A Big Blue Surprise

This was a thrilling week here on the funny farm.  Remember Blue, our milk cow?  Well we bought her open, meaning that she was not bred.  No babies in the future.  After milking her and raising calves on her throughout the summer and into the early fall we decided to let her go dry (stop producing milk).  We were going to sell her because there was no need to have her around if she wasn’t going to produce milk or raise babies.  Unfortunately, the weekend before the sale she got her hoof caught up and hurt herself enough that she limped pretty bad when she walked.  We decided to wait until she was healed up before we brought her to the sale.  Time passed and she was finally starting to get better so we started talking about the sale again.  Oddly enough about a week before Christmas she started making milk again.  I am not talking about a little milk, her bag got full!  We had an older calf in with her and thought maybe he started nursing on her again but surely it wouldn’t bring her into milk like that.  Then she started showing signs that maybe she wanted to have a baby.  Things were getting even stranger!  We watched her closely through Christmas and then had New Year’s come and go and things were still fishy.  The sale barns had been closed due to Christmas and New Year’s so we thought that at the next sale we would get rid of her.  Things were not looking right, she had been hurt and now maybe she had some other strange things going on.  Tuesday (Jan. 8th, the day before the sale) Michael went to the pen to check the water and he was greatly surprised (to say the least) to see Blue standing over two brand new twin baby calves.  What a surprise that was!  We had written off pregnancy given that she has shown signs for so long we thought she was having other issues!  We were shocked.  Did not even have words for what had happened.  Better yet they are twin heifer (girl) calves!  In the dairy world if they aren’t a heifer they are worth next to nothing.  Not only did we buy a cow that wasn’t supposed to be bred but we got to use her all summer and then got 2 baby calves out of the deal!  They are gorgeous fraternal twins which is great in the twin calf world as when they are identical there are frequently genetic disorders. 

2013!

Happy 2013! What a year 2012 was!  I wish someone could tell me where all of the months went because they FLEW by in what felt like record time.  It was a year I will never forget!

 The holidays in this neck of the woods were fantastic.  Michael and I had the treat of having my parents come and visit from Abu Dhabi.  They arrived the week before Christmas and left today so it was wonderful to have them here for so long!  I changed jobs in November and with the new job I got to have time off to celebrate the holidays!  This was probably the longest I have spent with my parents uninterrupted by school or jobs since I graduated high school.  We took full advantage of the time!

We had visitors come through on their travels from Nebraska to Arizona so they helped us prep for Christmas.  We had a lovely snow on Christmas morning and enjoyed the time opening presents and eating the egg casserole my mom makes every year.  In the afternoon Michael’s parents, his sister and her husband and family all came to our house for a big ham dinner and fun.  We played some great rounds of Catch Phrase that may just turn into a tradition we had so much fun. 

Wednesday after Christmas we decided to jump in the car and drive to Nebraska to visit my grandma who had broken her hip after Thanksgiving.  I had not seen her in ages and Michael had not met her yet so the trip was long overdue.  It was great to visit and show Michael around Nebraska (it was his first time there).  We visited Grandma all day and then went into Lincoln for the evening to eat Indian food at my favorite restaurant and to show Michael around the UNL campus.  Thursday morning we stopped by to see Grandma again and then headed home.  It is about a 12 hour drive so we did a lot of traveling for a little bit of visiting but I would have done it again in a heartbeat!  It was a very cold and snowy trip but fantastic! 

 

The rest of the break was spent feeding the cows out at the ranch and staying on calf watch, keeping water from icing over, built a new chicken house, cooking fantastic food, indulging in delicious whisky (the boys) and wine (the girls) and just enjoying every minute we could with each other.  I am now back to work and sad to see my parents head back across the pond but it makes me even more excited for our next time together.