Who-o for Hooters

Hey, I bought this cool Hooters t-shirt for $1.oo at the thrift shop in Waverly the other day. Its in new condition......someone must have bought it there in Texas and then brought it home to Iowa and developed second thoughts about wearing it. Imagine that. Printed on the back of the shirt is, "Delightfully tacky yet unrefined." That sounds about my speed.

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I've never been to a Hooters restaurant, but I've heard about them and would say that a Hooters shirt is a fitting fashion statement for a dairy farm resident. Our farming business revolves around the mammary anatomy of cows; I will wear this shirt with pride while feeding calves and pushing the manure scraper up and down the alleyway in the barn. Working with cows' udders is not my job anymore, however; I gave that up after being kicked soundly one too many times, many years ago.

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We milk our cows in a stanchion barn, which means the people doing the milking have to sidle in between cows to attach milker hoses to the pipeline, wash udders and teats by hand, and then attach the milker cups to the teats. In case you don't know it, Holstein cows are very big---over 1000 pounds---and if they suddenly go into kicking mode when you're right next to them, you will definitely be affected. One time, a cow went berserk when I walked in next to her......she kicked wildly and I had to escape by climbing over the stanchion frame by her head. I had a black & blue leg for two months. And, I was newly pregnant at the time. That was it......I resigned myself from duties which required stepping right in between cows. To this day, I will not do it. I'm sure there are people around here who consider me lazy or a chicken-livered coward, but I DO NOT CARE. Setting boundaries for oneself in life is crucial to soundness of body and mind.

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My husband---bless him---sold the berserk cow the next day. But, no matter.....I'd had it. Its not like there aren't enough other jobs to do around this farm. I don't mind being around cows out in the barnyard or in the pasture, but I refuse to walk right between them in the barn. Sometimes, a wife needs to be just as obstinate as a cow.

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Hey......just for fun......here's the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band:

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band MTV Music

Just yesterday, I found the MTV website, and had fun watching a few videos. Doing a search is simple......there's a search box near the top of the home page. We've never had cable, so I've never watched MTV. "I want my MTV!" was never heard in this household.

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The viciously cold temperatures remain with us. The air truly IS vicious outdoors......it starts biting as soon as you set foot out there. The livestock are fine......as long as they have dry bedding, shelter from the wind, and plenty to eat, they get along amazingly well. In this frigid weather, we pray for no breakdowns in equipment that operates outdoors or in a unheated place, such as up in the silo. Repairs are difficult to do in this extreme cold. Husband has a bad head cold right now, too.....not a good time for that. I can't even remember the last time he had a cold.

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Stay warm, safe, and well.

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Frosty Nonsense

Its beginnning to look alot like a LONG winter is in the offing. The curtain just lifted on the month of December's performance and already we have subzero windchills. Brr! It is seriously cold here in northeast Iowa, folks. But, I'm determined to fight back by trying to stir up some fun within the frigidity!

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Here we go........a weed decked out in frost crystals. Hilarious, isn't it!! What could possibly be funnier! I knew you'd agree.......

Hold onto your caps! The silos are under attack---or, at least being tickled---by alien tree branches armored in frost. Look out!!



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This next photo shows a Barnyard Picasso.......a painting by the dairy-farmer-wanna-be alter ego of the famous artist, Pablo Picasso. This painting---entitled Your Eye or Mine?---was stolen by a ring of Italian bovine art thieves in the 1920's before it could ever see the light of day. After being smuggled for years from cow herd to cow herd in Europe, in the late 1940's the painting was wrapped carefully and hidden in a bale of hay bound for the U.S. on a ship full of rare
Dutch Belted cows. The hay bale ended up being shipped inadvertantly to a Canadian dairy farm---in southern British Columbia, I believe. A farm hand found the painting some weeks later while feeding the hay bale to a herd of Ayrshire cows.

Shortly after, the farmhand made the mistake of showing the painting to the milk truck driver, who had a gift for telling jokes well, and he proceeded to incapacitate the farmhand with a very funny one---it made the farmhand laugh so hard he couldn't see---which provided the milk truck driver an opportunity to nab the painting and stow it in the rear storage compartment of the truck's tank. The truck driver intended to use the painting to impress a woman he badly wanted to date, who owned a herd of Jersey cows. As luck would have it, though, the milk truck sustained a flat tire before reaching the woman's farm. A mechanic was called out to fix the tire; he spied the painting there in the milk truck's storage compartment and quietly stashed it in between the tools in the back of his tire repair truck, suddenly conjuring a plan to sell it to a wealthy lawyer who moonlighted as the owner of a Guernsey cow herd. The lawyer asked to keep the painting for a few days in order to think the purchase over. In the meantime, one of his cows contracted milk fever and the local veterinarian was called out to treat her. The vet saw the painting in the lawyer's barn office and found a way to unobtrusively snatch it while pretending to need to return to his truck for a syringe and more injectable calcium. The vet, who owned a large herd of
LaMancha dairy goats, hung the painting in his milking parlor, thinking the goats would appreciate the bovine art.......but, no, they did not........because they're not bovines.....duh.....they're caprines! The goats managed to pawn the painting off on an unsuspecting dairy supply route driver, who was next headed to a farm which had a Brown Swiss cow herd. The dairy supply guy had no idea the painting was a Picasso, and he left it leaning against a calf pen where it was found by the farmer's young niece who was visiting from a Milking Shorthorn farm in the famous dairy state of Wisconsin, and she ended up taking it home with her. From there it was hoofed over to an ordinary Holstein cow dairy farm. That gives you a rough idea of how Your Eye or Mine? began its underground circulation amongst dairy farms here in the U.S.A. The painting will be at our farm for awhile, then will be whisked on---when and by whom and to where, I have absolutely no clue. Someone really should muster up the courage to turn it over to the authorities, but I won't do it.......no way will I risk ending up on some shadowy bovine mob hit list, as I'm already on our mob of cows' daily _hit list.
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Speaking of shadows........

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Bet you didn't know I'm one of those leggy gals who men drool over and other women hate. Yup......now you know. (Or, perhaps I'm related to Gumby.)
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Try to have fun with whatever the weather brings your way today!!
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[From this post, can you tell I was stuck in my computer room most of Tuesday afternoon while Husband yabbered with two seed salesmen. Its that time of year......time to look all the way ahead to next spring's planting season. A $9000 seed bill surely helps one get in the mood to go Christmas shopping! And, we are just small-time seed buyers.........think of the farmers who plant hundreds and thousands of acres.......well, not that I feel very sorry for them or anything, but......wow, what gigantic seed bills they must have!

Everything I wanted to get done yesterday afternoon was in the vicinity of the kitchen, where those three yackers were hanging out, so I retreated to the computer room. Over the years, Husband has threatened to put up a sign at the end of the driveway saying: "WE SHOOT EVERY THIRD SALESMAN, AND THE SECOND ONE JUST LEFT!"]
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Reading at the Table

When you were a kid, did your parents have a conniption fit if you read a book or magazine at the dinner table? That's never been much of an issue here at our house; our table is home to a continually changing stash of reading materials......plus the TV remote, of course. At noon, Husband and I push the magazines aside to make room for our plates, and then we stare dreamily into each other's eyes as we munch our sandwichs or leftover goulash......HA!.......not on your life! The truth is......our eyes are trained on the pages of our favorite periodicals! Rarely does the TV get turned on during the daytime.......TV is an evening thing around here, for those who actually watch it......or snore in front of it.

Over lunch the other day, Husband suddenly pushed a dairy newspaper under my nose and said, "Look at this! Look at the contrast in these two articles, right on the same page!" He was referring to the two stories which accompany the pictures in the photo below. The top article was reporting on a gigantic factory dairy farm being built in Minnesota (the top picture in the photo).......it will house 5660 milk cows, 340 heifers, and 3590 calves! The article below it told the story of a young guy in Iowa who has just purchased a 34-cow dairy herd to get his start in farming. Wow........what a difference! (We milk 75 cows, BTW.)
My first inclination was to be very critical of the huge dairy enterprise; I dislike seeing family dairy farms being pushed out of existence by factory "farms". However, here are some of the facts I learned in the top article: The area in Minnesota where this big operation is being built has lost many family dairy farms over the past couple of decades. As a result, the dairy processing industry there is in jeopardy, meaning many jobs could be lost. So, the area sent representatives to California to see if any big dairy owners from out there---who are being displaced by urban sprawl---would be interested in relocating to Minnesota. But, the California folks said, "No......we don't want to move to Minnesota, because the environmental regulations there are so tight." (A good thing, in my opinion.) So the Minnesota group decided to build its own factory farm in order to bring dairying back to its area. Supposedly, the large dairy operation will also include a methane-digesting system to process the manure which will provide enough electricity to power a nearby small town. That sounds like a good thing---it will be a provider of renewable energy---so maybe I shouldn't be overly-critical of this gargantuous dairy. Sigh......and here I was hoping to rake it over the coals big-time.

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However, I certainly do wish the best to the young independent farmer in the second article who is just getting started in dairying with his 34 cows. It will be a sad day in the future if family farms disappear from the landscape, and agriculture falls completely into the domain of corporate factory-style operations. More and more, it appears that day could be coming. Everyone seems to believe that BIGGER IS BETTER. Like around here where we live, any land that goes up for sale or rent gets snatched up by big grain farmers and investors, because they're the only ones who can afford to pay the outrageously high prices for land and machinery. The big get bigger; the little ones fade away.

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Here's a possible consolation, though.......along with the demise of the family farming way of life.......there won't be ding-batty farmwife bloggers to contend with anymore, either! We can only hope, eh?!
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Let me ask you this: If you were a cow........where would you rather live? On a huge factory farm, where you would be tended to by employees who identify you simply by a number on your eartag? Or would your desire be to live on a small family farm where you would be given an actual name, you would be allowed to spend time outdoors when the weather permits, and you would have an entire family caring for you? What do ya think? (Most likely, IF you are actually a cow.......you could care less about any of this, as long as you have plenty of hay and silage to munch and a dry, comfortable place to lounge.)

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Farm Linkage & Thinkage

Goodness.......I just remembered that I live on a farm and should show you how the corn looks right now! This first photo shows Corn Street on a plunge downward with Wall Street and the world financial markets! Whoa.......hold onto your hat!! I was relieved to hear that AIG CEO's are able to hold onto their million dollar bonuses even though everyday people lose their savings and pensions. Insurance company execs, too, will continue to rake in the dough while few of us peons can afford health care. Nobody has a remedy for these problems, so carry on, big guys, the world is your oyster!

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Here's another cornfield......uh, sorry that scraggly red vine got in the way! I don't know how that happened.

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And, how about posting some farm news links, too. (OK......good idea, Jeannelle.....do it.)

You betcha......here we go:

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Iowa Farmer Today

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AgWeb.com - Market news and more

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Dairy Today

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Hoard's Dairyman Magazine

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Dairy Star Newspaper

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Iowa Family Living

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Ho-hum. Farm news is calming.......what is more normal than hearing the droning voice of a radio announcer giving the daily market report. No impassioned Right or Left talk. I think farmers should take over the government.......then it would be very boring, but peaceful.

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One of our U.S. senators from Iowa is Chuck Grassley......a FARMER! Can you believe it?! And, he's from New Hartford, not far from here. Probably farmers are too sensible to run for president,......although Jimmy Carter was supposedly a peanut farmer. Our other U.S. senator is Tom Harkin, Democrat. They've both held their Senate seats for many years, and I don't think I'm too far off base in saying they are both well-respected throughout Iowa.

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Harkin - Wikipedia

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Grassley - Wikipedia

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I'm done listening to or watching or reading any election coverage. It will be nothing but rotten from here on out. October Surprises on-the-house coming up for everyone.......grab your shields.......here comes the MUD and CRUD!! Go for it, Guys & Gal......show the world how unkind and misleading U.S. politicians can be! And, be beacons of smarminess! The world is watching......and, it is worried.

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I'm not ashamed of the U.S., but I am ashamed of what our presidential elections are like, especially in the final weeks before Election Day. To what can this time period be compared? A mud-wrestling match, probably. You'd better get a good look at the candidates before the match begins, because soon they'll be completely covered. Sometimes I think We-the-People should vote only for members of Congress and then THEY in turn can vote and choose a president and vice-president. I admit, too, that I feel consternation over the fact that a presidential candidate is free to reach into the woodwork and foist a virtual unknown on us as his running mate.

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Yesterday, I heard a C & W radio DJ spout......."We're gonna go to church and then we're gonna go to war!" Honestly......I don't think I've ever heard church and war used like that in the same sentence. It must have been an attempt at an ironic joke........No one who's pro-life would be in favor of waging a war which might kill innocent people in the crossfire! Maybe he was commenting on a song.......is there a C & W song on that theme? I'm not normally a C & W listener, so I don't know........I was in a store when I heard it.

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Hey......if I could......I'd nominate Iowa's Senators Grassley and Harkin for president and vice-president......their choice. They have experience and integrity. No "skeletons" in their closets, that I know of.......No Troopergate, no Ayers, no Muthee, No Wright, no Black Liberation beliefs, no End-Times beliefs, no divorce, no pregnant teenage daughter about to be forced into a too-early marriage........get my drift?? We could do without this circus sideshow stuff. We need leaders with plain old honesty, decency, and courage to do what's right. What is wrong with us, United States of America? How did we get to where we are with this 2008 election?

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Last night I was at a football game........no one seems too worried about the financial "crisis".......I heard one guy say his pension has lost about $5000 so far, but he expects that money will return eventually. As we all know, its best not to discuss politics, so you don't hear too many people around here doing that.

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Here's an article from our most recent Lutheran Witness magazine: Priests in Voting Booths by Uwe Siemon-Netto. If you have time, please read it; the article cuts through all the sideshows and discusses what the most serious issue may be in this election.

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I'm going to turn OFF the comments for this post so "rhymsie" won't chastise me again for breaking my promise to not blog about politics anymore.

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Gulp.........have a happy Saturday!!

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Bags of Rye & Soybeans

"Sing a song of sixpence

A bag full of rye......."

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Oops.......the rhyme doesn't go that way, does it. Well, here's a photo of our "bag full of rye", containing rye silage chopped from a 15-acre field. We don't own the machine which pushes the rye into the bag; a guy in our neighborhood has several which he rents out. Anyway, maybe you would like to have a blob like this sitting in your yard, as an abstract art conversation piece?!

Ok, the rye was chopped off the field on Wednesday; that evening the field was tilled up to prepare for the planting of soybeans, which Husband did yesterday , shown in photo below:
You can see the residual rye stems and roots, which will serve as "green manure" to fertilize the soybean crop as it grows.

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I was given a very difficult task.........driving the pickup to the field and parking it along the edge so the soybean seed bags were in a convenient place for Husband to get at them when it was time to refill the planter boxes. (He needed the water jug, too, for his own hydration.)

As I sat on the endgate of the pickup, waiting to take the water jug to Husband when he reached this end of the field, I read the labels on the soybean seed bags. Look at this.......these seeds were tested in December 2007 and 90 percent of the seed germinated. Does that sound like a very good deal? Ten percent of the seed is no good, apparently!!
In the final photo, here's an overly colorized version of the planter's row marker arm. It cuts a visible line across the field. The person doing the planting steers the tractor to follow this line across the field in order to keep the rows straight.

(After I handed Husband the water jug, I almost walked right under this marker arm as it was being dropped to the ground to begin another row. That could have provided me with a dandy headache or worse......and it would have been my own fault for not paying attention.)

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If there are any farmers reading this, they will easily realize that we are very small potatoes when it comes to the size and scope of our farming operation. We have 200 acres, which is not much in today's farming world; we don't rent any additional land, and our machinery is small and old. We milk 75-80 cows in a stanchion barn........that's a VERY SMALL dairy in this day and age, and stanchion barns are quickly becoming a thing of the past.

We raise alot of forage crops-------that's stuff for the cows to eat------ hay, rye, oats. Much of our corn crop is chopped and put into silos, also, for the cows to eat. We don't sell any shelled corn, and we probably won't sell these soybeans, either. They will get roasted for the cows to eat. We sell milk and beef. That's where our living comes from. Like I said......we're very small potatoes. So, if you wish to see modern, big, up-to-date farm machinery and dairy equipment, you've come to the WRONG PLACE!! (But, I'm very glad you're here, anyway!)

U Got A Think Tank?

Do you? Do you have a "think tank"? Even if you're not an important government agency, or a university research team, or such as what usually utilizes a "think tank", I think its possible to have one. Because I DO have one..........right here on our farm, in our barn, in our milkhouse, to be exact:
While milking machines are whisking through their twice-daily sanitation ritual, I lean on this tank which holds and cools milk (the "bulk tank", as we call it), and what I do then is THINK. What else is there to do?

This morning I thought about several things: 1. That I need to post the answers to the Charade Quiz questions. 2. That I would like to do a post on bi-polar depression. 3. That happening to watch Bill Moyers Journal last evening on PBS was a good thing, for I received (hopefully) an accurate view of Barack Obama's much-maligned pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Rev. Wright is OK, folks. Don't be overly-influenced by brief sound-bytes on the evening news or wherever. Rev. Wright is about spreading the Gospel of Christ, and about encouraging people to throw off their preconceived notions, such as that the only proper Christian worship style is the white European one. Or that African culture isn't as valid as English, German, Jewish, Chinese, Hispanic, etc., etc. Or that only white people become doctors, lawyers, etc. Or that it was OK to drive the Native Americans from their homelands.

Unless Bill Moyers and Rev. Wright were deliberately misleading viewers with false information, Rev. Wright is OK in my opinion. He has empowered his church's black, Hispanic, and white community in south Chicago with confidence, pride, and hope. He preaches against gang violence, abortion, and the idea that any certain government or culture holds privileged status in God's eyes.......which is the point he was trying to make when in one of his sermons he said we should not sing "God Bless America", but "God damn America".......IF our government and people do not uphold God's laws.

So remember that if you keep hearing in the media or other circles that Rev. Jeremiah Wright advocates the idea of "God damn America".

God bless your Saturday!

Big, Shiny Milk Truck

Yesterday morning it dawned on me.........I've not yet posted a photo of the milk truck which faithfully comes to our farm every other day. I've neglected to show you this very important part of our dairy operation; I guess the truck's arrival is so familiar to me, I hardly notice it.

Quite the shiny hunk of metal, isn't it........the drivers are very obsessive about keeping their trucks as sparkling clean as possible!

The same family has been hauling milk from this farm for 50 years.......making them like family to us! Several brothers own the milk route now, which was established by their dad many years ago. Whether there will be a third generation in their milk hauling dynasty remains to be seen........the brothers have been blessed with many daughters and only one son, who's now ten years old. So, only time will tell........I hope they don't put too much pressure on the poor kid!

Having a heavy truck drive into our farmyard on a regular basis puts much stress on our farm's driveway. Today, in fact, Husband had a dump truck deliver a load of crushed rock, which was spread on our long lane and in the area by the barn where the milk truck backs up next to the milkhouse porthole. In the rear of the truck's shiny tank is a long hose which is threaded through the porthole and attached to the bulk milk tank inside the milkhouse. The milk truck driver checks the milk level on measuring stick of the bulk tank in the milkhouse to determine the amount of milk which will be transferred to the truck. When the transfer is completed, the driver rinses out the bulk tank and turns on the automatic washer.

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While he waits for the milk to be pumped into the truck, Husband and/or I have the opportunity to visit with the driver and hear about the happenings in the brothers' families. The oldest driver is a new grandpa and he sometimes brings photos of grandbabies along to proudly show us. One of the brothers raises horses and likes to go on trailrides here in Iowa when the weather is good. Another brother has a Christmas tree farm business on the side and from him we hear about what's involved with that enterprise throughout the year.......its alot of work, and not just in December.

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Milk truck driving is not for slackers.......these guys get up at 3 a.m. each day to begin their milk routes. Their shiny, clean trucks don't get that way on their own........the drivers wash their trucks after each trip to the milk plant. Come heck or high water, milk must be picked up from the farms, and these drivers work on holidays just like the dairy farmers do. We appreciate their faithful service. Let's give a cheer for milk truck drivers everywhere!!

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Last week, I was endeavoring to use the Dr. Dictionary Word of the Day in each day's blog post. Hm-m........the past few days have been difficult because of words such as "excrescence"....... "obsequious"........ "xenophobia".........and today's word: "deux ex machina". Sheesh! The simple truth is, I haven't been determined enough to make the effort to think hard and figure out a way to use these words. I've been lazy; I'll try to do better.......tomorrow! Although......maybe this will work for today's word: Think hard so your mind can function as a "deux ex machina" when necessary!

Bonnie Mohr Bovine Art

From this calf's expression, it appears maybe she doesn't appreciate being seen associating with poultry this morning..........and having the proof embedded forever online as a photo on this blog. Tough!

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Last Saturday evening, Husband and I attended the annual Dairy Banquet sponsored by the Dairy Promoters of our neighboring county.

The county where we live has only a handful of dairy farms left, and thus there is no dairy organization in existence anymore. As it is, we live only a mile from the county line, and do all our business in the neighboring county, anyway.


The banquet was held in the parish hall of a brand new Methodist church out in the country, and what a lovely facility it is! Evidently, they are offering their hall as a venue for banquets and such, and they have their own committee of people who cook the meals. What a great fundraiser for them, plus it provides the community with a nice facility for large events.


I would guess there were over 200 people in attendance at the Dairy Banquet. We ended up sitting across the table from a couple from our church who run a general store not far from us. The wife, Pat, grew up in the same farm neighborhood that I did, and, in fact, her younger sister was my best friend in high school. Like me, Pat didn't grow up Lutheran, so we share a bond in that respect, too.


When it was our turn to go to the buffet line, Husband and I walked by the table displaying the door prizes, which would be given out at the close of the evening's activities. The prizes included four beautiful framed prints by Bonnie Mohr, an artist from Minnesota who specializes in painting bovine art. I don't own any of her works, but I've greatly admired it for years. The four prints were her new "Face to Face" set, up-close paintings of a single heifer or cow in a seasonal setting. As we walked by the "Face to Face - Summer" painting, I whispered to Husband, "Oh, wouldn't it be fun to win that......", knowing, of course, that the likelihood of that happening was very slim.



We heaped our plates with pork loin, mushroom gravy, cheesy potatos, corn, garlic bread, and colorful salads.......I liked the look of the spinach/strawberry/purple onion salad........it was a unique and surprisingly delicious combination. We enjoyed the food and comraderie with other folks connected in some way to dairying, either as farmers themselves, or business people who provide service to the dairy community.



After the meal, there was short Dairy Promoter business meeting, and then awards were handed out......Distinguished Dairyman, Cream of the Crop (that's the dairy woman award), and Distinguishing Service Award (to a business person). Don't think that Husband or I will ever win such an award.......they go to people who somehow are able to operate outstanding dairies and be very involved in community and dairy activities........I have no idea how they do it, but they have my admiration and applause! The new county Dairy Princess was also crowned.......this year there was only one contestant, which was kind of sad, but that's the way it goes. Our daughter was a candidate two years ago.......she didn't win......but, it was a nice experience for her.



We also listened to a talk by a woman from a state-wide dairy promotion organization. Her speaking ability was nothing to write home about, but some of what she said was interesting. Evidently, research is showing that the best thing for athletes to drink after the exertion of a sporting event is.......chocolate milk! They are trying to get the message out to coaches. Not long ago, during basketball season, my son did mention that the coach was providing jugs of chocolate milk for them to drink after games, so the message must be getting through. It can't be any worse than all that high-colored Gatorade kids are constantly chugging down.



Finally, it was time for the door prizes to be distributed. Names were announced, but not Husband's or mine. However!!........the "Face to Face - Summer" framed print I mentioned above was won by Pat, the woman sitting across from me at the table!! Oh, I was so happy for her! Click this link to go to the Bonnie Mohr website, and you will see "Face to Face - Summer" there on the opening page.



The sun is shining brightly here today! Blessings on your day!

Enjoy Life's Mysteries

Believe me, I realize this is a strange-looking photo. I could ask if anyone out there in blogville knows what this is, but instead of being so annoying, here's the answer: Milkers in the wash vat.

Obviously, the photo has been edited to add a bit of color to an otherwise boring gray, silver, and black scene. I stare at these contraptions every day while they are being washed here in the stainless steel vat in the milkhouse. The vacuum pump does its vacuumy thing and causes the milkers to suck up the hot, soapy water over and over again, which then whisks its way through the milkline in the barn and then dumps back into the vat here, to be sucked up again, repeatedly. This goes on for about ten minutes-----then cold water is turned on and rinses out the milkers and milkline by the same vacuum process.

Anyhow, the other day I was standing there mesmerized by the rushing water and sounds and was thinking on an article I'd read recently about consciousness. The article theorized that possibly consciousness doesn't originate in the brain, but that the brain is a receptor for consciousness that exists outside of it. Similar to the milkers that are placed in the vat of water.......they aren't part of the water, but they take the water into themselves and make use of it. And while the water is inside the milker parts, you could consider it part of the milker........even though technically, its not. Someone seeing a narrow view of the milker full of water might think the water is part of the milker.......that is if they don't have a complete view of the entire wash operation. Which is comparable to us humans not having a complete view of what's going on in many aspects of our existence.

There, I'm revealing one of my deepest secrets.......if I suddenly found myself in college, I would study the mystery of consciousness. There's just a plethora of stuff we don't know about ourselves and the world we exist in. (Sorry....."plethora" was the Dr. Dictionary Word of the Day for today.) In the newspaper yesterday was an article about the construction of the Large Hadron Collider in Europe......a huge machine which will be used to study the miniscule particles that make up atoms. The article stated, "scientists hope that it will help them unlock some of the deepest, darkest secrets of the universe." Intriguing.......eh!!??

I think its totally, fantastically exciting that there's so much we don't know about EVERYTHING!! Knowing that we know so little should keep us all humble.

Revel in the mystery of your world today!!

While you are busy with that assignment, I will be contentedly reading magazines in the orthodontist's waiting room as my son gets his braces removed, a happily anticipated event for him.

Bon Appetit!!

Today I will attempt to post a recipe.......its one of those convenient "fix ahead" dishes that will keep for a long time, and you can handily serve only what you need each day. It will provide a nutritious feast for a rather large crowd......actually, it will serve a HERD (of cows)!

Yes, the photo below shows a handful of delicious bovine cuisine.......CORN SILAGE. The only ingredient you need to make this tasty dish is a field of corn, ripened until early September or so. You will also need a chopper, to chop up the entire corn plant.....stalks, leaves, and ears. What could be simpler than a one-ingredient recipe!

Once you have chopped your cornfield, place the chopped corn in the container shown in the next photo. Its called a silo, but actually its nothing more than a over-sized canning jar made of cement. The top will be sealed with plastic until you're ready to begin serving from this container. It will be simple to satisfy the appetite of your herd for several months if you use a container of this size.



As a gracious and considerate host, you will wish to provide variety in your herd's diet, possibly a daily serving of haylage (which is chopped hay, also stored in a silo), as shown below, garnished with a yummy vitamin and mineral supplement.

Good luck with this recipe! Serve at the temperature of the day, and expect many, many COWmpliments!

Bon Appe-Teat!!

Pioneer Woman Blog

Well......harumph!.....this Holstein in yonder photo below heard about
Henrietta the Cow's post on Pioneer Woman's blog yesterday. Henrietta seemed to sort of infer that "farmers" raise grain and "ranchers" chase cows. Harumph! This Holstein gets chased by a dairy "farmer" on a regular basis. And you might be shocked to know what else he does......its so embarrassing and upsetting, she can't even moo.....er.....speak of it! What she dreams of doing is escaping to India to join the sacred cows!



Seriously.....wow!.....what an amazing blog site Pioneer Woman has! (I don't believe for a minute that she's a desperate housewife, though.) CountryGirl mentions her site quite often, so I finally surfed over to the famous ranch to take a gander. Ree (Pioneer Woman) wrote her post yesterday from the viewpoint of one of the cattle, Miss Henrietta. Maybe she writes that way often, I don't know. Its a cute idea! Amazing what can be developed around seemingly mundane livestock photos! And Pioneer Woman blogs often about photography, which she is obviously very knowledgeable of, and is going to start a PhotoShop tutorial on her blog soon. If only I had PhotoShop!!......and a working camera!!!



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Sherry (a fellow Iowan) over at LivingBeyondtheRoads has been trying valiantly to frighten winter away by using descriptive adjectives in her blog writing. Her posts have been very entertaining lately, and she sounds confident that March 1 will bring a turn-around in the weather. I hope she's not just whistling Dixie! I'm wondering if packing up my collection of snowglobes and hiding them in the closet would help convince the snowy weather to go away. We're getting desperate here in Iowa........this cold, snowy, wintery business has been going on long enough.....and there's no room left for anymore of the white stuff!!! (Well, there is still lots of empty space in Iowa.....but, who wants snow there.) So.....winter, winter, GO AWAY!!......come again another day.....far, far away in the future!!!





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Hmm.....let's see......I need to use a different blogging nickname for my husband, other than what I've been using, which is simply "Husband", because its completely unoriginal. I've been pondering over "CowGuy" or "MooGuy" or "MilkerGuy" or "DairyGuy". Anybody have an opinion?

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I've also been mulling over all the stupid things I've done in my life. There is a reason why I have that "Drink Coffee: Do stupid things faster, with more energy!" quote in my sidebar. Its because I actually do alot of stupid things. I'm clumsy, physically and otherwise, and sometimes barge *temerariously* into delicate places, flail around and do damage. I fail to keep my opinions under my hat. Maybe I'll attempt to make the effort to do better, and keep my mouth and keyboard quiet more often. Not on my blog, though......that is my vent......the place where I keep my head above water. (*That word "temerarious" was the Dr. Dictionary Word of the Day for today, and seemed to be appropriate.*)

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"Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write." ------ John Adams, 1765

(......saw that quote on a postmark yesterday)

Have a Wonderful Wednesday!!!

Spotlight on Icicles

One morning last week, while Husband was up in the silo, and I was standing vigil down below, a few interesting photo scenes presented themselves. This photo below is looking east......it was way past dawn, but with color adjusting, the scene can be made to look like sunrise. Or I could have called it a sunset, and you would have never known the difference!! If I had PhotoShop, that annoying fencepost could be removed, probably.

My job down there at the foot of the silo was to turn the silo unloader lever every so often, which would cause the unloader up inside the silo to lower and dig deeper and push more silage to the chute through which it falls down into the bunk. In the bunk a conveyor system moves the silage throughout the length of the bunk. Later on, the cows come out of the barn and eat the silage in this outdoor bunk.

Husband was up inside the silo helping the unloader to move through the silage. In very cold weather, the silage up in the silo tends to freeze and stick to the wall of the silo, causing the unloader to get stuck....."buried", as Husband calls it. And yes, Husband simply loves an opportunity to climb up and spend time in the freezing cold silo.......it puts him in a very good mood!! NOT!!!!

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Whoops.....this shot is a bit off-kilter.......!!

And this one is a rather fuzzy, but that's how the photo was, and sharpening it didn't look very good.

My camera seems to have died.......I don't know what's wrong with it. Maybe it got damp sitting in the milkhouse a couple times. I don't know. So I may be in the hunt for a new camera.......something better, but affordable. It will be fun to look around and see what's out there. It will need to be a durable camera, that's for sure. Any advice or ideas are welcome!!!

Weaner World

If this photo had sound effects you would hear a chorus of insistent bawling from these newly-weaned calves. (.....and they would not be trying to remind you that today is George Washington's birthday.) They want bottles of milk! For their first eight weeks of life, I was their mama, faithfully serving them warm bottles of milk twice a day. Alas for them, they grew and learned to eat grain, and yesterday they were moved out of their individual pens into this weaner pen. Everytime they see me walk by, they start bawling for their bottles. I just shake my head at them and say "Tough".

I liken weaning-aged calves to human children entering the middle school years. These calves are in, say the 5th grade pen.......they still want their mama around. In a few weeks, they'll get moved into another pen......that will be like entering junior high. There they will acquire that adolescent attitude, too.....kind of scruffy-looking and they eye you suspiciously when you walk by. They appear forever on the verge of doing something they're not supposed to, like break out of their pen. Once finished with junior high, the calves move on to "high school" pens, which are over by the barn, closer to the adult livestock. After that, of course, comes their initiation into that ultimate bovine career......being a milkmaker.

Enjoy your children today......whatever stage they happen to be in!

(By the way, my son's basketball team lost last night.............[:( ]............so that sport is wrapped up for another year. I always feel bad for the seniors on the team, since its their last high school game.......but, they'll get over it.)

Good Neighbors

I'm sure everyone is sick and tired of snow photos, and frankly, so am I, but here are a couple more. To the right is our mailbox and newspaper tube, all but buried, as you can see.

This morning is excruciatingly cold, around 20 below zero, making it almost torture to walk to and fro between house and barn.

Below, you can see my neighbor showing off in his fancy John Deere tractor. He's blowing snow away from the road so the milk truck can get through. These neighbors milk Brown Swiss cows (don't tell them but I think its the most boring breed of cattle......they all look alike!), and they use the same milk hauler we do. Until last year, they were orange tractor people like us (although we do still have an old JD 630), but someone-----the friendly neighborhood JD salesman----- convinced them to defect to the green side. Oh my, we were in total shock and speechless for days after we found out!



Seriously, we have a special bond of friendship with these neighbors, who we've known forever. We feel fortunate to have a close neighbor who is still in the dairy business. There aren't many dairy farms left in our area. It used to be that every farm place down every country road had milk cows, a few beef cattle, a few pigs, chickens, ducks......you get the idea.....each farmstead used to be home to a family-run diversified operation. Nothing big, just enough to keep the family busy and provide a living. There's not much of that going on around these parts anymore, that's for sure. Mostly, there are big grain operations......one "farmer" with huge equipment works hundreds of acres, some of which he may own, but most of those acres are rented. Oh, and don't get me started on the stinky hog confinements that these big farmers build (far away from their own residences, of course)......that will be for another post......

HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY, wherever you may be!!!

(BTW......we have NO SCHOOL again today.)

The Hum of Inspiration

Can you guess where this unearthly-looking door leads? "Into the barn", you say.....well, right you're! Good guess! Through this door I trudge every morning, gripping a mug of steaming coffee and an empty milk pitcher. The dogs, who wait by the house for me, will enthusiasticly bound up for a pat on the head, followed by them bounding in circles around me as we head toward the barn. They excitedly jump at the door, although they've already been in the barn earlier when Husband went out. At that earlier hour, they race down the barn alleyway, barking to encourage the cows to stand up. After that, the dogs somehow escape from the barn and sit patiently by the house, waiting for slow, old me. Such faithful pals!

Walking through the door during milking time is like entering another dimension. The milker pump motor is humming loudly, sending vibrations through the air. Compressor motors and fans are also noisily at work doing their task of cooling the milk as it pours from pipes into the big stainless steel tank in the milkhouse.

To all of that rumbly sound, add the hypnotic back and forth hissing and clicking of the vacuum line as the milkers gently do their job of collecting milk from the cows' udders. That sound reminds me of horses hooves clacking over a bridge......it must be a long bridge......it takes two hours to cross!

Nestled within the above cacophony, mellow moos are occasionally heard, and the strains of oldie tunes playing on the radio. (I shouldn't mention this, but once in while, you will hear Husband hollering at a cow for flicking manure in his face or knocking his cap off. He believes the cows conspire against him during the night, discussing new ways to annoy him. Maybe so.)

When milking is done, I spend time in the milkhouse, overseeing the automatic washer which cleans the milkers and the pipeline. Its not very difficult.....I push buttons, turn hot and cold water off and on, and pour soap and sanitizer into the vat at the correct times. While doing that, I'm enveloped in a cloud of rumbly noise and vibrations. Honestly, this is the time of day when blog posts are conceived......thoughts and ideas just seem to come flowing in......I wonder if it has something to do with the noise.

There was a time in my life when I disliked this barn door. It was a wearying annoyance to me. In this blog's sidebar is a little saying, "If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it." I can't change the fact that I'm married to a workaholic dairy farmer. So to avoid going crazy, I'm going to revel in everything here on this farm and try to find the amazing within the wearisome and the mundane.

Join me, please.......seek wonders within your little world!!

Lucky Old Sun

Fresh from the Iowa outdoors.......while hustling back from the mailbox, I caught the sun valiantly trying to shine through a fissure in the gray wall of clouds. Lucky old sun wasn't having much success.

There is an old song called "Lucky Old Sun".....right? "That lucky old sun, just rolling 'round the sky all day"......seems like I recall a line like that in the song, or am I crazy?

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This morning I happened to be at MSNBC and saw this article "Marriage: Its Only Going To Get Worse". Sounds intriguing, don't you think.....read it here: www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23014798 . Its actually a very encouraging article, despite the misleading title.

(I'm trying to figure out how to do links with out typing in the whole address......but, not having much success. Someone in the know, please help me.)

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School was cancelled today, to no one's surprise. That means Husband has a chore helper this evening, and I get to stay in. Hooray!

Ash Wednesday church services have also been cancelled for this evening. We rarely get to evening services anyway, because they start at 7 p.m., which is just too early for us dairy people. Over the years, the starting times have crept earlier......when Husband and I married nearly 30 years ago, evening church services were always at 8 p.m, so the many dairy families could get there. But now there are so few dairy farmers left in the congregation, no one gives a hoot whether church is too early for us or not.

Ash Wednesday blessings to everyone anyway!!

Tornadoes & Blizzards

How do this man, blizzards, and a tornado go together? Read on and you will find out!
The handsome young farmer in the above photo is my father-in-law, back in the mid-1950's, shortly after he married Husband's mother. About ten years after the time of this photo, he miraculously survived a tornado.

Tornadoes are on my mind because of the news reports I've seen this morning of yesterday's killer tornadoes in the southern states. After seeing that, I'm grateful that Iowa simply has a blizzard right now. At least snow doesn't demolish buildings and lives. My thoughts and prayers are with those folks down south.

One afternoon in 1964, a tornado blew through the farmstead here where we live. Father-in-law was out in the barn, milking the cows; his wife and three boys went to the basement of the house when the storm blew up. When they emerged from there, they saw that the barn was gone. Only the cement-block-walled feed room corner remained.......and that's where Father-in-law was......he had fled to the safety of the feed room!

Amazingly, only a few cows were killed. The rest had to be herded across the road to the neighbor's barn to be milked. We've found a photo of the old barn, before it was destroyed, but regrettably, there are no photos of the aftermath of the storm. I'm sure the family was so overwhelmed with trying to deal with the rubble and mess that no one took pictures of it.

As I said, my thoughts and prayers are with all those in the path of the storms down south. Blogger Nannykim lives in South Carolina, I think, and Rhymes With Plague is down south, too. Country Girl is in Maryland. Husband has nephews in Tennessee. May God bless all these folks with safety.

Blizzard Coming

I mustn't spend much time posting this morning. There are so many things to do all of a sudden. We had a heat-wave lasting all of yesterday; the temperature soared into the upper 30's. The sun was shining, too, meaning there was quite a bit of snow-melting going on. That sounds like a good thing, but what it really means is now we have ice all over the place again. The deep-freeze has returned this morning, and our farmyard between the house and barn is like an ice-skating rink again. There's a downhill decline between the house and barn, so this morning I shuffled slowly and carefully out to do my calf chores.

A roaring northwest wind has picked up, and blizzard conditions are forecast for this evening. Great. After milking this morning, Husband asked me to help with bedding the heifers out in the cattle shed. That meant I opened and shut gates or held them while he drove the skid loader back and forth hauling big round bales of cornstalks into the shed. He opened the bales and spread them around so the livestock have a dry place for lounging.

I was about frozen solid by the time we were finished; my heavy canvas Carhartt coat felt like a thin nylon windbreaker. Seriously, I really appreciate the Carhartt coat-----I invested in it awhile back after spending many years wearing everyone else's cast-offs. It seemed expensive at $90, but its definitely worth it in weather like this. I also spent $60 last fall on "Muck Boots", and I really like them, too. They are rated to keep feet warm down to 20 degrees below zero----last week they reached their limit on a couple of the coldest days.

After scraping the cow's area in the barn and chatting with the milktruck driver, I'm now about to head to town to fill our son's pickup with gas. At 15, he has just a school permit for driving, meaning he can drive only the route from home to school and back. Unfortunately, the gas station is not on his route. So this morning, I had to let him take the Envoy to school.

My son's life right now seems to be running parallel to Jeremy's in the "Zits" cartoon in the newspaper. They're both 15 and have started driving and have had girl problems recently; my son has been trying to break up with his girlfriend, and she's not too happy about it. Oh, my, the drama of high school romances.......my marriage was the result of such a youthful romance, but was never very dramatic, not as I remember, anyway. We never ever "broke up", so I've never experienced such a thing. Like Jeremy, my son is the last child at home, putting up with his "getting older and more tired" parents, who have lost most of their enthusiasm for school activities and such, and have seen most everything there is to see. Been there, done that. Ho hum. So it goes.

An aquaintance from town just phoned and asked if he could buy 3 bales of straw to bed his dogs' houses, so Husband threw those in the pickup and I'll drop them off, too. I wish I didn't have to go anywhere.....the wind is getting stronger by the minute......the sound of its roaring is giving me chills!

Watching: The Astronaut's Wife

A day of not much to say. Husband had a really bad morning. When he got to the barn, a cow named Freckles had delivered a stillborn calf. A water pipe had broken to the cows' drinking cups. One of the silo unloaders stopped running. Just typical dairy farm stuff.

Husband sent me to the general store up the road to get a new piece of water pipe. The store owners had left a note on the door, they were gone for a couple hours. When I got back home, a hawk was floating, wings out, back and forth, keeping watch over our farmstead......cool.

After a long walk in the cold wind, I fiddled around the house this afternoon, folding laundry, washing and trimming my hair (I do my own haircuts.....saves $$$), and thinking about balancing the checkbook. I ended up baking Mississippi Mud Bars while watching a movie on my daughter's little portable DVD player which she didn't take to college with her. The movie is "The Astronaut's Wife", starring Johnny Depp and Charlize Theron. I wasn't too impressed with the first part, but now its starting to get a bit interesting. Her husband may not be her husband......he may be a space alien or something. It's getting creepy........I'm not usually into creepy movies.

The only other time I've seen Johnny Depp in a movie was in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape"........now, there's a film with some interesting characters, particularly the mother, and what took place at the end. A most unusual gesture of a son's love and respect.

I'd better sign off.......its time to go out for evening chores.

Woolgathering & Sick Cow

Anyone who receives the "Doctor Dictionary Word of the Day" by email knows that yesterday's word was "woolgathering". Its definition is "indulgence in idle daydreaming" or "an absorption in daydreaming". I've gone 49 years without ever hearing that word, though its been part of my life all that time. My report cards in grade school used to show checkmarks under the category of "makes good use of time"........I tended to dawdle and daydream, and still I do that on a daily basis. We are who we are. Probably blogging is a symptom of being a "woolgatherer"! I've added it under Interests in my Profile.

This morning in my waking up dream I was seeing a deceased friend of mine get on a school bus at a house a few miles from here. I was hurrying to talk to him, but got there too late.......he was on the bus, heading south......I could see only the back of his head. Also in my mind was the song "Hard Times" by the Desert Rose Band, a band now defunct, but one of my favorites----fantastic vocal harmonies and guitars-----Chris Hillman, Herb Pedersen, John Jorgenson. I actually saw them in concert at a county fair years ago. I had forgotten to include them under Favorite Music in my Profile, so I remedied that this morning.


Why "Hard Times" came to mind, I have no idea.

Hard times can't hold us down forever
Hard times are gonna fade away
Hard times, we can't let them stop us, darlin'
There will be a better day............

High as the wild birds fly
Wild and free, that's how I dream
I gotta keep on dreamin'

We can have what we cannot see tomorrow
On the highest mountain
On the highest mountain
We can watch those wild birds fly

Find our own blue sky
As long as you are with me
I'll never stop dreamin'

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Husband had to call the vet out this morning for a cow named Barbie. (Husband calls her Barbie the Barbarian.) She's been acting like she doesn't feel good.....not eating, and going off by herself. The vet diagnosed her with a bad case of peritonitis due to an infected uterus......she had calved back in mid-October. Her treatment is a high dose of penicillin for few days to see what happens. The vet says its a serious case, so she may not get better. He says she may also have a DA-----that's a displaced abomasum, a twisted stomach. Poor thing. She earned her nickname because she's a fighter, so hopefully that trait will help her survive this illness.

Now, I need to cease this woolgathering and hie myself down the lane to the mailbox with a letter for my daughter, so I don't miss the mailman.