06 Mar 2005
Ruminations

cattle feedingWell, I said I had been very busy last week, and had a lot to blog about. And that's true - but I'm going to combine it all in one longer post. Because what I'm really doing is ruminating, which is what the cattle in the photo will be doing shortly.

"Ruminating", meaning thinking deeply, is based on cattle. The first bovine stomach is called the rumen, and cattle will fill this up when eating, and then lay down and stare into space while "chewing the cud" - the extra saliva they generate when just chomping is enough to kick start the rumen, and get it emptied faster. So they can resume feeding.

I have no idea, of course, what my cows are cogitating while they're ruminating, but from the look they get it must be pretty deep. Hence the title of this post. (Which diversion was inspired by Carnival of the Etymologies, a regular Thursday feature of Done with Mirrors, which I discovered via Secular Blasphemy. Ain't the web wonderful?

I was lucky to live through last Monday. Literally. I was getting ready to attend a trade show put on by Slow Food Indy and was running late. I ran out of color ink in both the Mac printer (a Canon i950) and my PC printer (an Epson). So I had to make a flying trip to Indy to get some more carts, and it was 1pm by the time I got back home and restarted the printing process. I wanted to hop in the shower, but figured I'd better make a run thru the paddocks and chicken coops before I did that.

So out I went - got some eggs in the Big House, and the birds were out of water. So I went around and opened the big doors on the barn, going inside to fill the bucket. Boy, did I get a surprise!

As I turned toward the spigot, I found myself face to face with Goldilocks - pictured in the foreground of the photo to your left. She was very agitated, and was stomping and snorting. Highlands are normally very sweet and docile, but Goldie was feeling trapped, and I was between her and an exit - the big doors I'd just opened, and left open! And I was just slack jawed with a big basket of eggs over my arm - the cattle whip was behind her, and no way I could reach it.

So I just stared at her and very calmly put down my baskets and grabbed the nearest thing I could find: a hoe. I then tried, as calmly as possible, to push the door shut. It was bad enough that she was loose in the barn foyer, it would be a potential disaster if she was running amok across the highway!

And I managed to slip past her into the barn before she charged. Which was one of the scarier moments of my life!

I dashed around the corner and up the stairs - once safely off the ground, I looked around to see what had happened and how she'd gotten in. It seems as though they had managed to swing on of the stall gates leading out to the paddock shut and wedged it so it couldn't be opened. That trapped them in a stall and they found it easier to break down the gate leading into the barn rather then the one they'd wedged leading into the paddock.

The foyer of the barn was a wreck - we store our hay bales in there before we feed, and of course, Goldie had munched a bit out of every one, breaking the bales and scattering hay everywhere. Worse, she'd broken through the floor in the old tack area, and had broken up several pallets and knocked over the garbage pail.

Keeping my hoe in hand (I still couldn't reach the whip) I very carefully clambered from the stairs over the short wall and into the open stall. I then shut the gate into the barn and forced the one to the paddock open. I opened the gate into the barn back up, and clambered back over the short wall onto the stairs.

Somehow I managed to maneuver Goldie out and into the stall. But as I went to latch the gate, the little bitch charged it, flinging it back open and tossing me behind the stairwell. The tip of her horns came within about six inches of my chest. It was, uh, "terrifying" is the only word that comes to mind. So I started over, and managed to get in the stall again and get the gate relocked. Whew!

Feeling pleased with myself, I turned to get my basket of eggs and was face to face with Maeve (the darker cow in the photo, behind the round bale)! Holy shit! Now what?

She had apparently gotten in when Goldie did, but rather than staying in the foyer had slipped into the lambing pens, behind a wall and out of sight. So I repeated the process, this time having to concentrate on keeping Goldie in the paddock as well as trying to hustle Maeve into the stall.

By the time I get her there it was 2:30pm, and I dashed into the house, threw on some clean clothes, grabbed my printing job and flew down to Indy. It was an interesting show, but nothing to compare to what I'd just managed to live through at home.

And that was just Monday!

Tuesday I ran the egg route - that's always a busy day. Egg production has been falling of late: I'd been getting between 40 and 50 eggs a day for a while, and for the past week I've been lucky to get 2 dozen. I think the birds are just in molt, which is OK, but I'm keeping a close eye on them. More on that when we get to Friday.

Wednesday and Thursday I just worked my hindquarters off programming. My biggest customer was having something of a crisis with some of his commercial software, and it was up to me to craft a workaround. All Windows C++ database stuff, so it's not exactly the most exciting code I've ever written, but there are a few spots where it gets clever.

When I'm coding that intensely, however, I really like to have some peace and quiet - I used to do this kind of stuff between midnight and 5 am, but on the farm that's a tough schedule to keep when you have to take care of the livestock in the morning. By about noon on Thursday I was so sick of phones ringing and email dinging that I shut both off - only to have the driveway alarm signal a visitor.

I knew what he was before he'd shut his care door - a slightly elderly (~60) gent with a thick book and a wad of flyers. Come to save my soul, and yep: I was right. I politely declined his invitation to Bible study, and politely explained when asked that I was not a Christian, and that I followed the old gods and goddesses of the Germanic tribes. We actually had an interesting conversation - he could tell it was pointless to try and hard sell me from the get-go - and I ended up selling him two dozen eggs and a frozen, whole chicken. It was the only time in my life I've ever been richer when the evangelists left than I was when they arrived. Kris commented that I could probably sell ice cubes to Eskimos.

Friday was a troubling day: I had to cull one of my hens who was showing symptoms of a cold. Bird flu can be a deadly thing - it can wipe out a flock in a week and I'm not taking any chances. The scary thing: I found a dead hen yesterday in the big house: apparently just keeled over mid-day. I hadn't noticed anybody else sniffling and sneezing, and it was an older (4 years +) hen, but still - you worry about such things when it's your income on the line.

So that was my week: which is why it took me until yesterday to deal with the blogspam issue. And I think I'll take a nap now: I've earned it.

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