So happy to hear Hoss is home! How's he doing today? (I haven't read the other thread yet, but I'll try to find time to do that....)
WOW ! I can see it now ! The true House Wife's of Faith South Dakota ! Coming this fall on Bravo - 129 on Dish Net. , LOL
OK, I feel like I'm missing some joke here, but I don't get it.
Lannie, those nails of yours sound like the ones my roommate in college had! I used to have to tell her to cut them when they got too long... and she had to use toenail clippers to cut them. I was so jealous of her nails! Mine have always been pretty weak and they peel and break all the time. I have noticed that they are a bit better since I've started taking Vitamin D3 everyday - so is my hair!
Oh, yeah, toenail clippers for the win! Regular nail clippers wouldn't go through my nails. I use regular nail clippers to clip the cats' claws, but they don't stand a chance against my fingernails.
And speaking of mayhem, I have an interesting farm report today.
Last night, I got out to the cow barn to feed my girls, Cricket and Morgaine, and only Cricket was in the barn waiting for me. I looked outside and no Morgaine. She's NEVER late for dinner. I called her once, which is all I ever have to do, and got no response. I kept hollering for her while I was setting hay out, filling the water trough, and cleaning up plops, then decided maybe I should be worried that some calamity had happened. Cricket wasn't talking.
So I told Rich I was hoofing it out to the puckerbrush to look for Morgaine, at which point HE became concerned, and came over to the cow barn. I found her pretty quick - she was down on the other side of the tree rows, by the north fence line, but she wasn't alone. Helen was with her. Helen is Cricket's sister, she hasn't had a calf in three years, and for the past two years has been living over on the "horse side" with Horus and Little John the steer. When I yelled back at Rich that Morgaine was down at the fence with Helen, he was like WTH? I asked him if he had not noticed there was a 2,000 pound cow
missing from "his" herd over on the other side and he said no. Really? NO? OMG.
I went ahead and walked partway to the fence, until I got their attention (Morgaine was jumping all over Helen's backside, obviously Helen was in heat), then started back to the barn, and they followed. Helen was not JUST in heat, Helen was in a RAGING heat. There was a strand of goo hanging off her backside that was as thick as my thumb, and went all the way down to the end of her tail!
Helen is not a svelte girl, and the fatter the cow, the less likely they are to come into heat and be able to get pregnant. Well, last summer's pasture was basically non-existent, and they've all been on less than premium hay for the past (almost) year, so maybe she lost enough weight to start functioning again, I dunno. The AMAZING part was how she got in with Cricket and Morgaine. We have a 3 strand barbed wire cross fence dividing the two halves of the property. She evidently pushed the top strand down in several places (we found and fixed those last night), then because it was still too high for her to step over (waist-high on me), she JUMPED. I know she jumped because I found where she landed, OMG! Hoof prints 4 inches deep. And no hairs at all caught on the barbs, so she jumped it clean. I would have paid money to see that huge lumbering cow make that jump! When it comes to cows, where there's a will, there's a way.
I decided it would be much safer to just leave Helen with the other girls for the night and worry about moving her back today sometime. Or maybe I'll just leave her there for a while. If she's having natural heats that strong, maybe I can take her over to visit a bull also. My original plan was to have three cows calving each year, because three calves will pay for our entire year's worth of hay. It only worked out that way one year, and then something always happened. Usually I'd have two calves, but then like last year, I had NO calves. I'm thinking it would be nice if my girls made it up to me this year by ALL getting pregnant and having little calfies next fall. What a financial boon THAT would be, and we could use one.
Anyway, it was an exciting day at Love Acres yesterday!
And now for the weather report! They've increased the intensity and duration of our wind event, and all I can say is, once again, thank GOD there won't be snow with it. Starting around 7:00pm tonight and going through about 7:00pm Friday the winds are supposed to be blowing at 40mph with gusts to 60, but peaking Thursday afternoon with sustained winds of 50mph and gusts to 70. If there was snow with this, and cold, it would be one of our famous two-day blizzards. The roads would be closed for days and the power out for days longer. We're still in danger of losing trees or pieces of buildings in a 70mph wind, and maybe power lines, but since there isn't any precipitation in the forecast, maybe the power will be OK. I hope so. Anyway, if I disappear, that will be why.
I wish it could be Saturday already and it was over. I hate wind. I hate wind and snow worse, but wind by itself is bad enough.
www.bravotv.com
