Brief Scare with Ayla

Sunday afternoon, while my Dad and Dante were pounding wooden fence posts with his tractor mounted post driver, ( Did I say that right?) Ayla started complaining of a bad headache and started looking REALLY bad. Despite her being only 3 years old ,and having type 1 diabetes, she is NOT a sickly kid at all, I actually can't ever remember her being sick aside form her diagnosis. Soon she moved onto puking and a fever set in. Mother's Intuition woke me at 4:00am yesterday morning and told me to check on Ayla. Fever of 104.9, bg 378 and large amount of ketones in her urine. She was breathing a little fast and it brought back all the horror of DKA.
Fever in a diabetic will often drive their blood glucose high with large amounts of ketones circulating in their bodies and puts them at risk for Diabetic Ketoacidosis aka DKA, which is very dangerous and can be fatal.
We kept in close contact over the phone with her diabetes doctor, and were prepared to go to the hospital even though we all dreaded it. Remember this is the hospital that sent us home with her in full DKA and told us to use a humidifier, missing all the warning signs even though I repeatedly told them she waas drinking obscene amounts of water and there wasn't a diaper on the market that could keep her dry. Anyway, we have a lot of trauma associated with that hospital. Sick day protocol for her is different than the other kids because the fever raises her blood sugar and ketones. I realize fever in itself is beneficial and don't sweat it too much with our other children. We had to give her Motrin to keep the fever down around 100, and even though she wouldn't eat she still needed insulin to combat the ketones. It was a major balancing act and I am pretty worn out, so is Ayla, but I'm happy to report she ate her breakfast heartily, and managed to make Veda cry by spitting milk out at her. Typical Ayla. She is also playing and looking forward to milking the cows with me. Whew, and Life goes on. Thank God---Everyday.

Beef Kabob Samples at Market

Dante will be cooking beef kabob samples at the markets this weekend.

He has been busily working on fencing this week. Had to take a short break from constructing the first high tensile fence to set up the next paddock on the other side of the road. The cows cross a field that the bulls are penned up on one half with the heifers, and then also cross a small year round brook to get to the good grazing. We are making it a formal cattle crossing and also for the tractor , with cement boat ramps as soon as my Dad can get to it. He has all the equipment. If it doesn't get done in the next two weeks it will probably have to wait until after the blueberry harvest but before the Fall rains. Speaking of rain, it actually didn't yesterday! Hooray!

I have been offered a Quarter Horse with tack included. At first I was very excited to get a horse for me, but now I don't know. I'm afraid I don't have enough time right now, and also worried that the horse won't get along with the cows. It would be nice to have that time for me to do something just for myself. I haven't done anything just for the purpose of my sole enjoyment since having kids. Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy being with my children 24/7 that's why we have 5 kids after all, BUT I've heard that having that time to myself, might actually be beneficial and I could be an even better Mother because of it. I've had horses before and actually before Dante and I formally met, he has this memory of driving down a winding country road and seeing this girl with long blond hair trotting her horse on the side of the road. That was me, 16 years old. While most of my friends had cars, I had a horse.

Abe Lincoln's Mother

I'm fascinated by Abraham Lincoln. From humble beginnings he was able to go on and achieve so much.Our nation's 16th president, and our 1st republican president. He was born in this one room log cabin,on their 348 acre " Sinking Spring farm" and I discovered they had a family cow and was about to get really excited until I read that tragically his mother Nancy, died after their cow ate poisonous mushrooms and she drank the milk.He was 9 years old and she was only 34. Good grief. I wonder what type of mushroom that was. It doesn't seem very likely that a cow would eat a mushroom unless by mistake or really hungry.

All three of our youngest daughters were born right here on the farm in our log cabin. We do have more than one room however.

A Milkmaid with Cows and Sheep by Julien Dupre. Love that painting. We have our own local " Cow Artist". She roams the county searching out cows to paint. Sharon Yates knows every cow in Washington County and can often be seen staioned out in the middle of a field in a low folding chair, easel and canvas bag in hand. She doesn't do Bulls though, thank goodness. If you have a bull, or rouge goat or pesky pony-- she'll pass you by but not before letting you know how it inconveniences her and you really should get rid of those distractions so she can paint. Nevermind the fact that I need to have my cows bred, or I won't have cows anymore but that's of little importance to her. Hopefully this will be the year she finishes a painting and I get a copy.

Speaking of breeding, Sharon let me know someone was in heat. Thanks, Sharon. It is Berretta, and she is 2 months out from calving so she got to spend the night with Wolfie. What a beautiful calf that will be if she takes.

The Cows are Out..... Again, sigh

This morning I looked out the window and saw Teeny grazing on Dante's lawn. It is something he really enjoys, mowing his lawn, and has pleaded with me to let him keep that part of his former civilized life. Life before he met this crazy farm chick.I really try hard to keep them off it, but when they are loose, they either get in the highway or on the lawn.
Zoie walked her back down the hill, and told her to be more patient next time.
Dante cleaned out the middle aisle of the barn, which is a dirt floor, and had accumulated some poop, from the cows while waiting to be milked, and then the rain had seeped in and it was a bit of a mess. I am very grateful.
While I milked and started a couple cheeses, some mozzarella and fromage blanc, and set 5 gallons of milk for cream to rise,--Dante headed out to our large field which is subdivided into 4 paddocks. This should have been hay, but it would be weeks until they can get on that field, and we need to move the milkers out on it. There is lush grass under the overgrown stuff and they need to start mowing it down, then we can follow with the bush hog, and get it back in shape. He needs to FIND the temp fence and get it to at least be visual, I think the milkers will stay in, there is so much food. We'd be fools to even consider putting the heifers and young bulls out there. As a matter of a fact the bullocks, age 15 months and 8 months are taking a
4-8 weeks sabbatical to my Dad's place I'll bring them back when I need Berretta, Teeny, and Happy bred back. Which reminds me, we got the blood test pregnancy results back on those 4 cows. Results: Gale is 2.5 months bred and Ellie is 5-6months bred. Yipee! Chia, who is 10 next month is still not bred. Because our bull is young, I'll give her a little more time, but it doesn't look good for her. Jules is a mystery, her blood numbers were close to the cutoff, and I wonder if maybe she was just early bred. She will be 3 next month and should be bred.

Personal Update:
Lost 6 more pounds this week for a total of 14lbs lost. This is encouraging, I am highly motivated and have my " game face " on. Let's hope I can lose all this baby weight for good!

Happy Birthday and Happy Fourth and Happy Cow

Happy Belated Birthday Dante! It was yesterday, July 3rd. We were woken up at about 4:30 a.m. with the start of a big thunderstorm. Ida May is teething, so I had already been up off and on all night and had seen the ligthening flashes way off in the distance since about 2a.m. I found it particularly fitting, that there would be a big thunderstorm on his birthday as Dante is a big weather buff, and our lay meteorologist. While we are hiding in hallways, he is usually standing out on the covered porch thoroughly electrified by all that natural energy. It was so intense that first we moved Zoie, Ayla, and Ida May who were all sleeping in our room out to the living room because of all the windows. Then about 10 minutes later, we had to get Jude and Veda from their rooms and camp out in the windowless hallway, with blankets and pillows. I was worried about the cows, I always do when it storms like that. Cinder, our dog, and Booka our wild cat, were having panic attacks on the front porch. We tried to usher Cinder in the front door to the basement but he wasn't having any of it. Eventually he made a fast break for the barn I presume.
We couldn't even pack for the market, but finally had to just take our chances and get it done. Zoie and Dante headed off as the storm was letting up, and I started making plans to go raise the cattle, make sure they all made it. About 4-5 years ago 12-15 cows were all killed during a lightening storm when they sought shelter under a large tree. It makes me nervous........
This morning, just as I was just assembling my milk machines, Jude told me Teeny was waiting at the barn. Standing in front of the milk parlor door. Apparently she let herself out of the pasture, and decided it was high time I milked her. She had also eaten some sheep hay, crapped all over the middle aisle, and bashed in the gate. This was interesting. I wasn't really impressed and hope there isn't a repeat performance tommorrow.
After milking, all the kids needed baths and I bravely washed all the little girls hair. This is not fun, they always flail around and sputter and act like I'm drowning them for goodness sake. They sure looked cute lined up in their sundresses, and Jude in his cargo pants. We had a ball at my parent's house, with water guns, and water balloons, and Grandparents and Aunts and Uncles more game than I, to get wet. I've just spent the last 23 out of 30 days getting drenched milking the cows. I certainly didn't want to get wet for fun! The kids were all charming, and we decided little Ayla needs to participate in some type of contact sport, maybe rugby.
As I left the cows tonight after milking, and they turned and walked away one by one and quietly resumed grazing, I could see Happy's baby just rolling around, poking little feet out. Zoie remarked it must have been the walk back down the hill. " All that jiggling around in there "

Hamburger and Beef Kabob Samples at Markets

We will be sampling our ground beef via hamburger, and our beef kabobs this Friday and Saturday at the Belfast and Camden Farmer's Markets. Perfect for your 4th of July BBQ!

For hamburgers, I like to take ground beef mix in some sea salt, blk pepper, dijon mustard, minced garlic cloves, and worcestershire sauce. Delicious!