Belle

Dallas and I drove over to Grinrod last Friday and picked her up and brought her home.  It took her a few days to settle in but she quickly adjusted.  She was raised in a dairy barn with Holsteins and the owner was getting rid of all of her Jersey cows to make room for more Holsteins, it was a pretty big operation and I'm sure Belle is missing some of her other buddies.

Jevan and Belle enjoying green grass and sunshine!

We're starting to get into a routine and on some days she gives me almost 6 gallons of milk.  Hubby and a friend modified my battery operated goat milker to work for a bit longer and it's been a blessing, no sore hands for me! 

Milk in the fridge

I ordered a cream separator and once that is in I can make lots of butter and ice cream, it's too tedious skimming cream with everything else going on.  Twice a day milking is keeping me busy but the kids are great about helping, now I just have to teach them how to milk! :)

Goats on the Ranch!

It’s been awhile since I posted but in all fairness I have been busy and, before that, very sick with an abscess tooth!  Tooth pain is not fun, not fun at all!  Twenty-nine years ago I ended up in the hospital for five days with a very swollen face due to an abscess tooth… this past week has brought back a flood of memories but luckily I didn’t get the swollen face again, although the endless throbbing pain pretty much stops at that point.  Luckily my dentist was in his office on Canada Day and he was able to do half a root canal, tomorrow I get the other half done.  The antibiotics didn’t really kick in until Thursday, six days after the first hint of pain began, but all is well now and I do believe I will be able to chew on my left side again.

Other news (as you probably guessed in my title) is we have two goats on the Ranch!  We picked them up on Saturday and they are Nubian Boer cross.  Meet:

Cupcake

And her kid Muffin:

Cupcake has been quite a handful although she was great last night but today she was crying something terrible whenever we left and she couldn’t see us.  She jumped the fence a number of times and has now just settled down for the night.  As long as there is someone out near her pen she is fine but, boy oh boy, leave her and she’s crying like a baby!  We have a ghetto blaster hanging out our window and an extra string of baler twine on the top of the fence and that seemed to help.  Tomorrow we will increase the fence a bit more and hopefully that will help.

My son-in-law Duane has built the pen and shelter and today he worked on the milking station.  It turned out really great and tomorrow he will finish it.  I had Cupcake up on it and did manage to get a teeny bit of milk out of her and I think she’s doing great for never using a milk station before!  Here her and Muffin are jumping and checking it out.

Well it’s late and I’m off to bed, super tired tonight!  Have a great night everyone and I’ll post more pics soon.

Mini Surgery on the Ranch

My poor Doolittle!  He had what we think was a epulis in his mouth, and I'm talking a HUGE one!  How we never noticed it in the last couple of weeks is beyond me?  I spoke with Pops about it last night and we decided to cut it off this morning.  Well as busy as Pops is he gave the emasculator pliers to Tom and we got at it.  Hubby and I held Doolittle and Tom was to wrap the epulis in the pliers and sort of hold it for a bit before snipping it off in case of excessive bleeding.  Well thankfully there was no excessive bleeding because it was just a quick snip and that epulis was lying on the table!  It was very hard and quite lumpy taking up quite a bit of room on Doolittle's gum but not much was attached.  It's been a few hours and he seems quite happy, even eating a cookie.

 

A few shots from the last couple of weekends:

A newborn calf soaking up the sun.


One of the peacocks with his head tucked in tight.


A view across from Kirby's Flats high up the power line road.

The Upper Pond

Today I was sitting and waiting for two muskrats to appear at the upper pond.  They were there when we first showed up and I managed to get one picture but they quickly disappeared.

I sat for an hour, even changing my locations a few times but they never came back.  I took a few pictures of the reflection in the water.

Yesterday Pops tried out the “new” potato harvester.  Hubby worked for two days to get it modified to hook up to a tractor instead of a horse but it still has some kinks that need to be worked out.

I converted a picture to make it look really old, it didn’t take much because it is really old.   The patent on it says 1906 and it was made by the “Canadian Potato Machinery Co.”

Coming back from the Horn Field I stopped at the pond and took some pictures of the ducks, these ducks were born and raised on the Ranch.  Mini, our new puppy, was with me and when she saw the ducks she hightailed it right back to the house!

I’ve created a Facebook Photography page on Facebook and if you’d like to join please click the icon on the right side of my blog, Facebook will open and then click “Like” while there.  I find I’m putting pictures up at Facebook and Flickr before I get to my blog so if you’d like to see them earlier please join me at Facebook. :)  I’m running a contest for a free print, get the details at http://www.facebook.com/Lillooet

For lots more pictures visit my flickr site:

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Pig Stew

We’re getting low on hog feed and Grandma has a ton of potatoes in her root cellar, so Hubby welded up a huge stew pot & stand and is making a concoction fit for pigs.

Along with barley from the barn and a few gallons of water the stew is actually turning out pretty good, although I’m taking the pigs word for it ‘cause I haven’t tasted it.

Love Hubby’s wooden spoon for stirring. :)

The pigs are enjoying it, and they actually got a bit testy when he skipped a day and gave them straight hog feed. :)

The other night Hubby lost a bet with me on the hockey game… he’s gotta cook one dinner, complete with doing the dishes up afterwards (this will be a first and we’ve been married for 17 years this year!).  It better not be his pig stew!!

For more stew pics visit my flickr site.

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Branding 2010

Saturday was our annual branding for the calves and it was the quickest branding I can remember.  Gotta give credit and thanks to the two excellent ropers Les and Del!

A few pictures I’ll post here but the majority you’ll find at my flickr site.

These are my two nephews Dezmond and Mikey.  Mikey’s throwing the calf.

Our brand.

Del going after a calf.

Les going after a white calf.

Hubby tending the irons.

My BIL Mike.

Dezmond taking a calf on.

Our neighbour Rick tries out Hubby’s gloves.

Lee, a long time friend, jumps right in… unfortunately he also fell right over!

Lee and the calf hit the ground at the same time.

Les throwing his rope.

Hubby brands a calf alongside his brother Doug (right) and friend Jeff (left).

It was a great day with wonderful weather, lots of helping hands, and excellent food.

We finished up quite early and all headed over to Grandma’s for lunch.  I cooked a ton of sausage rolls and about 3 dozen cabbage rolls (one day I should blog my recipe).  Two friends fighting over who was going to take home the few cabbage rolls left made me feel good LOL!

For more pictures of the branding visit my flickr site:

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Butchering Day on the Ranch

One day; two cows, and two pigs… busy day.

Thanks goodness we have lots of helping hands on the Ranch because we did two cows and two pigs in short order.  Hubby and I drove the meat into the butcher toot sweet because it was way too warm to hang ‘em.

Mike, Brent, and Hubby.

Pops sharpens his knife.

My BIL, Mike, runs the tractor.  Bonnie, a first time watcher, takes it all in.

Grandma and Aunty Helen work side by side.

Brent, a friend who used to live at the Ranch long before Grandma and Pops bought it, always helps.

A good day’s work for all of us (although I mostly just ran my camera) but I did pitch in for one of the pigs. :)

Hog Feed

Last Tuesday I took a quick trip to Kamloops to pick up a mini bulk bag of hog feed.  In the truck Hubby put a tarp, tie down strap, and a bit of baler twine “just in case it rained.”  And RAIN it did!  But as I stood in the box of the truck holding onto the tie down strap, with the howling wind and stinging rain pelting my face I wondered “how on earth does this thing work?”  Actually those weren’t quite the words I was thinking but I really can’t post my exact sentiments here on my family friendly blog.

I tossed the neatly gathered strap on the floor of the pickup box and settled on the baler twine.  Having no knife, I weaved it in and out of the grommets of the flying helplessly in the wind (matching my hair) tarp, tying it alongside the truck rack where I thought it would be secure.  Okay… everything tied down… I’m back in the truck and on my way, I’ve got just over an hour left to drive and then I’m home.

About 20 minutes later I’m watching in my rear view mirror as the tarp twists and turns beating the sides of the pick up box, darnit!  I pull over at Venables Valley Road, a small turnout where three weeks ago Hubby had just finished working.  Climbing up into the back of the truck I see the tarp has lost all it’s grommets and they are now floating freely up and down the baler twine.  One side of the vinyl tarp has pretty much turned into what I would consider shredded wheat and there isn’t much strength left to it.

I again grab the tie down and try as I might I cannot figure the darn thing out!  Why does my Hubby assume I know these things?  When I get home I should hand him a ball of wool and a pair of knitting needles and say “knit me up a sweater.”

Standing there I’m thinking what the heck can I do to get this tarp to stay over the top of the hog feed?  I decide to search the glove box and find a roll of black electrical tape, and the bonus was finding a small pocket knife that I could use to cut the baler twine.  I wrap the tarp with the tape, cut the baler twine, tie everywhere I can with most of the grommets missing on one side, add some more tape, and hope that will do, besides the rain was starting to die down.

The “Farmer” look.  In my next life I’m going to drive a Corvette!

Things are not looking good here.

Now ya’ll think this is where I’m supposed to say “It worked!” but unfortunately it did not and when I pulled into the driveway the tarp was lying in the back, or I should say a piece of the tarp was lying in the back, God only knows where the rest of it was?  So the reason for this blog post?  Well I’d like to apologize to anyone travelling Highway #1 between Venables and Lytton and also Highway 12 who was subjected to seeing any of my flying tarp, or heaven forbid, it didn’t end up across their windshield! :)

Visit my flickr site:

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This year’s Pigs

On Wednesday we unloaded the six new pigs.  They had been sleeping in the stock trailer for three nights because Hubby was out of town working and we needed the pig pen finished before we could put them in.

Their bedding area is pretty much finished, other than it needs a bit of cover on one side.  Their pen is large logs placed together because Hubby said there’s no way he’s building a new fence… seems to work okay and there is no way, no friggin’ way, I’m gonna be chasing pigs all over this ranch like I did last year so it better work!

Pops backs the trailer in and Hubby opens the door.  You can see they’re roaring to go. ;)

Coaxing them from behind they are pretty hesitate to leave the comforts of the trailer.

With a surprised look Teddy comes to check things out.  (When I went to check on the pigs the next morning Teddy was sleeping very close by… he sure does take to the pigs well.)

With much more coaxing, and very loud squealing, two of the pigs are out… but then one decides he’s having nothing to do with this and he heads back in!

After getting a bit forceful and closing the trailer door they have no choice but to check out their new surroundings.

While the kids and I keep the pigs at bay, Hubby puts the last log in place.

Sammy, our banty rooster, is chased by Goofy and hops up on one of the logs.

He quickly scoots across the pen with one of the pigs hot on his trail.

Deciding this isn’t the place for him he leaps out of there in a quick hurry.

In the morning I check on the pigs to see if they like their new bed.

All seem pretty comfortable.

One of the reasons we got these pigs so cheap is that most of them have hernias… and one has a rather large one between it’s legs.  The pigs don’t seem bothered by it at all and run and frolic all over the place.  The hernias will not affect the meat in any way so we really couldn’t pass this deal up because two of them are almost ready to butcher.