News And Drama On The Farm

With the arrival of warmer weather came graders to smooth out the gravel road. However, I still have huge piles of gravel on my lawn alongside the road. The town usually tries to clean that up so I won't mess with it until I see what they plan to do:

One morning I found my white hen dead in the coop. There were no injuries, so she must have died from being egg-bound or some other internal problem. I let the other hens out for the day and a fox killed one. Two in one day was too much, so I began locking them inside all day. I guess it's better to live in their coop than to be killed by foxes:

Remy is enjoying spring and covering a lot of ground each day while looking for grass or just playing:

He's also looking a little bit skinny, but I'll be worming him any day now. That's a twice per year job and it's just about time for the spring worming:

Blue, however, is definitely not looking skinny despite his drastically reduced rations:

He is getting less shy, though, and does run a lot while playing with Remy:

I thought all my cows were pregnant, but one morning I saw this - Rosella was mounting Scarlett and Scarlett was allowing it. That had to mean that Scarlett was in heat:

I called the artificial insemination man who promised to be out between 9:00 and 9:30, so I delayed feeding the cattle and then, when I got the three I wanted inside, I closed the barn door on them, trapping them:

I wanted the A.I. man to check Rosella since she was doing the humping, Scarlett, since she was standing when being humped, and Violet who he had said in January was carrying a calf but had never delivered:

The three of them were nervous while we waited, but I got to work herding them individually into the squeeze chute and separating them with sturdy boards, fore and aft:

The A.I. man declared Rosella to be most assuredly pregnant. Scarlett was most assuredly in heat, so he inseminated her. Her due date should be about January 16 of next year:

Violet was the mystery. I told him that I was beginning to fear a mummified calf inside her and he said that indeed, that's what it felt like. I decided to give her a bit more time and then call the vet. Violet needs to have the calf removed and re-bred if possible. If not, she may need to become hamburger:

Walking The Wetlands On The Rutland Trail - Part 2

The dogs and I were walking the Rutland Trail east from Hallahan Road and enjoying the songs of the spring peepers (see also Part 1, posted yesterday):

Little Daphne kicked up her heels and raced ahead of gigantic Seamus:


There are wetlands all along this section of the trail:

And the dogs were thrilled to be on an outing:

We didn't go far before we turned back toward our parked car. That was fine with the dogs. They're happy as long as they are moving:


Even though it looks like it's all woods here, there was water on both sides of the trail:

We stopped again at the beaver lodge. I suspect that there are no longer any beavers living here. It is also possible that someone tore down a beaver dam elsewhere and dumped the wood here:


The water on the other side of the trail looked inviting, so three of the dogs went down for a closer look. None of them went in, I'm glad to report, not even Seamus:

As for me, I enjoyed the long vistas across the water and the sounds of spring peepers and honking geese:

We were nearing our parked car:

But Fergus took a detour to check out the water's edge. He looked a little sheepish when he returned, as if he thought he might have done something bad (he hadn't):

Little Jack spotted our car ahead and bolted, and Seamus watched him go. But I called, and Jack returned, so I put a leash on him and told the other dogs to heal for the final stretch to the road. The other dogs know that heel means to stay about two feet from me, either side is OK. With five dogs, I can't be too picky: