Is she or isn't she?

They certainly look rather bored with each other, don't they? This weekend, if I got my days counted right, would be when Stella shows sign of coming into heat if she's not pregnant. She pretty much did boring cow things like eating, sleeping, grooming Doug and Nash. No sparks, no mooning about like a lovesick teenager. And her milk production has gone back up to a steady 3 quarts at morning milking, after her brief experiment with holding back milk from me. Doug still gets most of the cream, but we'll manage until weaning time.

Here's Doug, in his favorite napping spot, a bed of leftover hay, next to a stump. It's usually shady when it's hot, and dry when it rains. It's also conveniently out of the way of grown up hooves.

One of us at Seven Trees is going to have major surgery in August with about a 2 month recovery time. That means we'll be hammering on a few projects to make sure we're ready to cope with the drastic labor-force reduction. Now that the garden is mostly in (and we just laid soaker hoses in all beds to speed watering) and the perimeter fence is done, we're concentrating on running electric fencing to delineate all the grazing paddocks. We should be able to rotate them through all 5 with plenty of time to let the grass regrow and disrupt the parasite cycles. We sold our main laying flock in preparation for the younger batch to start laying anytime. They get to free range where ever the cattle go, and that helps keep the bugs down too.

The next project will be building an 8 x 16 lean-to type shelter on the south side of the barn. This will give us 2 stalls that can open into grazing paddocks, separate from each other and/or the barn & barnyard. This is where our new bull will live, and also be a holding pen for anyone who might need to be kept apart. We're designing it with our upcoming hurricane season in mind. Since it's on the side where the worst storms come from, it needs to withstand extreme wind and rain. We're also hoping to run a buried powerline along the driveway, with outlets at the chicken coop, outlet & light in the barn, and a light at the end of the drive for safety (and security).

If the stars all align properly, one last project this summer will be painting the house. It's been on the list forever, and really needs it, but painting weather and free time don't always end up in the same universe.

Of vacation, good neighbors, and bull...

We both took a few days off of varying lengths in order to catch up a bit on spring chores. Didn't really go any where, but we had a few fun evenings watching DVD's and got some things done.

We went ahead with the purchase of two cord of wood from our regular wood guy Neal. With the price of oil going up, up, and up; it seemed the prudent course. We had at least a cord left and some other we scrounged. Add it up and it is more than enough for next winter. We intend to hook up with a neighbor for further wood scrounging though, as he knows where there are a few folk that'll let you have it for the getting rid of some down trees. Sweet. We just have to stack it the wood now... in our spare time!

As you can see above RdoubleD Nash Rambler arrived. It took Stella about 20 minutes of sniffing before she was out licking and bathing him. I guess you could say she's easy, but it's been a long time since she's had "company".

We managed to make some delicious meals as well when we were off. One is this Hemlock Highlands, sirloin tip roast beef baked with a fresh herb rub, ceasar salad, and roasted vegtables. It was simply put, divine.

And this is our long awaited steamed pumpkin pudding! Thanks to a friend we now have a pudding steamer, so we gave it a try and it turned out wonderful. J made a vanilla custard sauce as topping... magnifique!

Our neighbor Chad owns Brisky Built, Inc., and as you can see from above, they do remodels, but also specialize in restoration. Being as our house was born in 1920, we have some areas that can be challenging to fix up to us lay-carpenter types. We wanted a new front door, but there was too much dry rot around the old one for us to feel comfortable doing ourselves, so we called Chad. This is what he does best!


Here he is tweaking the door so it fits just right. This is after he rehabbed the door frame, which he made look quite easy. It was a challenge though as while surrounding areas had been fixed previously, around the door had been left to grow worse and worse. He essentially removed all the rotten wood, and rehabed a part of the house wall as well as door frame.

Here it is shut as the job got closer to completion. When we get the trim painted, we'll post a final shot of the exterior with hardware and new trim on.

And here it is on the inside now with new hardware, also easily handled by Chad. He had to chisel out an area and do a couple other adjustments so the hardware we'd chosen would fit correctly. One of those things that would have taken us several hours that he did in less than one. If you live in Whatcom county or vacinity and need any remodeling/restoration work done, Brisky Built is absolutely the one to call!

While Chad easily handled the door, I set fence posts for the last bit of perimeter fencing that remained to be finished. The job is about done now, but again you'll have to stay tuned for those shots. One blog post can only reveal so much. While I fenced, J mowed the grass, which seems to grow about 6 inches a day owing to the rain.

And while on any vacation a certain amount of time must be spent bonding with Magnus, our cat who thinks he's a person, to include sitting like one. Here he is mirroring me. Pardon my cheesy smile... the cat is the real star. We don't call him "Ham Cat" for nothing!

J has managed two successful milkings since bully-boy arrived, keeping us in plenty milk. one was 1.5 quarts, the other this AM gave us 2 quarts. Although Stella spends the duration trying to peek over the half stall wall at her beau, like some moon-eyed teenager the duration. Ain't love grand!

A bull in the hand....

Looks like Ramblin Bob is booked right about the time we want Stella to be bred. Instead of having to deal with a calf that is too early or too late for our needs, we decided to see how

RdoubleD Nash Rambler will do. We pondered buying him last year, but didn't, and we're talking with his owner now about price etc. Nash is a year younger than Stella, and has the same dad as Bob. He's a real cutie, and having our own bull will save the worry of making sure we have a guy with a good bloodline booked each year.

Speaking of guys, Doug is just old enough to notice Stella is in heat, and too small to do anything about it. Time to get the vet out here to take care of that business! Stella is still giving a good amount of milk for the short time apart from Doug. Sometimes a bit over a gallon, sometimes a bit under. Once Doug is weaned, I'll be able to get more, with lots more butterfat. She's still very motivated to hold some back for Doug right now, which is fine, since we want him to grow up big & healthy.