Heads Up, Calf-Lovers

Forgive me, if possible.......I keep forgetting that many of you don't have everyday access to darling creatures such as baby calves, and you enjoy seeing their photos.

The one below shows our two Australian Shepherds.......Betsy and Buster Brown.......getting acquainted with one of those two new heifer calves born yesterday. This calf is Crystal's daughter and we have named her Jade........she is part of our
"gemstone" line of cattle. All that means is that we've chosen gemstone names for daughters born in that family. Crystal's dam was Amethyst, who descended from Diamond. There have been daughters named Topaz, Opal, Peridot, Ruby and Garnet.

(Betsy is keeping a sharp-eye watch on a cat who scampered up the wooden post right before the dogs came bounding into the calf building. Betsy is ever vigilant about chasing certain cats! Buster could care less most of the time......he's just happy to take part in whatever activities are going on........like smiling for his picture, in this instance.)

Below is a better view of Jade. Not visible in the photo, is the other baby heifer calf, in the adjacent pen, who's been given the name FiFi, in honor of her dam, Ophelia, who incidently, died from complications after FiFi's birth. She "threw" her uterus. Husband was very disappointed. Ophelia was out of Onyx (also from the gemstone line, obviously), who is a very good milk producer. FiFi was Ophelia's first calf.......thus, Ophelia was termed a "first calf heifer"......not a cow. Fatal birth complications do happen occasionally, but not very often.
As you can see, Buster doesn't mind taking a licking from a baby calf! It makes him feel special!

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Hey, the other day I stumbled into a farm blog from northern Iowa that has lots of livestock photos.......nice muddy, messy ones. With pigs in them, too! Who has a chance to see pig photos very often anymore, with most hogs being raised in confinement buildings nowadays?? Here's the link to the blog, Sugar Creek Farm.

I have no idea if the author gets out much to other blogs, but her photos are interesting. On that blog there was a link to another rural Iowa blogger with the very lovely name of Gracious Acres.

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If you look at the blog listing along the right side of this page, you'll see that I've added to their names the state or province that they're from. Its fun to have a teeny-tiny connection to people from diverse places in the U.S. and Canada. (I'd love to add Europe or England or Australia or anywhere to that list.....!) Its sort of like the old notion of having penpals. I never had one, but it sounded like a fun idea. My mom corresponded for years with a penpal in Finland...... Annaliese.....we thought that was such a pretty name. My daughter also had a pen pal from Finland for awhile, Aino Vornanen from the city of Outokumpu.

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Best wishes for a wonderful day!! Here's two recent Dr. Dictionary Words: "woebegone".......DON'T have such a day today......and "voluble".......an adjective applicable to blogs and bloggers, perhaps.