heifer diary 2004

HEIFER DIARY 2004

DECEMBER 29 THROUGH SEPTEMBER 24

December 29, 2003: I missed a couple of days writing the diary due to meeting a writing deadline, also helping Abby get started on a trip to Virginia where she will house sit while her sister spends the winter in Florida. She finally got her truck packed about 3:30 yesterday, and then decided it was too late to start. She started this morning about 9am. All the animals and I will miss her many attentions. The driving weather is perfect. But, guess what! Sunday morning while brushing Helen I noted slime on her tail. Her behavior was irreproachable during milking, but when I turned her out she took an unusual interest in Albert, now four months old. They began chasing and jumping. This was the first time since Albert was born on August 20 that I have seen any convincing signs of heat. I called the AI guy right away because it was Sunday and I thought he might be slow to arrive. But he came within an hour. I do hope he was not too early. I really hope Helen settles on the first try.

December 30, 2003 Tuesday: Abby arrived safely in Virginia today with her two cats and dog, Izzy. She stopped over one night in Pennsylvania. (I was not alone long enough to become depressed. Son Martin and his girlfriend, Amy, and Austrian friend Julian arrived last night for dinner. Besides doing considerable eating today, they did a lot of winter sports. They went up to Lake Webb and skated across. Max and his little girls joined them. Everyone had fun. Their last expedition was a lengthy snowshoe trip through the back roads behind the farm. They took Bagel Dog along and as they returned along the stretch of road leading to my driveway, Bagel got confused and got hit by a car. By then it was 5PM and totally dark. The driver did his best to stop but could not. All they could see was Bagel running into the night. We searched on foot and by car for two hours. Then as Martin was looking again below the house, Bagel appeared. He is very subdued and yelped when I felt his sides, but I think nothing is broken and that he is just badly bruised. He is a large strong dog in excellent condition (a yellow lab mix with yellow eyes with black rims) He drank some water but would not eat anything I offered until I fried some deer liver. Just minutes after he reappeared, the folks in the car that struck him came back to see if we had found him. They were very thoughtful. Helen was her usual fuzzy self today, but for some reason her production was way down. It seems a bit soon to be seeing the pregnancy drop. A violent wind has come up. I closed up everything at the barn. I got 13 eggs.

December 31, 2003 New Year's Eve: All last night the wind rattled the ancient windows of my house. It was hard to sleep. In the morning Bagel was on his feet. He is as stiff as an old grandpa, but nothing is broken. He ate all his breakfast. I do hope that he will have learned to stay away from cars. All the company has gone away. I thought I was being very efficient by myself in the barn. I set the doors so when I turned Helen out of her stanchion she could march into her run-in, the beefer pen, pushing the door open ahead of herself. But the door stood wide open and Albert, the calf, was gone. My visiting dog, Dakota, sits in the front door of the barn, so I was pretty sure Albert would not have gone past him. But I could not find him out back in the barnyard in the dark. What a worry! After ten minutes he showed up from somewhere out back. Odd that he did not come when called. He is such a chowhound. I won't depend on that door again. Helen gave only 3 ˝ gallons today. I got 10 eggs.

January 1, 2004 New Year's Day: No celebration here last night and nobody here but myself and the dogs, and they managed to give me the slip this morning for about 45 minutes. Speaking of slipping, it snowed just enough to renew the driveway slick. I wore crampons when going to the barn. It was above freezing all day, and drippy. Helen gave only 3 ˝ gallons. I got 11 eggs. These are beautiful eggs. They are quite large and all different colors.

January 2, 2004 Friday: Three inches of new snow fell today, refreshing the landscape. Of course, my front yard and walk to the barn is as slippery as ever with new, dry snow on ice. I pull everything on a plastic sled. Those pesky roosters that did not meet the axe before Christmas keep slipping back in with the hens and wearing them out. I caught one today and loosed him to live in the rafters. I also caught one wild, rafter-dwelling hen, a much harder feat, and put her in with the layers. I ordered a cheese press today off the site that Midge in NZ found. I like the attitude of the guy who makes them, although he needs to know more about raw milk. He also needs to know more about what is wrong with commercial and powdered milk. An array of thoroughly referenced facts can be found in The Untold Story Of Milk, a new book by Ron Schmid. There is a link on my web site. Helen gave 3 ˝ gallons today. I think I got 10 eggs but lost track.

January 3, 2004 Saturday: More weather today. Something was falling out of the sky for most of the day. Sometimes it was nice fluffy snowflakes, sometimes needle-like sleet. Helen had some company. A young couple that buys milk took pictures of her. She was not good at posing. She kept walking towards the camera, so I suppose it will be mostly pictures of her big pink nose. The people that visited are musicians, so I was able to hear my piano played along with a flute. Helen gave about the same today, 3 ˝ gallons. I got eight eggs.

January 5, 2004 Monday: They tell us a severe cold spell is on the way. I am doing more things to improve my chances against frozen pipes. The hen house is in pretty good shape thanks to Abby's patching of draughts and putting a hay layer on the floor above the hen room. I have a heated dog water dish from Walmart for the chickens. I will test-drive it tomorrow to be sure it doesn't pop the breaker to the barn. At a used book store I found The Complete Dairy Foods Cookbook by E. Annie Proulx & Lew Nichols, a wonderful book published in 1982 by Rodale Press. I had never heard of it before. It is stuffed with background information on dairy products and great recipes. She suggests a method of cooking barnyard roosters that I decided to try. You marinate the bird in yogurt overnight to tenderize it. My yogurt strain regrettably expired, so I used clabber. My experience is that these birds cook up just like old rubber boots. I tried her method with one of the cockerels my grandson Rafe and his friend dressed off before Christmas. I was generous with the clabber. Before cooking the bird I rinsed off the clabber because it no longer looked inviting. I browned the bird in a big frying pan before putting it in the oven in a heavy casserole to braise in stock and white wine. It took four hours. But, it finally did turn out tender, but rather dry, much like turkey breast usually is. The flavor was very good. Usually, I just use these birds to make excellent stock and give the meat to the dogs because it's so tough.

January 7, 2004 Wednesday: The promised cold weather began to move in yesterday and all day today it has grown colder. There is about a 30 mph wind blowing under a full moon. I hate to think of any homeless people out in this. I can't even imagine how the wild animals keep warm. The dogs go out and attend to their business pretty briskly. About midday today Max skied across Lake Webb to visit his friend's ice fishing hut. He said the wind was fierce. His little dog Lulu went along wearing what looked like a doggy down parka. Lulu is some sort of lively black Lab mix probably 3 ˝ months old. Helen and Albert, her four-month-old bull calf, are cozy. She has a spacious run-in area below the haymow. Abby, and now me, pitch out the cow patties three times a day. But, still every morning Helen was coming in dirty. One thing about this weather, the manure now freezes solid. It is easier to pitch and doesn't get Helen dirty. I did get in a few hours of writing spread over yesterday and today. But, I seem to spend most of my time tending to animals or the fires. I missed a Grange supper party tonight. As the Pennsylvania Dutch saying goes, the faster I work the behinder I get. Lots of family is headed this direction from Alaska. I have promised myself to get the floors swept before they arrive! My lovely running spring that fills a granite sink in the kitchen froze up at 9pm. No more spring water now until it thaws about May. I filled a lot of jars with water this morning, enough for a couple of weeks of coffee and tea.

January 8, 2004 Thursday: The cold today is the dominant topic. Just about the only topic. It was about -15F this morning with a sharp wind. The sun was brilliant all day as it is much of the time in Maine in winter. Now the full moon is brilliant. The temperature did not get above -10F. I tried to make every move count in the barn, but still it takes 45 minutes night and morning and about 20 minutes midday. Helen stands like a rock with the machine on and I am able to run off and pitch out the manure. Today it was all frozen like rocks. After pitching I closed the door to maintain a bit of warmth inside. In this weather even Helen, who loves to stand in the sun, had no urge to go out. Her production is keeping up. She gave four gallons today. That is good, because more people are coming for milk. The hens did OK too. I got 10 eggs, but a couple of them were frozen. The especially good news is that as of today the barn water has not frozen up. Every day with running water is a gift.

January 9, 2004 Friday: Today was even colder than yesterday, but there was no wind and the sun was brilliant on the snow. I let Helen and Albert out for a while to stand in the sun, but they soon came back in. The vacuum pump for the milking machine made an agonized noise all through morning milking which I figured was due to the cold. I put it on the sled with the milking machine and brought it into the house for the day. The thing weighs a long ton. But it sounded all right tonight, so I guess it just needed warming up. Due no doubt to the cold, Helen gave barely 3 ˝ gallons. This is scarcely worth bothering with the machine, with bringing in the vacuum pump and all the washing up. But, it does reduce my time in the barn. I am expecting my daughter, Sally, from Alaska tomorrow to stay a couple of months. She likes to milk the cow. If she does, it will simplify the dairy chores. Eleven eggs today. The barn water is still running. The night sky is brilliant with millions of stars, so clear.

January 10, 2004 Saturday: It is still very cold. I can't see my thermometer very well but I think it was -15F this morning. I had the milking machine and the vacuum pump in the kitchen overnight, but that did not help. Halfway through milking the air hoses from the two rear teat cups froze up and the cups dropped off. Just the two front quarters got milked by machine. I keep a bucket on standby in my milking room and finished milking by hand. My daughter Sally from Alaska arrived today and she loves to milk. So, she milked this evening. Helen's total for today was not much over 3 ˝ gallons. The milking machine will now be retired for a while. I picked up some alfalfa pellets for Helen yesterday and have begun augmenting her feed with them. She loves them. Only eight eggs today. I thought the chickens seemed a bit gloomy.

January 11, 2004 Sunday: It was just as cold again this morning, but moderated to +6F by nightfall. I did not have frozen pipes to deal with today. I am keeping the heating pad wrapped onto the kitchen plumping. Albert gave us some excitement today. I was in the shower getting ready for a Sunday dinner visit from Max, Mitra and little Shireen and Roshan when I heard Helen mooing loudly. About this time Sally looked out and saw Albert standing in the front yard. She slipped into boots and ran out to stand at the front gate. That is what we always do first so the animal does not go into the road. It cannot be closed in winter because of snow. Bagel Dog came and sat right there too, to help. As soon as I could dress I ran out to open the front door of the barn and get a pan of grain to lure him in. Albert was busy eating an ornamental cedar. No doors or gates had been left open. I finally figured how he got out. Out the back of the barn the manure pile has become as high as the fence. It is frozen solid, providing firm footing. He stood up there and jumped over. When Max got here he neatly arranged a piece of an old, wooden ladder to block off further escapes.

January 12, 2004 Monday: The temperature went up to 20F today and the sun shone. It felt like spring for a while. Helen and Albert stood outside. The chickens ventured out a bit, although they have no use for snow. I was gone much of the day getting my car looked at. My mechanic was so alarmed at the state of my tires that he sent me straight off to get new ones. Now I have them on and feel a lot safer and the car handles better. Sally and I are studying the Murray McMurray poultry catalogue with a view to ordering some chicks. It is hard to decide among the array of enticing chickens. Helen gave 3 ž gallons today. We got 10 eggs. January 13, 2004 Tuesday: For Christmas I was given a butter bell, something I have not previously owned. I tested out its butter keeping properties by putting some top quality home made butter into it, and using some every day. It moved around the kitchen and part of the time was cold enough to become quite hard, what with our cold spell creating draughts. It did seem to me that the butter kept better than it would have done in a covered dish. I feel able to recommend butter bells. Most of the time the butter was indeed of good spreading consistency. Last week I ordered a cheese press from Jack Schmerdling's site that was discovered by Midge, in NZ. The press arrived yesterday and gives promise of being very serviceable. It is neatly engineered and is comprised of solid material. I look forward to trying it. Beginning last Friday I have been giving Helen two large scoops per day of alfalfa pellets. I hoped to round out her diet and perhaps rebuild her milk supply. She has definitely increased by half a gallon. Today she gave within a couple of ounces of four gallons, which she has not done for three weeks. The weather has been cold too, so probably alfalfa gets the credit. Perhaps I will have enough extra milk to make some cheese and try the press. A new storm has arrived and is whirling around the house. We are told to expect very cold weather with it. Late Tuesday night Sally's son, Rafe, his sister, Rosemary, (my grandchildren) and her husband, Nate, arrived following a long trip from Alaska. Sally and I gave them a late dinner. They are active energetic people who spend a lot of time outdoors despite the cold weather.

January 15, 2004 Thursday: Last night the cold wind and Siberian temperatures arrived on schedule. It is still around -10F, but the wind makes it hard to dress warmly enough, especially one's extremities. But, I am getting lots of help from Sally, Rafe, Rosie and Nate. There is plenty of wood next to the stove. The kitchen hot water was frozen again this morning, but Nate soon had it running by using a hair drier. There was bright sun and I left Helen's door open for a while, but I don't believe she went out at all. None of the animals looked particularly happy today. I made the chickens another pudding of whey and stale semolina. They loved this and ate a lot, until if froze solid. I have a rotating line-up of frozen food pans from the chickens and cats thawing out in the house. The barn water is still running. This is most gratifying. Helen's production was down a bit tonight and we got only five eggs. The young people spent much of today removing interior walls from a little house across the river that Sally owns. They said it was lots of fun.

January 16, 2004 Friday: The very cold weather continues. I guess some places in the state were -35F. We were not that cold, but with the strong, icy wind it might as well have been. The snow is drifting. Our old tracks are gone each time we return to the barn. But, the barn water is still running. I could tell Helen had a hard time keeping warm. She ran in at milking time this morning so fast that she nearly lost her footing when she rounded the corner. She loves her grain and alfalfa pellets with wheat germ oil and kelp. (We discovered that she hates pineapple parings. She left them in her pan.) I put down a whole bale of hay for her this morning and it was gone by 11 o'clock. She and Albert, aged 4 ˝ months, got through almost three bales today. Her manure looks normal, so I guess she is not seriously stressed. She gave about four gallons of milk. I got only seven eggs.

January 17, 2004 Saturday: Well, today it happened. The water in the barn is frozen. Things warmed up quite a bit today and I suppose it drove the cold down. Or it could be that the fierce cold wind all last night was responsible. Fortunately, several of the men in the family are here right now and they carried five gallon buckets of water from the kitchen and filled the stock tank. I did not unplug the heat tape or heating pad that is on the above ground part of the system, just in case that does some good. Helen gave four gallons today. I got eleven eggs.

January 18, 2004: Great news! The barn water started up again. I have been trying it every time I go to the barn and this evening was delighted to find it running. I immediately filled the tank, of course. All the dear men went off today in various important directions. I was going to eke Helen along on what was left in her tank until tomorrow when Sally's husband Tom would be able to help with water carrying. Now poor Tom won't have to do it. He spent all day today driving his and Sally's daughter, Rosie, and her husband, Nate, to Bar Harbor, where they have gone to assist Rosie's brother, Rafe, with a construction project. The job is on an off shore island and seven foot seas are predicted for tomorrow. A man with a lobster boat takes them out and they went aboard just as the wind was kicking up. What a blessing cell phones are. We heard from them after a safe arrival. But, Tom is driving home in the dark in a slippery snowstorm and has not arrived yet. In other good news, Helen did not appear to be in heat today. It is the 21st day since she was bred. She did pee during milking and I thought her back end might be slightly puffy. But I am optimistic that she settled. She usually does on the first try. She gave over four gallons. I got only five eggs.

January 19, 2004 Monday: We were not entirely reassured yesterday about Helen. We noticed that she was very friendly this morning. Then after milking instead of butting Albert as usual, she jumped him. He was some surprised. Sigh. As the morning wore on she showed major signs of heat, circling with Albert and even going across the fields through the snow. Of course I called AI right away. He did not arrive until mid afternoon. This was preferable to last time when he dashed over before she was fully in heat. That could be why she did not settle. Or it could have been dud semen. The technician mentioned that the bull used last time, Aerostar, has now been slaughtered. There must have been a reason. AI cost $30 last time and $36 this time. It adds up. The bull this time is Shane's Ringo of Sunny Day. Helen's milk this morning was about half of her usual amount. But she made up for it tonight with a double amount for a grand total over 4 gallons. The barn water was again frozen today. I ordered two dozen baby chicks from Murray McMurray. They should arrive on Feb 2.

January 20, 2004 Tuesday: My barn water thawed out again overnight. I suspect that the heat tape thermostat was getting some warmth on it. Last night I rearranged things so that it stayed good and cold. This morning the water was again running. The light in the Beefer Pen (Helen's run-in) went out and resisted my efforts at fixing. I was not able to muck out in there this evening because it is totally dark by milking time. Helen will be dirty in the morning. I got only five eggs, one of which I managed to break inside my coat pocket. Yuck! Helen gave well over 4 gallons today.

January 21, 2004 Wednesday: Sally and Tom and I went to Farmington today on errands. I bought lots of goodies at the health food store, then went to the gourmet shop and picked up some handmade chicken and cheddar sausages for our supper. When I got home I put the bags on the floor and went to the barn to give hay to Helen and pitch out the accumulations. When I got back, bad news. The dogs had eaten the sausages. I found the wrappings and chased them around whapping them with the papers so they would know what bad dogs they were. Sally, a great dog lover, said they looked pitiful and tried to cheer them up. I patched together our supper from items in the freezer. Helen gave 4 ź gallons. The chickens laid a dozen eggs.

January 22, 2004 Thursday: Darn barn water was frozen again today. Sally carried water. It is not terribly cold, in fact got up to 20F today. Helen gave a bit over 4 gallons. I got 13 eggs.

January 23, 2004 Friday: It is clearly a problem with keeping the thermostat on the heat tape cold enough to activate the tape. I created a foil collar around it to fend off warmth rising from the heat tape and heating pad combo that is on the water pipe. The whole business is wrapped in an old coat and a wool blanket with just the thermostat showing. Some hours later the water again ran. Helen's production was down a bit yesterday and today. It might be something to do with her water. Or it could be the cold. It has dropped sub zero again. One pretty little free-living white rooster is suffering badly from the cold. He is a loner with no friends. He was huddled in the grain room. I have started taking him food and water. This evening he had perked up but he has lost most of his comb to frostbite. Helen gave four gallons today. I got only five eggs.

January 24, 2004 Saturday: It is cold and getting colder (-6F). I am glad to have family here to carry firewood. My son-in-law, Tom, helped me dump and clean Helen's water tank today. It was getting a bit nasty, but I hated to dump it and make an ice rink in the Beefer Pen, Helen's home. She had drunk it very low this morning and I covered the puddle with waste hay. Albert, now six months old, found these proceedings very exciting and ran around in circles, round and round the hay feeder and in and out the door. Poor Albert, there is little excitement in his day. I had another big family dinner here tonight and Martin milked Helen. Albert nudged the door open and came trotting around the main hall, which upset Helen. She did not let down as well as she would have. I served the folks tamale pie. It was a popular favorite back in the Fifties but new cookbooks no longer mention it. Helen's production was down today, what with the cold. I got ten eggs.

January 25, 2004 Sunday: It was -16F this morning, making barn chores a bit painful. But, the sun was shining and Martin and Tom and Bagel Dog went out x-c skiing for almost five hours. When Bagel saw the guys getting ready to go skiing he was so worried about missing the expedition that he would not eat his breakfast. They skied on the river. Bagel had a marvelous time. Sally and I were getting worried by the time they got home all jolly and actually sweating. I made almond lemon bread. Helen gave 5 ź gallons today to make up for not letting down last night. I only got nine eggs. The white rooster that nearly froze to death is feeling perky enough now to perch up on his favorite stall gate. He hops down for corn and warm milk.

January 27, 2004 Tuesday: Helen is doing really well. Her production has crept up to 4 ˝ gallons. She is looking good. The chickens are dropping off, though. Only six eggs today, two of them frozen, and seven yesterday. I made them another big pot of old whole wheat flour and old frozen zucchini cooked in skim milk. They love that. The weather has been too cold to open their door, so they probably need more light and elbow room. I have two floodlights in there, but that is artificial light. A pair of ravens has been visiting the bird feeder. Today I noticed one in the middle of a broad expanse of snow down in my veg garden apparently pecking at the snow. I got my new binoculars that Santa brought and had a look. He had taken the lump of suet from the feeder and was eating it on the ground where he could see in every direction. My vet stopped in today at the same time as Max, who came for milk. Sally and I gave them all lunch. She made the best scones I ever had. She made them with clabber. After lunch Sally and Tom took a walk on the river. The ice is about a foot thick and where not covered by snow is crystal clear.

January 28, 2004 Wednesday: It was a little warmer today. It got up to 20F for a while and the sun shone. I even opened the chicken door for most of the day. I didn't see any hens go out to get their feet cold in the snow, but at least they got a change of air. The pretty white rooster that Sally admires is still alive. I am feeding him by himself in the grain room. One big bruiser of a rooster comes in every day and beats him up. But the rest of the time he sits up on the half-door and hops down to eat his milk and corn. Possibly because it was warmer, Helen drank more water today. My barn tap has continued to run, thank the Lord. Helen gave 4 ź gallons. I got 8 eggs.

January 29, 2004 Thursday: Over two weeks ago, right after my daughter Sally came, I called my old dairyman friend, Albert Bradford, and asked him to let me know when he had a bull calf. Sally said she wanted to start another beefer. Last night Albert called and said they had a new bull calf, a big one. So today Sally and Tom lined my small calf pen with mill felt to stop draughts and generally got the pen ready. Tomorrow morning they will go pick up the calf. His name is to be Sam. I asked Albert how much he charged and he said, "This one is big, it will be $10." I asked for two gallons of colostrum also. Albert has his cows calve in a maternity stall and the calf stays with its mother until it is sold or shipped. So it will already have had colostrum. Helen is giving a bit less than 2 ˝ gallons a day so some of my customers may be disappointed. We lost track of her production today, what with Tom dismantling old cupboards and preparing to put up new ones. I got ten eggs. There was another soft-shelled egg today. I must put out more oyster shell tomorrow. In other news, I made Maple Spare Ribs for dinner using the popular recipe provided by Midge from NZ. These were ribs from my last beef animal. They were a hit of course.

January 30, 2004 Friday: Sally and Tom set out early to fetch Sammy. They stopped on the way and bought a heat lamp. The dairyman sent along 3 gallons of colostrum. Sammy had been with his mother until this morning when they moved her back to the string. Sally and Tom also bought more plastic and swathed Sammy's windows to stop draughts. Sally gave him a bottle around 1pm and he drank every bit in a hurry. We found him a little cardigan sweater to help keep him warm. I fed him this evening. He is exceptionally large and strong. He bunted so hard that he tore the nipple off the bottle and thus lost some of the colostrum. Sally is going to take him some extra later this evening. He has chosen to lie in the far corner, not near the heat lamp. But I don't think he is cold. Helen gave 4 gallons today.

January 31, 2004 Saturday: Helen very sweetly mooed to Sammy both last night and tonight. She wanted to meet him. We let him out for her to sniff. She did not take any prolonged interest but she was kind to him. He wanted to follow her. Sally and I had to push hard to get him back in his little stall. He is ever so cute.

Sally is giving him four feeds a day, three pints each. This is more like the natural feeding pattern. But when he is a little older we will change to three feeds, 2 quarts each, for convenience sake. He loves the extra attention.

Helen gave four gallons again today. I got 10 eggs.

February 1, 2004 Sunday: Today was totally busy. Sally raced out crack-o-dawn with Sammys bottle and the action never stopped. Sammy now gets to race up and down the main hall of the barn following drinking his bottle. Albert can hardly stand to be missing this fun. At lunchtime I fed Sam and then let him into the beefer pen with Helen and Albert. Helen watched while they raced around. Sammy raced right out the door into the sunshine and was very reluctant to come back in. I let them play about 15 minutes. Sammy has wriggled out of his sweater. He has thick plushy fur. Probably I wont put it back on. When I returned Sammy to his stall both Helen and Albert mooed for him to come back. I will give them more time together tomorrow.

The reason I was alone was that first thing this morning I got a call from the Portland mail distribution center saying that my baby chicks were there and would be sent on to Auburn shortly. That is halfway to Coburn Farm. The postal worker urged me to go fetch them at that post office so they would not have to wait until Monday. Sally and Tom graciously offered to go for them. While they were gone I worked on getting their brooder ready. A lot of the pieces are missing and I had to invent new strategies for feeding and watering. When the chicks came I picked them up one by one and made each one drink. Sometimes they dont figure that out by themselves. I gave them a taste of clabber and whey rather than water as this prevents coccidiosis. When not using proper feeders there is a great danger that the chicks will get stuck in their water or clabber. It takes practically nothing to get them bogged down. Even though the clabber was only 1/16 deep in a plastic lid, one did get stuck. Tiny though they are, the others were pecking at him when I found him. We rinsed him with warm water, wrapped him in paper towels and but him on the Aga in a bowl with a strainer over it. An hour later he seemed fine but back in with the others he still seems at a disadvantage, rather disoriented.

The chicks are: 6Auracana, 6 Barred Rock, 6 Black Australorp, 6 Rhode Island Red.

Helen gave something over four gallons and I got 10 eggs.

February 2, 2004 Monday: Another very busy day with all the babies. We accidentally overheated some of Sammys colostrum thus turning it to something like scrambled eggs. So I gave it to the baby chicks. They loved it. So far we have not lost any chicks. We think that having been able to pick them up a day early made a difference in their vigor.

It was up in the 20s today and sunny. We left Sammy in with Helen and Albie most of the day. They make it very clear that they think he should be in with them. Helen looks very worried when he is taken away. She is not affectionate towards him, but acts responsible. Albie just wants a playmate. Sally carried Sammys bottle into the beefer pen tonight to feed him and Albie tried to get the bottle. He immediately remembered bottles. Sally gave him his pan of grain to distract him. After finishing his bottle Sammy went to inspect Albies grain pan. Albie pulled it away with his nose just the way a dog will do with its dish. I took a little grain and put it in Sammys mouth and he ate it.

February 3, 2004 Tuesday: Sammy is spending his second night in with Helen and Albie. Most of the morning he and Albie played outside in the sunshine. I put more hay down about 11am to make Albie come in and eat so that Sammy could drink his bottle and get a nap. Helen keeps an eye on him all the time. He is learning to be a cow.

Helens production has dropped back to four gallons. I dont know why. The weather has been in the teens and low twenties for several days so I cant blame the cold.

My son-in-law, Tom, has made beautiful new kitchen cabinets that suit the period of the house. There were no cabinets when we moved in. Later I got some very inexpensive composite wood cupboards in the Seventies style. Now these are going to become bookshelves. I am very happy about this kitchen improvement, which started in October when my daughter-in-law Amy and son Bret from Alaska put in a restaurant sink and new dishwasher. This was a great leap forward in efficiency for dairy wash-up. Next step: ceramic tile over the sink. When it is all done Ill post a picture. It will be so beautiful.

February 4, 2004 Wednesday: Something unusual is happening in my little goldfish pond. Some source of turbulence has created a circle of open water. The rest of the pond has ice about a foot deep. All the goldfish are huddled in this bit of open water. We gave them some wheat germ. I was not at all sure what they would eat or even if they are hungry.

The new chicks are doing fine. I have not lost any. They are getting tiny wing feathers. I was able to buy them some chick food today. I got the unmedicated kind.

February 5, 2004 Thursday: It is amazing how much Sammy enjoys playing with Albie. They run around and around the feeder and out the door into the snow and back again. Neither wants to stop. Sammy is a strong fellow for one week old. I already see prominent thigh muscles. How awful it must be for veal calves that never get to run.

Four gallons today. Nine eggs.

February 6, 2004 Friday: Next Monday will be 21 days since Helen was bred. Today, the 18th day, she gave me a lot of worry and I am still not sure if I saw signs of heat. She led baby Sammy all the way around the far side of the barn through a snowstorm so she could stare at the kitchen window and bellow. She only mooed a couple of times, but this is definitely worrisome. Sally heard her and put her boots on and made Sammy come back in. Helen followed. We witnessed no more odd behavior.

Helen gave 4 ź gallons today. There were 10 eggs.

February 8, 2004 Sunday:

My granddaughter, Rosie, is so fond of walking and hiking that she completely wore out Bagel! On her last walk of the day, when invited to come along, he just laid his head on her husband Nate's knee! When she got back she made a great scallop dish for our dinner. Sally made a blueberry pie and all I had to do was make a salad dressing.

Helen is losing weight. I have increased her alfalfa to two scoops twice a day. Her hair is so plushy it is hard to see her bones, but they are showing. She gave about 4 ˝ gallons today. Sammy races around like mad playing with Albie. He gets 1 ˝ gallons a day. I also have a new milk customer, someone to whom I lent Ron Schmid's book. So, I may not be making cheese right away.

The beautiful white rooster that I was giving special care to has perked up again and joined up with the other free-living roosters. I chucked two more cockerels out from among the layers. We will have to dress off some more soon.

My baby chicks are doing well. I have not lost any so far. They all have wing feathers now and their necks are getting longer.

It was back down to zero today with a vicious wind. Nobody likes this weather.

February 9, 2004 Monday:

Today started out at -10F. Putting out hay this morning was cold work. I fluff it out to reduce waste in my feeder. I have to do this with bare hands. Later it warmed up to 30F with bright sun.

Today is the 21st day since Helen was bred. There were no signs of heat. But, after her half hour of carrying on last Friday I can't have full confidence she has settled.

All my company has departed except Sally. She will be here through most of March. She and I have both been impressed by how careful Helen and Albie are of Sammy, now 16 days old. When Helen returns to the Beefer Pen after milking she goes down a narrow corridor to a door that she pushes open with her head. There is a hole in the door and Sammy is usually peeking through. Helen is very careful how she opens this door so that she gently pushes Sammy back. He is not her own calf, so I find this to be evidence of a deliberately gentle attitude towards baby calves. She does not cut Albie much slack if he is in her way. He is her own calf, but is now 6 months old and close to her size. Albie is also careful of Sammy. Tonight when Sally tried to push that door open to take Albie his grain and Sammy his bottle, Albie was stubborn because he knew she had his pan of grain. Sally could not see Sammy, so she pushed really hard on the door and Albie fell off the ramp. Sammy was under him. Albie made a great effort not to step on Sammy, and didn't. So he too knows to be gentle with babies.

February 10, 2004 Tuesday:

I had the library order for me the new book by Deepak Chopra, The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire. He urges us to respect the significance of coincidences as being divine messages or miracles. Did I ever have one today! For unknown reasons, but I think due to some worries I have been having, suddenly today about 4pm I was afflicted with terrible hives. This has happened to me before and it is scary. My blood pressure goes up, my heart pounds, and I am covered with bumps that itch insanely. As they came on I rustled up Benadryl tablets and Sally found an OTC cortisone salve, but after an hour nothing had helped. I got into my nightie and sat on the couch scratching myself using a bath brush with Teutonic bristles. I was thinking seriously of rolling in the snow, and I said to Sally that I guessed I'd have to ask her to take over for me in the barn tonight. She no more than left with the buckets than I felt an urge to check by email. There was a letter from Sally's son Gabe, my grandson, now a grad student in Bloomington, Indiana. Gabe writes rarely, but on the screen was a brief email saying, apropos of nothing, that a friend of his from Tajikistan, says that there they treat skin ailments with fish oil. I went directly for my bottle of cod liver oil, took it to the bathroom, and slathered it everywhere I could reach (the hives were all over me). Instant relief! Not gradual, but Right Now. Not only no more hives, but instead of feeling ill and shaky I felt euphoric. Like the woman in the bible who, upon being raised from the dead, "got up and began serving her family", I went out and put potatoes in the oven, marinated some venison, and made a salad. Pass the word.

Of course now I smell pretty awful and must shower and wash my bathrobe.

Helen gave a bit over 4.5 gallons today. There were 9 eggs.

February 11, 2004 Wednesday:

We are all fine today, myself included. During noon chores the wind was in a different quarter than usual and pushed open the door that allows Helen up to where she gets milked. I was busily mucking out while she led a parade up into the barn. After a nice look around, she agreed to go back where she belongs. But Albert, instead of following her properly, made a dive through an opening into another stall. To do this he had to jump up about 3 feet and he landed with his feet in a manger inside. There he hung, rocking on his chest, stuck like Pooh Bear. I had to go around and push him back out. What a silly boy.

Helen gave close to 5 gallons today. But there were only six eggs. I think the hens miss Abby's daily ministrations to their comfort.

February 13, 2004 Friday:

It was mild but overcast today. Helen and the calves spent part of the day outdoors. I have left their outer door open at night for two nights. We are told to expect severe cold again tomorrow night, darn it.

Some children came to visit the animals today. Helen, Albert and Sammy were well behaved and friendly. The children also were quiet and gentle, so it was a nice little visit. Their grandparents have started to buy milk.

Helen gave over 4 ˝ gallons today. I got 9 eggs.

I picked up another box of matching tiles and borrowed a tile cutter. Sally cut the tiles and tiled the countertop this afternoon. It looks great. For this surface I ordered matching grout. I might have done this before, but I did not know colored grout existed. Until the grout comes I can't put anything on the tiles. This is the first time the countertop has ever been devoid of stuff.

February 14, 2004 Saturday, Valentine's Day: The occasion was marked only by Sally and I indulging ourselves in some elegant caramels. With the help of Helena who was visiting, I took pictures unassisted with my digital camera, loaded them into the computer and even mailed some off. I sat in the cold barn with my gloves off waiting for Sammy and Albie to pose. I could have had any number of shots of Albie's nose. The one I finally got of Sammy has eye glare. Sally let out Sammy's collar for the second time. He is growing very fast. I decided to carry on with grey grout on the countertop. It turns out that colored grout is prohibitively expensive. Sally grouted the tiles and now the work is done and looks elegant. Helen gave 4 ź gallons. I got 9 eggs.

February 15, 2004 Sunday: Helen has to walk up a little ramp when she comes in to be milked. Like most animals I have seen, she usually tries to step up the side of it rather than stepping onto it from its lowest point. Sally noticed that when she steps up she narrowly misses stepping on her teat. When cows do this, and it is a common injury, it is just awful both for the cow and the milker. Tomorrow I will figure out some way to prevent her stepping up the side. Abby had piled sand in there but it is mostly trodden away. I can't pile sand now because everything is frozen. Helen gave 4 ź gallons today. I got 9 eggs. The chicks are growing fast.

February 16, 2004 Monday: I made spaghetti tonight for Sally, son Mark and Hailey, 11, and Max and Mitra's daughters, Shireen, 8, and Roshan, 5. I topped it with a grated Romano-type cheese that I made last summer. I've had it aging on a high shelf in the kitchen near the Aga. I didn't set out to make a dry cheese, it just turned out hard as a rock and I never waxed it. So, far as I can tell it is perfectly good grating cheese. It tastes fine.

February 17, 2004 Tuesday: It was -15F this morning. Cold like that dominates one's day. But, I am happy to report my barn water continues to run. The sun was shining and the girls dragged Mark out for a walk on the river. They are a warm-blooded lot. They came back carrying their coats. They took Bagel along, but left old Dakota, my cousin's dog that I am keeping while she is in Florida. After what we thought was a safe interval we let him out. He figured out where they were and took a shortcut over the bank by the mailbox. That is so steep it is nearly a cliff. Shireen saw him from down by the bridge and shouted, "Look!" They all saw him somersault his way down, poor old thing. By the time he reached the family he was so tired he subsided in a heap. Mark thought he was a goner. But he revived and had fun. Helen ignored the cold and gave 4 ˝ gallons today. I got a dozen eggs.

February 19, 2004 Thursday: Yesterday I drove down to Martin's house for a sleepover and dinner out. Mark, Hailey, granddaughter Helena and Martins girlfriend, Amy joined us for dinner at a Japanese restaurant where I ate my fill of sushi. I also got a tour of Martin's plant where they make CorrectDeck extruded lumber. I had not been down to see it since its first year of production. It is a vast hive of activity. It also smells better than most manufacturing plants, since their principle raw material is sawdust. Before leaving the farm I did my noon barn chores. Sally usually goes first and feeds Sammy his bottle and throws down hay. Then I go out at my leisure and fill the stock tank and muck out. This time Sally didn't put down the hay, and I, perhaps dreaming of my outing, also forgot the hay. As I walked back to the house Helen started mooing mournfully. This is so unusual that I paid attention. Yipes! I forgot her hay! She was reminding me, and kept up her mooing until she heard me re-enter the barn. I got home about noon today. It was bright and sunny and warm enough for the eves to be dripping. This morning all three cows, perhaps feeling a touch of spring fever, had marched through the snow around to the north side of the barn where they have a view of the house. Sally noticed that Albert was making for the fence along the road where the drifts are so deep he might easily have hopped over. She called him back and when she had all of them back to the barn she tied a ladder across the gate. There is no hope of closing the gate until the snow is gone. Helen's production today was way down, a bit under four gallons. There were 10 eggs.

February 20, 2004 Friday: It was so warm today that the eves dripped sufficiently behind the barn to make puddles big enough for cows to drink. There were tracks all about, so I hope Helen drank from these puddles too. Cows seem to prefer ground water if it is clear. She did not drink the water in her tank. This is odd. Neither Sally nor I could see or smell anything wrong with it. She also ate only about half of her hay and her production today was way down, only 3 ˝ gallons. She gobbled her grain. This is puzzling. Maybe it is spring fever.

February 21, 2004 Saturday: We continue to be puzzled as to why Helen's production is dropping. She has become picky with her hay. This morning I put it outside in the lean-to for a change and she ate it all. She is drinking her water and gobbling her grain. So, I just don't know. Today she gave only 3 ˝ gallons. Fortunately Sammy is eating hay quite well and is starting to eat grain. He has been slow to get going on grain because of logistical problems in giving it to him. They are in a group living situation. At milking time Sally puts Helen in her stanchion, then takes a pan of grain to Albert and a bottle to Sammy. After finishing his bottle, Sammy begins attacking Albie's ear and getting spit all over it. For the last six feedings I have been going in and stuffing grain in Sammy's mouth, after which he went straight for the ear. But I could tell he was enjoying the grain, and tonight instead of the ear he crowded in for Albie's grain. Hurrah! Now we will cut out one feeding, or just give him skim. Last week we were worrying about how to prevent Helen risking stepping on her teat as she comes up the indoor ramp. I wanted to build up the floor level on each side, since she never comes up the low end. Pondering the matter, I realized that the only type of building material available to me at this time of year is manure. So for three days instead of carrying it outside I piled it against the ramp. It mostly freezes. The plan is working well. Only six eggs today. The baby chicks are doing well. I lost only one. That was early on when one of the light bulbs that provide heat went out and they piled up under the other one, crushing one chick.

February 22, 2004 Sunday: Helen's production is still way down. The hens only laid 5 eggs. Albert seemed almost indifferent to his lovely grain. But, I was encouraged to see Helen eating hay when I left her. She has been eating very little of it. Her appetite for grain is undiminished. I'm still voting for Spring Fever as the cause. The tomcats clearly think it is spring. One bantam went broody, but I succeeded in discouraging her from setting. For two days now the temp has stayed in the 30's. It snowed all last night and today, but nobody has plowed me out. With it this warm weather a lot of it will melt.

February 24, 2004 Tuesday: The big excitement today came when we moved the chicks to their new home in the barn. Sally nailed up some more insulation in the stall that she had prepared for Sammy. He stayed in barely two days. We transported the chicks in a cat carrier and put them in a large chicken coop made of wood and chicken wire. They have more room than formerly, but seemed to fill the space immediately. They have a heat lamp for warmth. One of the chicks has a deformity that makes it bend its head down onto its chest. It manages to eat and drink, but not efficiently and it is smaller than the others. Helen's production is rising again. Perhaps due to more alfalfa pellets, some different hay that I bought, carrots, apples or warmer weather, who knows. Anyway, she was back up to four gallons today. I have more people all the time wanting milk. I don't get ahead enough to make butter and have been having to buy it. My hay man called to say he has fifty bales of second cut for me. I got nine eggs today.

February 25, 2004 Wednesday: Another cold morning followed by a warm day. I suppose the sap is running fine in the maple trees. Helen's production has picked up. She gave 4 ź gallons today. The chicks in the barn are doing fine, although I had to reposition their water closer to the heat lamp. It is one of those siphon type water dispensers and was frozen up this morning. I got nine eggs again today. Sally and I went on an expedition to Auburn so she could buy fabric and we could shop at Goodwill. We also visited Nezinscott Farm, an organic CSA that also offers dairy products and beef, lamb and pork. They are doing a fine job there. They have a comprehensive store.

February 26, 2004 Thursday: Yet another day when I did not win the Megabucks. My consolation: an amazing sky. It was crystal clear cloudless blue. This is rare in Maine. We mostly have lots of fluffy clouds. This reminded me of an Arizona sky. Helen gave four gallons today. I got 10 eggs. My little chicks, now about 8" tall, seem happy in their new quarters in the barn. The chick with the bent over neck seems a little better. It manages to eat somehow. It eats when the others are resting. The white rooster that nearly died last month is now in good health. He stays by himself in the grain room, which has a half-door so he can fly out if he wants to. He knows he will get a handful of grain for his very own. He has a long tail like a pheasant, but curved.

February 27, 2004 Friday: Once again today the sky was perfectly clear. Others who live where the sky is true blue, with or without fluffy clouds floating past, may be interested to know that in California's Bay Area, in Silicon Valley, the sky is never clear like this unless there have been several days of rain. It might then be clear for one day. For the first time today I actually caught Sammy in the act of chewing his cud. I know he must have been cudding for a while because I see him eating hay. But, he is people-oriented and when he hears anyone coming he is on his feet and standing at the door, in case someone is bringing him a bottle. At noon today when I was mucking out he and Albert were out baking in the sun in the lean-to and I saw him before he saw me. It is always such a pleasure to see a calf ruminate. It means they have really joined the world of Cow. He is about a month old now. We lost track of Helen's production today but it was over four gallons. I got only six eggs.

February 28, 2004 Saturday: The secondary stock watering system underneath my Buttery (summer kitchen) spontaneously started running today. It was frozen up all winter and I had left one of the valves slightly on. I think this means spring is coming. We have had three warm days in a row with much dripping from the eves. The manure pile out the back door of the barn where I throw the cleanings every day has gotten way high. Parts of it are higher than my head. That will be a big job for the tractor next summer. The chick with the deformed neck didn't make it. It got chilled yesterday, off by itself and had a lot of trouble eating. Poor little thing. It was one of the Auracanas. Helen's production is back up to 4 ˝ gallons. But only six eggs.

February 29, 2004 Sunday: I've decided that probably the reason my chickens are dropping off in production is that it has been more than two weeks since I have had any skim milk to make clabber for them. I have more milk customers, so don't get enough ahead on milk to skim for butter. I have bought most of my butter recently. The chicks already looked cramped in their coop in the cozy barn stall, so today I turned it on its side and released them. They still have their heat lamp, but now can stroll around and scratch properly. They took to freedom immediately. I made enough clabber at least for the chicks. Sally grabbed two roosters and dressed them off. She was mighty speedy and efficient. One she plucked neatly, the other she skinned rather than await more hot water for dipping. She is putting them in the freezer right now. She called up her youngest son at college so he could hear all about it and be properly impressed. It was he and a friend who dressed off nine roosters just before Christmas. Sally and I took a walk across to her field. It is across the river from my pastures. The snow is still deep in places, but five days of weather above freezing has compacted it a lot and made it mushy. About the only signs of spring were a few areas of bare ground among the trees and a brightening of the yellow branches of my weeping willow.

March 1, 2004 Monday: Today was even warmer, up to 40F. Helen gave 4 ž gallons today. I guess she likes the warmer weather. I unplugged the layer's water warmer and the heating pad on the water faucet. That should save a little on the electric bill. Sally ordinarily gives Sammy a noon bottle. She was away all day and I skipped it. He mooed piteously when he heard me in the barn. Then he was way over excited when Sally gave him his evening bottle and danced all around so she could barely hold onto it. I attended the Carthage Town Meeting this evening. The democratic process was subverted by a contentious group who packed the meeting, drowning out discussion and voting down a totally bland and (one would have supposed) utterly non-threatening town plan. It was my impression that none of the dissidents had even read the thing, which was mostly pictures. I attended stupifyingly boring planning meetings for two years in hopes that Carthage might be the first town in the nation (so far as I can discover) to include farmland protection in its initial plan. No such wording made it into the plan. In the mind of a town planning specialist (one was supplied by the state) farmland does not exist. They speak only of "views". "Views" apparently enhance property values in a town, irrespective of whether you own the view or merely overlook it.

March 2, 2004 Tuesday: Sally worked out in the North Field today on fencing. We have the gateway to that field blocked off with a ladder (the gate itself is frozen open) to prevent the cows from going out there. But, Sammy slipped through to join her. Helen couldn't see him and she put up an awful fuss until he came back. Even though he is not her calf and she does not feed him, she feels very responsible, and has from the first day he arrived. She is in charge of calves and that's that! It was wonderfully warm and sunny today. It was over 40F. Helen gave 4 gallons. I got 8 eggs.

March 3, 2004: Sally's daughter, Rosemary, my granddaughter, and her husband Nate are here for a few days. They are putting up a garden shed for me. Rosemary's brother Rafe, my grandson, made the foundation and floor a year ago, but wasn't able to finish the job. Now it is framed up and ready for a plywood roof, to be followed by shingles. What a joy it will be to have it. This evening after milking Sally dressed off another rooster. This one is pretty good sized. I made soup for dinner from one of the roosters she dressed off last week, so this one went into the freezer. Helen gave 4 ź gallons today. There were only six eggs. The chicks don't seem to like their new feed very well.

March 4, 2004 Thursday: The chicks seemed more cheerful today and ate about half of their food. They are drinking their water just fine. I change it every day. With no mother to teach them to scratch, they don't scratch at all. The brooder they were in for the first few weeks had a hardware cloth floor that discouraged scratching. No doubt they will pick it up later. Chicks raised by a hen do everything their mother does and those little bantams scratch like crazy. It is so cute to see three-day-old chicks popping up and down scratching. They almost tip over backwards. Sally worked on fencing again today. It was damp and overcast, but not very cold. My front yard and driveway are turning to mud. Two people became briefly stuck and made horrible great ruts. Sammy didn't get much milk today. Sally watered his bottle way down. Even so, Helen's four gallons is about gone every day. Sammy likes the new hay. He was munching it right down. His manure has the mature form. Rosemary and Nate made great progress on the garden cottage. I believe it will be too fine to call a tool shed. I had plywood delivered for the roof. I think about all that remains to be done is nail on the shingles.

March 5, 2004 Friday: When out walking this morning after breakfast, Sally found the carcass of a deer lying on the river ice. It had been killed early this morning. It was not there yesterday evening when she took that same walk. It was a yearling doe and appeared to have been killed by two dogs. Bagel was not involved. He was not away from the yard this morning. But I noticed him staring down towards the river for a long time, perhaps 45 minutes. I called the animal control officer and told him about it, in case there are dogs around here that need to be controlled. When I was in with the hens I left the door open behind me and several of the Black Australorp crosses escaped. They are half bantam and hate confinement. As it happens they are my best layers too. I managed to catch one after dark and my goodness how she squawked. For lunch I gave Helen her old hay. She just stood there for a good ten minutes before she deigned to eat it. When Sally was giving Sammy his evening bottle she delayed a bit when getting it positioned. Sammy grabbed the nipple and bunted her violently in the stomach with the bottle. She should barely eat dinner as a result. When bottle feeding a calf, one should always hold the bottle so it is aimed to one side. No production response so far from Helen. She gave 4 ź gallons. I only got three eggs. I scattered a nice bale of hay around the floor in the laying hens room in hopes of putting them back in the mood to lay. Nate worked all day on the garden shed despite rain and sleet. It is about ž shingled now.

March 6, 2004 Saturday: A misty, moisty day here with considerable thawing. It was 40F when I got up this morning. Nate was down putting shingles on the garden shed before breakfast. Later, he and Rosie and their friends, who arrived last night, drove to the foot of Tumbledown Mountain and hiked up most of it. The snow got too deep to walk in as they neared the top. Rosie, who is very small, voted to turn back. They all declared that they had a fine time, but the men later admitted that they were relieved that Rosie spoke up.

During the afternoon Nate finished the shingling and put on the ridge cap. He did not have time to build the shelves, but the little house is a charming sight. The footprint is 5' by 12'.

The hens got back in the mood today and I got ten eggs. Four were from the hens that are unconfined.

Sally worked some more on fencing. I hope to help her tomorrow. Helen wants badly to get into the North Pasture even though it is covered with snow. It is bordered by warm pine trees that form a sun trap. She loves to go and stand there in the spring and fall.

Sally finished plying the skein of white wool that she wishes to dye using the Bull's Blood beets that I grew last summer for the purpose. The wool was from Valentine, one of the Jacob sheep we had here for several years. She had taken the wool back to Alaska and mordanted it before bringing it back here to wash, card and spin. There are only a few beets, but I also saved their brilliant red tops in the freezer.

Helen gave 4 ˝ gallons today.

March 7, 2004 Sunday: When walking over the snow covered field to where she is fencing, Sally nearly stepped on a barred owl crouched in the path. An owl is dangerous, so she was not sure what to do about it, but kept glancing back that way while she worked. Crows flew down to harry it. A little later she returned to the house and told us about it. Helena, my granddaughter who is visiting this weekend, went down to see it and brought it back wrapped in her down vest. We put it into a basket, but it seemed near death and did indeed die quite soon. The poor thing weighed almost nothing. I believe it starved to death. It had no visible injury.

Freddy, the grizzled old black tomcat does have damage. He has several areas that are torn and bleeding. Sally heard fighting all last night. I guess he is losing the turf war to some young whippersnappers. Helena brought him a plate of canned food.

Helen gave 4 ˝ gallons today but the chickens reverted to only five eggs.

I caught another rooster and put him in a cat carrier. Sally plans to dress him off in the morning.

March 8, 2004 Monday: My Grandson, Rafe, arrived from college. He is just here for a couple of days, then off to Patagonia. Perhaps he will have time to complete some details on the garden shed. It has turned cold again and it snowed for a couple of hours this morning. I had to plug the stock water heater in again. Sally worked for several hours on fencing. There is always more to do. She dressed off that rooster, but I believe there are about six more we ought to put in the freezer.

Helen gave 4 ˝ gallons today and I got seven eggs. The young chickens are looking pretty good.

March 10, 2004 Wednesday: The roosters are getting very nervous and hard to catch. Sally made a trap in the corner of the milking room where they tend to flee. Now the corner has a lot of chicken wire in it and works like a fish trap. She caught another one today and dressed it off. I stewed one yesterday and made curried coconut and chicken soup. First I cooked short grain rice in chicken stock. I used fresh coconut that I ground in my food processor. I sautéed leeks, anise (fennel) and garlic and curry powder in butter and peanut oil, added lovely chicken stock with rice, coconut and the chopped white meat, Tabasco sauce, and last of all, some cream.

This afternoon was spent mostly at the dentist and I did not find out until after dark that Rafe had built shelves into my new garden shed. He used some very old pine boards from the demolition project Sally and her family undertook on the interior of the little house she owns across the river. I will go down crack-o-dawn tomorrow and admire it. Rafe will be leaving early for a month of travel.

Helen gave 4 ź gallons today. I only got 5 eggs. We are going to start dressing off the old hens once the extra roosters are in the freezer.

March 11, 2004 Thursday: We waved goodbye this morning to Rafe. After chores, Sally and I walked all around the fence line, ending with a visit to the new garden shed to admire the shelves. It was a beautiful morning, but we need a lot more like it to melt the snow. The view across the pastures is still entirely white although there are patches of brown grass around the trees and fence posts. Helen led her little tribe out to try to graze. She is crazy to start grazing. That is what their teeth and jaw and whole habit of life is designed for. They just love the sensation of tearing off grass.

Helen gave 4 ź gallons today. I got six eggs.

Sally captured and dressed off another rooster. It was especially nice looking with no pinfeathers. But, now all the birds flee when they see her coming.

March 12, 2004 Friday: Bagel had a great time down in the woods with Sally this afternoon where she is working on fencing. The weather was excellent. We were pleased to see that sufficient thawing has occurred, so that one of the vernal ponds has appeared. But, this evening a storm is starting, so I shut the cows in.

We weight taped Helen and Sammy. Helen was 1060 lb, a loss from last fall of almost 50 lbs. I can see several ribs despite her heavy fur. Sammy weighs 150 lb. He was 50 lb at birth, so that is an average gain of about 2 lb/day. Not great, but not too bad for a Jersey that is bottle fed. Sally and I need to set him up with a teat bucket. He is getting too violent to be bottle fed much longer. He eats grain with Albert, but doesn't get enough to keep him going.

These are the new chicks emerging from their brooder.

March 13, 2004 Saturday: Helen gave us almost 4 ž gallons today. Perhaps she is finally responding to the new hay. Time will tell. The hens did better too. I got 10 eggs.

Working together, Sally and I trapped the remaining rooster we had decided to dress off. Sally has a way of chopping them single handedly. She wraps the bird several times around with hay string and ties its wings down. This guy was a fighter and escaped while wrapped in string. I saw him later pecking around the manure pile with a string still around one leg and dragging. I couldn't get anywhere near him to pull it off. Probably he shed it later. I looked all around inside and out of the barn and did not see him. I expect he is in the rafters.

March 14, 2004 Sunday: When Sally went out at seven to milk Helen she found the barn on fire. It was in the room with the chicks. She saw smoke as soon as she walked in. Flames were several feet high in the corner where the heat lamp is. As she opened the door to look, the flames instantly leapt higher. The extra air may have caused this, but the fire was already moving fast. She could not immediately see the fire extinguisher, so ran back to the house for one. I handed her one from the kitchen and called 911. The fire truck was here within 10 minutes but Sally had already stopped the blaze. The men determined that fire was still burning under the floor. They ripped out boards and gushed water on it from the pumper for 15 or 20 minutes. The giant beams that support the barn underneath are charred. The obvious culprit, the heat lamp, was still intact, but the bulb was melted. The fire was coming up from below. There is no wiring under there. It must have been spontaneous combustion caused by warm light and warm chicks on damp hay and manure.

None of the chicks perished. They spent the day in the Pit Stall awaiting rebuilding of their quarters. I don't know how we will keep them warm. The power to the barn is gone. This is very odd because none of the wiring was damaged. Last night the light in the haymow kept going out. So, perhaps the electrical problem is a coincidence. I called Martin about it and he told me that a friend of his in Bryant Pond with a very old house recently had a fire and was told that old dry wood had a combustion point of only 250F when exposed to continuous heat. That is not hot enough to burn piecrust.

A nice lady showed up because of her fear that animals were endangered. She has three sheep as pets, but has no use for the wool. She drove back later and brought three bags of wool to Sally.

While the firemen were here Helen did a lot of mooing. She did not know what was a going on. She just wanted to be milked. In fact, she did a lot of mooing today. It as a sunny spring like day and the two calves ran way across the fields to the river. She did not want to go, and did not want them to go either. So, she mooed her head off until they came back.

About two more minutes and it would have been impossible to save the barn. Everything in that barn is dry as toast and the fire was moving fast. It was so miraculous that it did not happen during the night. All the dear animals would have been lost and of course a 150 year old barn and 1950 Minneapolis Moline tractor. I have a breakaway closure on the outer door to where the cows stay and could easily force it open if a fire were to threaten them while I was aware of it. At night they would not have a chance. I am going to see if there is some kind of fire alarm for the barn that rings inside the house.

All morning Sally and I worked on making a new place for the chicks. The nice lady and one of the firemen shooed all the chicks into a coop where they spent the day. Then Martin arrived about 1:30 to help, and a good thing too. Sally and I were very tired and running out of ideas. He completed a nice new plywood and wire corner for them in the grain room. Max and the little girls came along later to help too.

March 15, 2004 Monday: My vet came today. I showed him the ugly, still sodden, damage in the barn. He was suitably shocked. Then we brought Sammy in and he anesthetized him. He cut and removed his horn buds with an electric disbudding iron. Sammy took a couple of hours to come around, but was ready for his supper. The incisions look very neat.

Sally worked on fencing some more. The job is beginning to look overwhelming and she fears she cannot finish it before she must leave.

March 17, 2004 Wednesday: I sent in my seed order today to Johnny's Selected Seeds. My earlier one to Thompson & Morgan already came. I am also going to send for a few things from Seeds Of Change. It is not too Springy at present. It has gotten colder every day now for five days. We are told to expect Zero tonight and tomorrow night. Sally continues to work on the fence for a couple of hours a day. Where there are no trees to attach too she just has to prop it. At this time of year one cannot dig postholes. Although it is cold, there is a lot of bright sun. The storm that hit much of the northeast veered out to sea. All we got was an inch of snow.

Yesterday there were fresh moose tracks along the road. We hope not to meet one. Sally says she would prefer to meet a grizzly bear or wolf. Sammy shows no evidence of lingering discomfort from his operations. He is as bouncy as ever. Helen gave 4 ˝ gallons today. I got eight eggs.

March 18, 2004 Thursday: It was only down to 15F this morning, but the pullets looked unhappy. Their water was frozen and they no longer have a heat lamp. We put more plastic around their room. It is just a sort of plywood and chicken wire frame inside the grain room.

Sally and I took a tour around the pastures so I could see how the fencing is coming. We tried to find the property line stake, but were unsuccessful. The brook and river that bound the west end of the farm has flooded badly into the woods and torn out many trees and damaged the banks. It has retreated now and all the land is frozen solid. A great deal of sand and slash has washed in. This is a result of the appalling clear cutting that is occurring in the surrounding hills.

Enough of the fence is repaired so that we were able to let Helen into the North Field. She went straight over to the pines where she loves to stand in the sun.

She gave 4 ź gallons today. I got nine eggs.

March 19, 2004 Friday: Spring is definitely coming. The skunks are awake. The barn smells very strongly. The skunk smell has overcome the lingering smell of the fire.

Sally and I took a walk around her field. She has 17 acres right across the river from me.

We are in a cold, cloudy weather pattern that may last another week. It was 15F this morning and did not get above 30F all day. Even so, the snow has melted off showing big patches of lawn and the river is half open.

Helen gave 4 ź gallons. Thee were nine eggs.

The photo below shows the afternoon sun reflecting off a vernal pool in the field below the house. These pools form in spring as the melt water stands on the ice and frozen ground.

March 21, 2004 Sunday: Last night it snowed four new inches of heavy wet snow. The old snow was about gone around the house. When I let out my cat, Gingerbread, he ran to exit the garage and he came to the snow, put on his brakes and stared. I could just see him thinking, "Oh, no, more snow. I thought spring was here!"

It was sunny most of the day and much of the new snow was gone by mid afternoon. Sally did more fencing and has turned in her tools. She says there is nothing more to be done until the ground thaws and I can buy and set more posts. Max will install these.

4 ˝ gallons of milk today and eight eggs.

March 22, 2004 Monday: Spring turned out to be a false rumor. It was 14F this morning with an icy, face-slicing wind. My poor pullets, now living without a heat lamp, had frozen water. Actually, the cold doesn't seem to be bothering them much. They aren't bunching. Neither do they appear to be growing. Better times are coming, surely.

Sally is now going around giving TLC to trees, thinning here, lopping there, putting flagging tape on for reminders to transplant small oaks and pines when the ground is no longer frozen. We walked around her field, scarves over faces, and observed that high above the river on her side a lot of trees had been cut by a beaver last year. You can see where they are chewed off in their unmistakable pattern. Perhaps it was a young beaver-in-training, as they seemed to be random choices and some only partly chewed.

March 23, 2004 Tuesday: It is still cold and everybody is complaining. We are no longer of a mind to be good sports about it, although Sally keeps explaining that everything is beautiful. I should have named her Pollyanna. She is madly working on thinning and tying up little trees over at her place. She takes Bagel out every day to play around and watch. I believe he now thinks he is her dog. I call him to come and he looks at her to see if he really should.

The pullets look happier today. I made them a pan of clabber and they ate every bit.

I had an electrician out to see about rewiring the barn.

Helen gave 4 /2 gallons today and I got ten eggs.

March 24, 2004 Wednesday: The hose I have to connect up every day in the barn to water the cows did not have to be defrosted before I could use it. This means it was above freezing all day. Sally and I walked around the fields and the crust continued to hold me. So, things still have a way to go. The river is mostly open. Great ice floes a foot thick are perched here and there on the rocks.

I found what appears to be a safe heater to set up with the pullets. They seem contented. Now let's hope they will put some energy into growing instead of just keeping warm.

I saw Sammy grazing on a little green fuzz of grass coming up in some spots where the snow has melted. A little guy can graze shorter grass. Helen didn't even bother to try. She amuses herself for a little while every day eating dead grass from last year.

She gave almost 4 ˝ gallons today. I got 8 eggs.

March 25, 2004 Thursday: Today was lo-o-ng. Sally and I arose at 3AM and Max arrived soon after to drive Sally to the airport. She is on her way back to Alaska. I used the milking machine on Helen today and got the usual amount 4 ź gallons. The pressure gauge is misbehaving, so I have to keep my finger on it, but Helen didn't move a foot. My dentist fitted me in for repair of a tooth that broke on Tuesday. Root canal. Pinned together tooth. He said there wasn't much left of that tooth and the repair might not last. He suggested I avoid raw carrots. Innumerable other things happened today also and I am numb. I haven't even got today's mail opened. I'm going to bed.

I got ten eggs. One good thing happened: I was way ahead on milk (started a lactic cheese and clabber) and people came and bought all the milk.

March 26, 2004 Friday: Another long densely packed day, but at least my mouth isn't sore and the weather has warmed considerably. It got almost up to 50F today and was very foggy. I'd say the fields are now about half clear of snow. My back is feeling the effort of carrying the milking machine, which I am now using. Helen didn't miss a beat when I switched. Sally always milked by hand. Sally arrived safely in Alaska. She took along little bottles of milk and cream for the trip, bread, butter and (frozen) liver pate to revive her upon arrival. She still had a five hour ferry ride ahead of her when she called, so had no report on how her goat is. I do hope it is OK. It is due to kid very shortly.

Bagel is disappointed with the short little walks he gets from me. We took a tour around the garden to see how my baby apple trees look. Two look dead and two look maybe alive. The ice in the fishpond has all melted. It was a foot thick. Five of the goldfish are alive but one is floating. Daffodils are up two inches.

Helen gave 4 ˝ gallons and I got eight eggs.

March 28, 2004 Sunday: Such lovely weather today. Such a shame that it did not arrive until Sally left. I hope she has good weather in Alaska, but I have not heard much. My granddaughter Helena was here today and we took a walking tour of the lawn and garden. The snow is off of my parsnip patch and they are showing green ruffles on top. They cannot be dug until the ground thaws. Only about the top four or five inches of soil is thawed now. Helen and the crew spent most of the day trying to graze. They cannot have gotten much of anything, but they did their pooping outside, thus saving me a lot of clean up. I sent away for annatto, a seed that is used to color butter. I did not know how much to use, so erred on the weak side, but it did somewhat enhance the yellow. I will continue the experiment next time.

Yesterday and today I used the milking machine in the morning and milked by hand in the evening. She only gives 1˝ gallons in the evening for which washing the machine seems burdensome. I have not milked much for months and my hands are feeling the strain. It seems to make no difference to Helen. She stands very well. But I am so slow that I think she got tired of letting down before I was done. I got only 1 ź gallons tonight. Eight eggs today.

March 29, 2004 Monday: This was an even finer day. Max stopped in and we walked around the fields with the map diagram Sally left showing problem areas in the fence. Max was able to roll up some wire that was frozen into ice when she had been working on it. The thawing has brought the river up about two feet so that it now runs in silence.

Helen spent so much time grazing and standing outside that she did not finish her hay. There is no nutrient value in the dead grass and the new grass is barely visible. That might be the reason her milk is down some. Only four gallons today. I got eight eggs.

I picked up a head of Romaine lettuce and chopped a lot of it finely for the pullets. I guess they liked it. Every bit was gone when I went back to look.

March 31, 2004: My pullets are looking perkier lately and are growing. They are getting a commercial, non-medicated grower mash plus clabber and kelp and other tidbits I think of. They will soon be too crowded. I had to special order the mash. Most people want medicated.

It was drizzly and cold today, but above freezing. Helen and the kids spent a lot of time on the pasture anyway. Now that she can get at her pasture she is obsessed with it. She still eats her hay, but I have to put out less. All winter I have been feeding three bales a day and for the last few days it is down to 2 ˝.

Albert and Sammy, seven months and two months, now walk very nicely to where I tie them while I am milking Helen. This way Sammy can have his bucket of milk without being molested by Albert and vice versa.

I am hand milking in the evening. Tonight I milked 1˝ gallons in 12 minutes. Not exactly a world record, but considering how out of shape my hands are, I was impressed with myself. I was racing to get back to get a cake out of the oven. Nine eggs today. One or two of the free ranging hens is laying where I can't find her eggs.

April 1, 2004 Thursday: Helen gave less than four gallons today and I think I know why. She just is not letting down as she should. I think she is pining for Sally. They had a relationship. Well, at least Albert and Sammy come to my hand and lead well enough to go stand by their hitching spots. They are both in good shape. Sammy is nice and plushy. He eats hay and grain well, but sill loves his bucket of milk. He drinks from a teat bucket that hangs on the door.

It was about 40F today and drizzly. Max stopped in and removed some heavy beams that had been laid where my rhubarb comes up. He arranged them into a bridge over the big puddle in front of the barn formed from melting snow. Eight eggs today.

April 2, 2004 Friday: It was raining when I woke up and has rained steadily all day. Around noon I put on my raincoat, old Drizabone, and the dogs and I went down to see what is happening in the veg garden. I took along a bamboo rod to stick down and see how far down the ground has thawed. The flowerbeds by the house are thawed down at least a foot. Some places in the veg garden are completely thawed, but the parsnip patch is only thawed down about 8". I will test again tomorrow. The snow cover was especially deep and I see that some chard and some spinach plants have wintered over. It makes me wish I had planted spinach in the fall. The one year I tried this it got frost killed. I worked nearly an hour and pulled up a lot of tomato stakes that I didn't get around to last fall. Up by the goldfish pond the daffodils are up 4" and have buds. Getting into the garden was a lot of fun. Of course we dripped all over the kitchen afterwards.

I used the machine both milkings today. Helen gave 4 gallons. There were9 eggs.

April 4, 2004 Palm Sunday: No way I could attend church today with the time change. But, I did manage to get to the barn a half hour earlier. I think it is a lot harder for me to adjust than it is for Helen.

I have tomato seedlings coming up in peat pots and today planted peas in peat pots too. I have always planted them directly in the garden all my life, but Victory Garden says that although they grow best in cool conditions, they require warmth to germinate. In their demo they were putting 4 inch tall seedlings into the garden. What I have in peat pots will not plant more than about 3 feet of row. Maybe I will extend the row with direct seeding and see who wins.

Today spring seems far away. It is raining steadily and we were told to expect it to turn to snow.

Helen gave something under 4 gallons today. I got seven eggs.

The pullets seem unsatisfied. I try to give them some treat everyday.

April 5, 2004 Monday: As promised, there were three inches of snow on the ground this morning. By evening half of it was gone. But, an icy wind made it feel like January. The cows did not stir outdoors, so I had a lot of clean up to do. I kept the layer hens in and ran the heater several hours for the pullets.

This seemed like a good day to make a cheese. There was plenty of milk. I made a 3 gallon cheese using my new Cheesypress for the first time. It seems to work fine. It is the first press I have ever seen that lacks perforations in the cylinder. I hope it is squishing out the whey, as it should.

Sammy is 2 ˝ months old now. Twice a day he gets his half-gallon of milk in a teat bucket and a pan of grain that is half alfalfa pellets and half dairy feed topped with kelp. He now likes his grain just about as much as his milk. I can see him struggling to decide which to eat first. He and Albert both allow themselves to be lead nicely to where I hitch them at feeding time.

Helen gave four gallons today. There were nine eggs.

April 6, 2004 Tuesday: Max pulled those heavy beams off of the rhubarb patch and today I saw the first little pink fist of rhubarb leaves daring to push up. The weather was not much better today than yesterday. The temperature was a little below freezing and a cold wind blew. The water froze in with both groups of chickens. I turned the heater on for several hours for the pullets.

In with the layers I have a large rooster, Brewster. He has a lame foot. I did not realize it until evening, but the prancing take-charge rooster that runs loose in the barn had gotten himself in there and had everybody intimidated. After I shooed him out Old Brewster emerged from hiding and he and a lot of hens began gobbling feed. The white rooster that I wrote about earlier in the winter has moved in with the layers too. He and Brewster are equally timid. Whitely also hopped down and started pecking up mash. He is getting a little confidence back.

My "guest dog", Dakota, went home yesterday. Bagel is very confused about this and seems depressed, as he was when Sally left. When I wasn't looking he tore apart the garbage. He never does that sort of thing unless he is upset. It is not as though there is anything edible in the trash, or even meat papers. He is just making some kind of statement.

I took my cheese out of the mold. So far so good. It looks perfect. I took the temperature of my cellar. It is 50F, about right for cheese.

April 7, 2004 Wednesday: The weather was better today, cold but sunny. I had lots of fun working in the veg garden doing clean up. I even dug some parsnips and shared with my cousin Marcia, owner of Dakota. She picked him up on Monday and Bagel has moped ever since. She said Dakota also was acting depressed. She brought him today for a visit and Bagel bounced all around in delight. Dakota bounced a bit too, but he is very fat.

Helen gave a bit over 4 gallons today and I got eight eggs. I made the new cheese of which I recently learned, Qvark. This is my second attempt. It is bland, but good.

April 9, 2004 Friday: I made a very nice cheesecake today using the qvark. It is a good cheese for this.

Yesterday I opened the door of the pullets little enclosure for a while so they could spread out a little. Not many came out. Today I put their feed and water outside the pen and left them to explore. It took a couple of hours, but eventually all of them hopped out. They now have the freedom of the grain room. Yesterday they stayed huddled by the door of their pen and I was easily able to shoo them back in at night. This evening I gave up trying to get them back in. They went every which way. I don't think the cats will go for them but they are vulnerable to raccoons, not that I have seen any so far this spring.

Sally called from Alaska. Her goat Rachel kidded yesterday and had a dreadfully hard delivery. She had twins, both breech. It was so awful for Rachel that she actually screamed and fell over. Sally had to assist. Today Rachel went down with milk fever. A vet visits Haines once a month and this was his day. He came all the way out to Sally's place to see the goat. The only calcium he had was a 10cc injection meant for a cat. This vet never sees large animals. But, the 10cc's brought Rachel to her feet. The vet recommended that Sally go to town and buy bone meal. She didn't like this idea and called me from the health food store. I suggested she buy whatever people tablets they had and create a paste. Rachel was down again when she got home. Sally made a paste with honey, which she put into Rachel's mouth. This worked quite fast. Rachel got up and ran across the room.

Rachel has very little milk, but Sally milked out some colostrum for the female kid and it is doing fine. She euthanized the little buck. She does not raise males. The effect of calcium on milk fever can be dramatic.

Helen lay outside in the field to chew her cud. She is finding a bit of grass. She gave four gallons of milk. I got ten eggs.

April 10, 2004 Saturday:

Everybody came here today for Easter. Max and Mitra's two little girls and son Mark's little Hailey had an Easter egg hunt. Max, Martin and Mark hid the eggs all around the lawn. There are no flowers or grass yet and streaks of snow linger here and there, but the girls had a wonderful time chattering around after eggs. Then their uncles swung them around and over their shoulders. Later, the guys took a walk along the river and Bagel dog pushed Max's dog, Lulu in. She is a lively seven months old, but had never been in the water before. Max thought he was going to have to jump in and save her, but she floundered out (she is part black Lab). Then she chased Bagel three times around the field until she wore him out. We think she made him apologize. We had our Easter dinner today. I served a goose and a fresh pork butt (from the freezer) and lots of other goodies. I made a whipped cream cheesecake that calls for cottage cheese. Instead I used two cups of qvark.

April 12, 2004 Monday:

We have had two days in a row of pretty good weather here, cold but sunny. Helen and the boys grazed down by the river and chewed their cuds while out lying in the sun. This is the first time this spring they have done that. It was nice to see them and nice to be able to put out less hay. And, very nice to have less mucking out to do. Helen must be really working hard to find enough grass to satisfy her. All I see is brown. But, around the edges of things there is a little something for her.

My chives are up three inches. They are always the first crop.

I dug about 12 feet of row in the veg garden today. This was one of last year's corn rows, so was easy digging. On Sunday Helena cleaned and manured a similar strip of the asparagus bed. The ground was dry enough to make digging easy and fun. Tonight we are to expect a major rainstorm, possibly sleet, so I doubt I will be back in the garden before next weekend.

I am still eating delicious leftovers from Easter dinner.

Helen gave four gallons today. When looking for eggs I reached into a dark niche and found two newborn kittens. I could not see the mother but could hear her growling. I got nine eggs but broke three by setting something on them.

April 13, 2004 Tuesday:

My spring line thawed out and started running today! It always seems miraculous. A water line runs from 5/8 of a mile away. It is exposed in places and always freezes in winter. When I hear that trickle start I know spring is really here even if sleet is falling, as it was all day today. There is a sink in my kitchen carved from granite that fills by gravity from the spring. It is lovely water.

Sally called about Rachel. She is pretty bad. Kip is trying to find meds. He is not having a lot of luck. I will see what I can do from Nasco.

I looked at the kittens. This time I took a flashlight. There was one dead one underneath two live ones. I could hear the mother growling but she was out of sight. I left her a bit of fried chicken.

Starting today, I have gone to once a day milking (OAD). Helen is seven months into her lactation. I hope she does not lose a lot of production. I do have customers for the milk. But now that I am by myself I feel a lot of time pressure.

April 14, 2004 Wednesday:

Well, it happened. I have a streaming cold. I was fearful of this because one of the grandchildren at Easter weekend was coming down with one and my stress level is unusually high. I have had a slight sore throat all week. Then when I went in today for a two-hour dental appointment and a series of needles and painkillers went up towards my nose. I think it put me over the edge. It has been three years since I have had a cold or any other illness, so perhaps I should not complain.

Sally called this morning with the good news that Rachel ate some food last night. I have heard no more, so I hope Rachel can hang on until the various meds that Kip and I have sent can reach her. I learned from Kip, who spoke to a veterinarian friend, that mastitis in a goat is very difficult to treat. I told Sally about the lard and cayenne treatment. But, you cannot infuse into the teat canal as you can with a cow.

After her first 24-hour once a day (OAD) milking experience, Helen's production was already down by half a gallon. Not that I am surprised. But, it does make my day a lot easier. She gave 3 ˝ gallons this morning. I got only six eggs. It rained all day again.

April 16, 2004 Friday:

It was sunny all day, although rather cold. I don't think it got above 40F. Helen grazed all day and must have gotten something. She ate a lot less hay. Her production was up a bit this morning, but a lot of it went on the floor. She was letting down all the time I was getting ready to milk and made a big puddle of milk. She gave more than 3 ˝ gallons.

The young birds I refer to as pullets (although half are cockerels) are gradually catching on to how to be hens. They now fly a little bit. They still don't know how to scratch. The grain room where they now live has a half door. One of the free living hens has always flown over to lay her eggs in there behind some old window sashes. I see her looking at the new birds with a disapproving eye. Maybe she will some day go down among them and demonstrate scratching.

Max's wife Mitra, my daughter-in-law, has a few chickens that I gave them. Yesterday while working at her sink where she has a big window she observed a huge eagle swoop down towards the bird feeder. The chickens were at the far side of the lawn, but were alert and dove into the woods. Mitra said the eagle was so big it could have taken one of her cats. She thinks it as a Golden. If not, it would have to be a juvenile Bald eagle.

Sally called this morning to report that her goat is doing a little better. She ate a little on her own. One side of her udder has softened up enough so that the baby can nurse. The other side is still producing nasty looking milk. Sally is rubbing it with lard and cayenne.

April 17, 2004 Saturday:

Helen gave only 3 ź gallons this morning. Eggs were up, 10 today.

My cold is pretty well gone. I have a slight cough.

I waxed the cheese I made about 10 days ago. It looks very promising.

April 19, 2004 Monday:

Bagel Dog and I took a walk along the river this afternoon. Part of the riverbank is fenced off so that the cows can't get down into the shallows below the bridge. Some of the river's edge has no fence along it. It is striking to see how much brush has grown up in the fenced off area. This is an aid to holding the bank, which is being constantly undercut by intermittent high water. This is a great problem now that clear cutting is occurring in Maine. I see that another of my mature trees has fallen into the river. I think it is a beech.

We walked up to have a look at Muffin's grave. I was glad to see it is undisturbed. Later on when the fields are dried out I will ask Max to use the tractor to bring some rocks for a cairn.

This was our first really warm day. It got up to around 70F. This should help the grass to grow. Helen works hard all day to get her rumen full, but is still hungry at the end of the day. Trouble is, she has lost all taste for her Grade B hay and I am down to two bales of the good stuff. For the last five weeks I have been feeding one bale of this in the morning and then the poorer hay for the rest of the day. Now she would rather go hungry than eat it. Yesterday and today she gave 3 ź gallons. I'm counting on her picking up a bit when the grass is lush.

I saw the first tiny willow leaves today. The spring peepers were so encouraged that they began their peeping at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. But the finest sign of spring was the opening of the first daffodils. There is now a nice cluster by the pool.

There were ten eggs.

April 20, 2004 Tuesday:

This morning I put down my less good hay for Helen. I decided to save the last two bales of high quality in case of an emergency. She turned up her nose at it. It is still there this evening. They did not come in tonight. They decided to sleep out on the pasture somewhere. I hope they are all right. I have no idea where they are. I think Helen is jumping the gun a bit on summer. This is going to be a chilly night.

Some small cousins came over this afternoon. They hunted for the kittens without success. But they did spot the goldfish. I was afraid the goldfish were gone, perhaps eaten by the blue heron. We also saw a very large polliwog in the fishpond.

The pullets are starting to hop out of the grain room. I find them huddled here and there. They are easy to pick up.

Helen gave just a little bit over three gallons this morning. I got nine eggs.

April 21, 2004 Wednesday:

The hay I put out yesterday is till there. I don't think Helen is really getting enough grass to fill her tank. She gave under three gallons today.

The group slept out last night but was back in the barn this morning. I have been concerned that Sammy might not be getting enough, but he was so comfortably full that he was lying down and did not even jump to his feet in anticipation of grain. Perhaps his small jaw and sharp baby teeth better suit him to close grazing.

My pullets are not in a raccoon-proof area. So far the raccoons have not noticed. I left the radio on as a deterrent.

The weather today was cool and damp with little sun.

April 22, 2004 Thursday:

It was warm and spring like today. When I stood on the deck early this morning Helen and the boys were on a knoll where I could see them. They appeared to be still dozing. But, I just heard the weather report for tonight: could be snow in the western mountains. That means us. Sigh.

Helen and the boys still have not touched their hay or water and are spending their entire time outdoors. It sure saves on the barn clean up.

I started seeds in peat pots this afternoon. I planted cucumbers and several kinds of flowers. I had to scrounge for the cucumber seeds. They are all last year's seeds. Apparently I forgot to include them in my order. I also forgot to order spinach and basil seeds. The local choice is limited, so I won't be getting fancy.

April 23, 2004 Friday:

No snow, I am pleased to report.

After doing the chicken and cat feeding part of the barn chores and getting everything set up for milking, I opened the door to the Beefer Pen to let in Helen. There was not a cow to be seen. This is the first time since last summer that this has happened. It means she is getting enough grass so that her grain doesn't interest her. I guess the season for my early morning cow seeking walks has begun. This is quite pleasant if I am not in a hurry. This morning I was able to spy her from the deck. She will come when called if I manage to make eye contact. If no eye contact, I sometimes have to call a long time. She had more milk this morning. She was back up over three gallons.

The calves were all silly when they came in. They acted as though they knew they had been naughty. Sammy bounced around and hid behind Albie when it was time to be tied up.

I have decided to raise my prices for milk and eggs. I am now charging $3 a gallon for milk and $1.50 for eggs. I am going to $4 for milk and $2 for eggs. I have not raised my prices in two years and the feed goes up every month and never goes down a penny. If people stop buying it, well I have lots of uses for it here.

I got a little more digging done today. The ground is now ready for peas.

April 24, 2004 Saturday:

Bagel and I returned at dusk after a lovely afternoon with my son Max, his wife Mitra and her family who are visiting from California. As soon as I changed my clothes I went directly to the barn. There I was greeted by a powerful smell of skunk. Back in a corner the old mother cat, Little Connie, was crouched looking much distressed. She was drooling and tears were running from her eyes and she had no thought of eating her evening meal. Clearly, she had been skunked. I can only suppose that she was defending her kittens. Since I don't know where they are hidden I am unable to find out if they survived. I don't even know if Connie will survive. Helen is not going to like it when she comes in tomorrow. I expected to find her and the boys in the barn tonight. There is a violent cold wind and temperatures are falling, probably into the teens. We are all back in hats and mittens and the daffodils are being flattened.

It rained last night, but the weather was quite nice this morning. The cows stayed out for the night despite the weather, but showed up for milking right on time with their rumens full. Helen gave slightly under three gallons.

April 25, 2004 Sunday:

Little Connie looked better than I expected this morning. At least she hobbled right up for her breakfast. She has had a gimpy back leg for years.

The weather was so disagreeable last night that the cows spent the night in the barn after all. I know they were in all night because of the amount of barn clean up that awaited me. Helen was her usual friendly self this morning and gave a bit over three gallons.

This year I tried a method shown on Victory Garden for starting peas in peat pots. They got about 6" tall and today I set them out. I have also prepared ground for some direct seeded peas. I got the chicken wire pea support fence all set up too. At dusk I put row-cover over them in case they are not ready for a night out.

This morning Bagel and I took a walk down to Muffin's grave. It has not been disturbed. All three cows headed over to see us but Albert ran fast. I thought of Lee Anne's account of her steer. Was he charging me? He is eight months old now and good-sized. But no, he is just friendly. In fact he is about the friendliest steer I remember having. I am in danger of getting too attached to him.

Seven eggs today. One was from a tiny Polish bantam. She spends all her days on the nest, apart from brief trips to the feed hopper when she thinks nobody is noticing. I though she was a dud but when I reached under her this morning there was her egg, still wet. Nobody else was around so it had to be hers. I told her Thank You.

April 27, 2004 Tuesday:

I've been leaving my homemade Parmesan cheese on the counter and this morning I noticed it was smaller. Oops! A little mousie has been nibbling it at night. What a cheeky mouse. What worthless cats!

Out in the barn above where I feed the barn cats is a shelf with a cardboard box containing hay. It is in regular use by the unconfined hens. Yesterday I found two eggs in it. This morning there was a small young black cat sitting in it. She is a fearful sort of cat, so why was she sitting there two feet from my shoulder, eyes full of panic? I asked her what she was doing and she fled. Yup. She was having kittens. One fuzzy black ball was already in the nest. I tiptoed away in hopes she would return. After chores I looked from a distance and saw her two black ears sticking up reassuringly. This evening when I fed the cats there were two kittens balled up together. I did not touch them. If she leaves them up there they will be safe from skunks.

The weather remains cold and wet, but there was a three-hour patch of sun at midday. I took the opportunity to finish preparing my lettuce bed and got it planted. I also dug a 20' row for carrots but need to dig it a second time and add manure.

Helen gave three gallons plus a quart.

April 28, 2004 Wednesday:

Our dismal weather continues. Actually, it was fine and sunny first thing this morning, although only 40F. I had to race off to an emergency dental appointment because one of my favorite teeth broke off, a front incisor, causing a serious blight upon my beauty. It is now temporarily repaired, although I am admonished not to eat any apples. By the time I got home the weather had reverted to bleak and blowy.

My grandson Rafe arrived home from six weeks in South America. He traveled through Chile and Argentina and as far as Tierra del Fuego. He had a good time hiking and fishing and meeting people, but complained of being unable to get good coffee. As soon as he got here to the farm he made a big pot to be consumed with Jersey cream.

He reported seeing many beautiful women in South America.

Helen grazed diligently all day. But, due to the weather I am back to morning barn cleaning. The cows don't fancy chilling their tummies on the cold ground.

Helen gave three gallons today. I got only six eggs. The hens seem discouraged.

April 30, 2004 Friday:

At last, a lovely warm day. I dug another 20 foot row in the garden and planted carrot seeds. Now the willow leaves are really green and the pasture looks more green than brown. Oh happy day!

Helen gave 3 ź gallons. I'm having an egg problem. I only found six. The young birds are making a big mess. I must make a better plan for them.

May 2, 2004 Sunday:

The thing I like most about OAD (Once a Day) milking, I find, is that I don't feel it necessary to pace myself during the afternoon so as to be sure I am not too tired to feel like milking. Not that I would ever have skipped milking due to fatigue, but I always felt I needed to save myself a little bit for the big time consuming chore. This afternoon I dug in the garden for at least an hour and then planted seeds. I planted spinach, chard, purslane, arugula and some kind of exotic radish. I think it is Vietnamese. I have another row nearly ready for beets. The peas I started indoors in peat pots look pretty good, but it is too soon to say whether or not it was a good idea to do them this way. My tomato seedlings are ready to transplant and my zinnia seeds are up in their peat pots. I love zinnias madly, but almost never have success with them. Here goes one more try.

Martin and Amy were here this weekend. Martin reformatted my web site discussion forum to make it more compacted and people now have to sign in. This is considered a better system. Martin also got the tractors running. He put homemade fork teeth on the bucket of the Ford. On a previous visit Mark made them out of an old metal bed frame.

Max and his family were also here and Max set up hoses so that I can have water to the garden. I filled a big container and watered everything with a watering can.

May 4, 2004 Tuesday:

The setting sun backlit the line of birches at the bottom of the pastures creating a cloud of green-gold halos. I think spring is really here even though most of the day we had cold rain. A gentleman who came to buy milk told me that snow fell in the mountains. It rained last night too, and the cows slept inside. They ate a bit of hay before going out to graze in the rain.

Helen's production is creeping up in response to the grass, even on OAD milking. Yesterday and today she gave close to 3 ž gallons.

Some of my lettuce is already up.

My young birds are doing well. I heard one cockerel making his first attempt at crowing. They are at an awkward stage. They all run towards me when I go to the barn and they get under my feet so that I cannot avoid stepping on their toes. Then they squawk which make me leap and shriek.

I am starting a new batch of qvark.

May 5, 2004 Wednesday:

My qvark this time turned out more like cottage cheese. Good, though.

Max came over this morning and we walked down to the river with my dog Bagel and his dog Lulu. The cows greatly resented the dogs. Helen felt obligated to chase the dogs away from the calves and from me. This kept her very busy running back and forth between the calves and me. Then Albert took to racing at us and bouncing around. Finally we went into the woods and the cows gave up the chase. I found a leak in the exposed part of the spring line. Max was able to fix it using his Leatherman tool. Max and I each filled a basket with fiddleheads and I fixed some for his lunch.

Helen gave four gallons this morning. I suppose that had I not gone OAD I would be getting five gallons now.

May 6, 2004 Thursday:

Weather was nice today. I had to be away from home all morning, but still managed to get a bit of gardening done, mostly clean up. The tulips should be open by tomorrow. The peonies are up about 8 inches and some asparagus is starting. I've neglected the bed so badly that I shan't get much of a crop.

I took most of my fiddleheads to a friend in town who loves them and doesn't get out much anymore.

Among my young poultry, the cockerels are starting to have fights. I see them jumping at each other, squawking.

Helen gave four gallons again this morning. I got 10 eggs.

May 7, 2004 Friday:

We have been hearing about cows accepting up their milkers as "babies". But,how about this? Now when I let Helen out of the stanchion she stops and licks the pulsator on top of the milking machine. She keeps it up until I give her a little pat to move her along.

Helen now has all the grass she can eat and has gained a gallon in production. This morning she gave 4 ź gallons. Grass is so amazing. She had been giving around 4 gallons before I went OAD, but within three days dropped to 3 gallons and stayed there until the grass got lush. I can barely lift the machine now.

My peas are all up.

There were ten eggs.

May 8, 2004 Saturday:

This was my granddaughter Helena's 25^th birthday. I put on a birthday dinner for her. We were twelve counting myself. I began cooking yesterday. Here is the menu: I baked a ham and did an oven barbecue of marinated chicken breast on skewers (called chicken tikka, supposed to be Indian, but Mitra said it could as well have been Iranian), green salad with a tamarind and lime dressing, pasta salad with various goodies in it (not exotic, meant to appeal to teenage boys), a salad of cold marinated vegetables, pumpkin bread, French bread (not homemade but from a good bakery), and a raita of homemade yogurt, cucumber, mint leaves (my mint is up), and shallots. My daughter-in-law Mitra assembled it this morning. It makes a good sauce on everything. Most of this menu came from The April Gourmet magazine. For the cake, I made a 3-layer sponge, which I sandwiched with strawberries and ice cream. I made freezer vanilla ice cream using Midge's recipe. It tasted great but my cream was too fresh to whip properly. It would only get foamy. Consequently, the ice cream didn't look quite right, so I used it on the inside layers and had Max pick up some Ben & Jerry's for the top. I also served coffee.

This was a lunch time occasion. Thanks to lots of help I was able to serve on time at 1 o'clock. In the afternoon some of us walked to the river and picked fiddleheads. We had the dogs with us but the cows were far away and there was no trouble with interspecies conflict.

Max gave the lawn its first mowing and took down storm windows. He also re-hung one of the buttery doors that has been giving me a lot of grief. Part of the lower door jamb is badly rotted. It will require some kind of bracing. This shed area is thought to be the oldest part of the house and is unpainted wood.

Helen gave a little under 4 gallons today, down a bit, perhaps because last night was too cold for much grazing. It was down to 28F.

Nine eggs today. The shad blow is blooming.

May 9, 2004 Sunday:

Helena stayed over last night and helped me this morning with a chicken moving project. Ever since the fire the young birds have been housed in the grain room. For the last couple of weeks I have been leaving the grain room door open during the day so as to give them more freedom. And, the opportunity to learn more about how to be a chicken from the older birds. Needless to say, they have made a horrible mess of the grain room. This morning Helena and I did some inventive repairs to their former room where the fire occurred so that I could move them back in there. The repair involved patching the floor with some cupboard doors displaced from my kitchen project and filling in the torn out wall with an old door. I leaned up a wooden ladder for them to roost on. I moved all their supplies into their new quarters and locked them out of the grain room. A few intrepid souls ventured into the new place. Most spent the day milling about. At dusk, aided by the barn broom, I managed to herd them all in but one who showed up late. She wanted to join the other so I opened the door for her. Then, of course, every single bird came back out again. So it was all to do over again, coaxing them back in with the broom. A couple of them had gone upstairs to roost on the railing. I caught them and carried them back down under my arm.

Some of the eggs today had broken egg all over them. I do hate to see that. I collect several times a day to discourage eggs breakage and egg eating. I got 11 intact eggs.

Helen gave four gallons.

The weather today was beautiful. The pasture looks like a golf course. Helen is in bliss.

I got another section of garden dug. The peas I started indoors have been out for two weeks but still were not hardy. The frost Friday night damaged them severely.

May 11, 2004 Tuesday

Max came yesterday and mowed some more lawn. He loaded up some cow manure that was rotted down to perfect compost for his little garden. I went and saw it today. He has removed the turf from an area about 15'x20". They have a nice little piece of land with an enormous lawn surrounded by woodland. I took them their milk. They get through a lot. The weather today was perfect, although I must admit the black flies are pretty hungry. Max was wearing a hat with netting while he worked on his garden.

In the barn this afternoon I found a little kitten all by itself. It was all black. I caught it and brought it to the house and called a number that I had on the fridge for a girl who wanted a kitten. She and two friends, all about 15 years old, soon showed up and were perfectly thrilled. Then my cousin Marcia showed up for milk and bought two gallons. I sold eight gallons today which cleaned out the fridge. So, I am glad I did not pursue Plan B today, which was to stay home and make cheese with all those gallons of milk that I had on hand, just the milk from this morning and yesterday. Helen is maintaining her four gallons a day. I wonder how long she can keep this up.

I got a dozen eggs.

May 12, 2004 Wednesday:

Helen was down a quart this morning. No doubt it is the bugs. I see her grazing, then shaking her head and moving forward five feet to try somewhere else. I have mixed up some ACV with Lemon Joy to spray her with in the morning. They are all coming back into the barn to chew their cuds in peace. The run-in that I call the Beefer Pen is a cavernous interior space, somewhat dim, and tends to be fly free. Flies don't spend much time where it is dim.

Those young birds of mine are getting pesky. Last Sunday Helena and I fixed up a space for them, their former quarters before the fire, but it is not large enough to leave them shut in. Besides, I like them to merge with the half dozen or so free living hens and roosters so they can find out more about being chickens. They are finally figuring out about scratching for food and flying up high to roost. To them, I am the font of every blessing and they run to me when I enter the barn, twenty-four pairs of chicken feet all thundering my way. Helen and I do not like their company during milking. Yesterday one young cockerel flew right up onto her back and resisted being pushed off. Too far down, I think. These are very wussy birds. I have dragged an old screen door across the entrance to the milking area so that they don't congregate in there and defile everything as they have done to my grain room. Sally is coming down from Alaska for her son Rafe's graduation soon and will be here for a week or so. I hope she will help me dress off a lot of my old hens. Then there will be room for them in my "real" hen house.

Nine eggs today. I found two new nests this week and put in fake eggs, even left some real ones, but I guess I didn't fool the hens. They hid eggs somewhere else today.

May 13, 2004 Thursday:

Max came over today and brought me a gift of a new garden cart. My poor old one was wired together and had only a few more trips to the barn in it, I think. It was what I was using to convey the milking machine, it being too heavy to carry. He took off another storm window for me and did several other things on my honey-do list. Then we went over to Sally's field and walked through the strip of woodland by the river. I wanted to show him the trilliums. Many grow there. This was the right day to see them. We saw many. All were red. Her wild apples were in bloom. When we got home I found that mine had opened too. Now if only the rain will hold off and the temperature go above 60F so the bees can work, we may have some apples this year.

I paced out my garden rows and find that altogether I have over 100' of rows planted. This was all dug by hand. I love digging and always want to keep going. I try to tell myself to stop but the other part of me says, " Just one more clump." After digging, I work in manure and lime. Last time Max was here he used the lawn tractor and cart to bring perfect manure to the garden. Today I planted short sections of a lot of experimental things including flax and something I ordered from Seeds of Change called beetberry. It is supposed to be a form of beet that has a bushy top with little red berries. The flax was 25 year old seed but it looked perfect. I soaked it overnight. I also put in about 10 feet of Bull's Blood beets. I grew a few last year for Sally to use as red dye, but we didn't have much luck. They probably required a different mordant. The beet does not amount to much, but the leaves are a deep shiny red like nothing else.

I gave Helen a good dose of bug spray this morning, the vinegar and Lemon Joy compound. She lay down below the deck about 11AM and it did seem to me there were fewer flies on her than before. There were just some around her eyes.

She gave 3 ž gallons this morning. I got 10 eggs. Albert was not much interested in his grain. He is getting very sleek on grass. I only give the calves a handful anyway as a management tool.

May 14, 2004 Friday:

Friday comes around fast these days. I am so busy that I dropped my satellite service. I never have time to turn on the TV anyway. I will get it back later when summer guests arrive. The weather today was very fine. I love it when the apple trees are in bloom. I have only two trees. One is ancient and out in the pasture. In apple time Helen makes an early morning practice of checking under it about two hours before I could ever get there, so I never get an apple off it. The other is an ancient crab apple that we love for jelly. I have some baby trees coming along for the future. One did not make it through the winter, but two look possible.

I hand watered all my rows of seeds. Lettuce, carrots, peas and radishes are up.

Sally called from Alaska. She says her goat kid, Emily, was full of milk this morning and did not need a bottle. So poor old Rachel is at least producing enough for her baby. Only one side is producing milk. The other side still just produces a greenish substance. But Sally is so relieved that she won't have to ask her house sitter to bottle-feed a goat while she visits Maine starting on May 27.

Helen gave 3 ž gallons again this morning. I had to go way down and fetch her in. She totally ignored my calling. She just stood there with milk streaming out of her. No doubt she would have preferred I show up with a bucket. Make that two buckets.

Ten eggs today.

May 15, 2004 Saturday:

We got a lovely shower about 5pm. It freshened everything up and watered the garden. Helen grazed right through it, but she came inside to lie down afterwards. I expect the bugs came out in force.

She gave a bit closer to four gallons this morning. She hates being sprayed with the vinegar Joy preparation. But I do think it helps.

Lots more of my seeds are up. There is a purslane cultivar that I am looking forward to trying. The wild form is a weed around here. I use it once in a while in stock or give it to the chickens. It gives a consistency like okra and is said to be a good source of Omega-3 fatty acids. This will be the third time I have tried it, each time a different cultivar and so far it has turned out messy and unappetizing looking. I don't know what it wants, but perhaps more heat. It is a native of India and I understand the familiar weed is an introduced species. The weed appears to be untouched by bugs and not fussy in it requirements. I remember how my Grammie hated it. "Mean old pusley," she would say as she pulled it out. Pusley is the local name here. Comfrey and crabgrass are the twin curses in my garden. I actually think pusley looks kind of cute.

I spied three more little black kittens in the barn but they scuttled right down a crack.

May 16, 2004 Sunday:

When I looked out my bedroom window this morning white lilacs greeted me. It sees to me that the white ones usually follow the lilac colored ones, but perhaps my memory is way off. I do know for sure, lots of times they are barely out for Memorial Day when I take them to the Sills' plot in the cemetery.

It was raining softly from before dawn until after milking. This suited Helen. It keeps the bugs down. She even lay down outside in the rain to chew her cud. She gave over 4 gallons this morning. What a gal. The two calves, Albert and Sammy, still come in and stand to be tied up and have a taste of grain. Albie is scarcely interested in his. They both look fine. I must remember to put the tape in my pocket and get a weight estimate.

Only eight eggs today. Darned hens are outsmarting me. I'm afraid a couple of bantams are planning families.

May 18, 2004 Tuesday:

Helen gave a shade less than four gallons yesterday but was back up to four this morning. I think it has to do with mosquitoes. They are fierce this year but there is some relief when it rains. There are few flies or mosquitoes inside the Beefer Pen, their run-in part of the barn. It is always cool and dark in there.

This is my very favorite time of year, bugs and all. The endless carpet of green new grass, the lilacs and apple blossoms, all the new leaves, it is a feast.

May 20, 2004 Thursday:

Helen spends so much time scratching her head on posts that the back of her neck is nearly hairless. Today was mostly beautiful, but there was not enough breeze to carry off the bugs. I guess the early morning grazing was good. She was way down at the bottom of the pasture and wouldn't come home until I walked all the way down to get her. She gave her steady four gallons.

The electricians came today to rewire the barn. They got about half done. They said they would be back in the morning. Without consulting me they shooed all the young poultry that has the run of the barn into a little room and shut the door. Not a bad idea, except they didn't tell me and they gave no thought to feed and water. I had to be gone for a while so did not notice for several hours. Also they opened the door to the laying hens' room, just out of curiosity I guess, and just left it standing open. Dingbats. While watering the layers I noticed a pile of Barred Rock feathers in their outside pen. At some point, presumably last night, something ate one of the young Barred Rocks. There was blood on the stone next to the feathers. I did not notice the feathers this morning but perhaps they were there.

A dozen eggs today.

May 21, 2004 Friday:

We had another fine spring day. Everywhere I look around the farm is madly beautiful. Regrettably, I did not get outside much due to an eye appointment. I did get rather encouraging news from the optometrist though. About a year ago when last I saw him I was told that I had the beginnings of macular degeneration and cataracts. Today he said that neither had progressed at all and my prescription is unchanged.

The tiny kitten I am nurturing in the kitchen next to the Aga eats out of a jar lid and even used its very tiny litter box on one occasion. I do believe it is getting smaller, not bigger. I shaved some frozen liver into its milk, which brought about an immediate improvement in its attitude. I'd say its chances are about 50/50. Of the box of three two-week-old kittens in the barn, one is missing. Either something climbed up and swiped it or it fell out of the box and the mother is feeding it under the floorboards, the favorite haunt of barn cats. I don't believe the mother could have moved it. She is so tiny and the kittens are plump. Those little mother cats must milk like dairy cows.

I heard we might get frost tonight. I hauled in trays of plants and whacked off broad comfrey leaves to cover my one-inch high morning glories.

Helen was extremely reluctant to come into the barn this morning. She was waiting outside like a good girl. She just was very suspicious that she would find something new and strange inside. I guess she heard the electricians in there yesterday. More likely she thought there might be a lingering electrician. She is afraid of strange men. I had to push and shove and finally raise my voice. This got the calves all roiled up and my whole system went awry. She gave a bit less than four gallons.

I got 10 eggs.

May 22, 2004 Saturday:

Helen was again reluctant to com