Another awesome week in Fitness, Farm, and Life! Read on for more!
Fitness
This week started off strong, but we were really busy over the weekend, so I really tapered off on Friday-Sunday. February 18- 30 minute dance workout on YouTube February 19- 35 Minutes virtual ride on Rouvy! February 20- 30 minutes dance routine for Shape Up Montana challenge! February 21- 45 minutes treadmill walking. Sometimes I watch movies or tv shows. I have to say that the climax of Thelma and Louise really kept me walking! Such a great movie!
Recognize this unforgettable scene?!
February 22- Rest. February 23- Drive to Bozeman. Rest day. February 24- Drive from Bozeman. Rest day.
This week for Shape Up Montana, our weekly challenge was to complete the "Shape Up Jam" dance and submit a video of the dance. I did it. My video is ridiculously bad, as are my dancing skills. If you want a laugh, here it is:
Farm-
We are nearly ready to start calving season. Our "due date" is March 1, so we could actually start any day. Jeff spent the week preparing the corrals and doing other chores in advance of calving. Then on Friday, he and a friend of ours sorted our animals into groups: older cows, young cows/heifers, and late-calvers. We also have a separate pen for our bulls, and another for the yearlings. It remains frigidly cold with highs in the single digits below zero and lows in the -20s or worse. Horrible weather for calving. We are hoping the cows will hold off until it warms up even a little bit!
Hello, girls! This is the yearling pen.
Life
We took a quick overnight trip to Bozeman for a family gathering. It was nice to get together, even if it was brief. It was a lot of car time for Genevieve, but overall, she handled it pretty well!
Traveling to Bozeman! She's just too much with those pigtails!
I also just finished reading Becoming by Michelle Obama. I don't normally read a lot of biographies/autobiographies, but I really enjoyed this book. She is someone I think we can all learn from in terms of making the best out of every situation, positive mindset, encouraging others, and much more. If you haven't read this book, I would highly recommend it, regardless of your politics. To be honest, it's much more about her as a person than it is about politics anyway. It is especially eye opening to read about life from the viewpoint of an African-American woman, as her experience was vastly different from mine.
That's all for this week! Have a great week, everyone!
Apparently, for the summer I'm adopting an every-other week schedule to post a weekly review... no matter! Enjoy the happenings in fitness, farm, and life!!
Fitness
The biggest fitness accomplishment of the past two weeks (and the summer, and the year...) is the completion of my first traithlon, on the 17th. The week leading up to the race was a taper week, and I took it easy for a few days after the race, too, before starting to ease gently into running. Even so, I kept it pretty light with just some short runs at an easy pace. I'm planning on a 10K at the end of August, so I'll be ramping up a bit again, soon.
Also, even though the triathlon training is done, I don't want to completely forego my swimming and biking. Swimming especially is something I really love and didn't realize how much I missed it until I started doing it again with my tri training. I'd like to continue to sneak over to the pool when I can, although I probably wouldn't go completely out of my way for it. Hard to justify the drive. Anyway, check out how the weeks went and how the year is adding up! July 10-16 Sunday- complete rest. Monday- 2000 yards swimming in Havre Tuesday- 4.2 mile easy run.
Harvey after our run on Tuesday.
Wednesday- 8.2 mile bike, 2 mile hike Thursday- rest. Friday- 3 mile easy run. Saturday- Complete rest. Day before triathlon! July 17-23 Sunday- Montana Women's Triathlon! 500 meter swim, 12 mile bike, 3 mile run. Read Full Race Review HERE! Monday- Rest. Obviously. Tuesday- 4.4 mile hike with Jeff most of the way up Mount Helena. Wednesday- Rest. Thursday- 3.2 mile run. Friday- 30 minutes HIIT and elliptical machine Saturday- 3.1 mile easy run. Year to Date: Running:329.65 Walking/Hiking: 93.6 miles Yoga:1190 min CC-Ski: 500 min / 14.1 miles *Done for the season Alpine Ski: 3 days *Done for the season Mountain bike: 174.6 Swimming: 11500 yards
Our Golden Retriever, Abby, out in the pasture.
Farm-
We continue to be very busy on the farm. It is summer, to that's sort of how this works! The biggest projects have been baling hay, and a mix of weed control methods in our farm fields including both spray and cultivating. Wheat prices are terrible right now, so it's hard to justify spraying weeds when the product doesn't work anyway. We've been doing a lot more summer-fallowing this year, which is basically just plowing our fallow fields. That's not completely ideal either because we lose moisture when we break ground, and in this high plains desert, we can't always recoup that moisture.
A few days ago, we also brought our cow herd in from pasture and separated the bulls out from the cows. Party's over, men! ;) We also treated them all for flies, and then we drove them back out to pasture. I helped with this process when we worked them in the corrals. I'm happy to report that there were no incidents with gates this time! The cows and calves look really good. Validation of this came yesterday, actually, when our cows sold in a video auction. Cattle prices aren't great, either, but our calves sold for higher than many other groups in the sale and they looked great in the video. The sale is an auction, but the buyer was the same person who bought our calves last year. Repeat business is as pretty good sign that you're raising your calves right, so that felt pretty good.
The herd returns to pasture after the bulls were separated and they were treated for flies.
You can see the video of our calves that was used in the sale by CLICKING HERE. We will continue to keep and feed the calves, in other words they'll stay with their mamas, until mid October when they are shipped.
Lastly, harvest is nearing closer and closer on our farm. Jeff and Tom are helping some of our neighbors cut their winter wheat right now because we don't have anything ripe yet. Soon we will, though, and the craziness will begin! Life-
I have been working a bit on starting to promote the race we hold on our farm, called 5K On The Farm. You can find more info on the website, on our RunSignUp page, and on our Facebook Page.
Otherwise, I stay busy with keeping the garden alive in this dry heat! haha. Right now our raspberries are on, so I've been out to pick raspberries every other day or every third day or so. Such a fun summer treat! I've also been prepping some freezer meals for the busy days of harvest.
Chicken enchiladas, white chicken lasagna, and beef and cheese manicotti. It's a start, anyway!
How has your summer been going?! I can't believe it's almost August...
View of the Sweetgrass Hills from a recent trail run.
Here with a Weekly Review of last week's Fitness, Farm, and Life!
Fitness
My week wasn't as slow as the previous week for fitness, but it wasn't stellar, either. I had a minor accident on Wednesday which put a damper in a few of my plans. More on that later, though! Let's just jump right into the week's breakdown!
Sunday-4.2 mile trail run!!! Love trail runs so much! Monday- rest. Tuesday- 3.2 mile run before school. Wednesday- worked cows... more to follow! Thursday- Divisional Track meet in Great Falls = no dedicated workouts. Friday- 30 minutes yoga, 15 minutes leg strength routine, 30 minutes incline walking on treadmill Saturday- 30 minutes/2.75 miles light jogging on treadmill
No biking this week because, again, it was really rainy and all our roads were too wet to ride on at the times I would have been available to ride. I also didn't swim. I had planned to go to the pool on Friday, but, well, you'll see as you read on why that didn't end up working out.
Year to Date through May 21-
Running: 217.05 miles Walking/Hiking: 67.2 miles Yoga: 980 min CC-Ski: 500 min / 14.1 miles *Done for the season Alpine Ski: 3 days *Done for the season Mountain bike: 38 miles
Farm
Another busy week on the farm. Jeff and Tom finished seeding our organic farm ground on Tuesday, which was another nice accomplishment. We knew it was supposed to rain on Thursday and off and on throughout the weekend, so it was good to get the seed in the ground before the moisture hit. The other major task of the week was vaccinating our calves and sorting our cow/calf pairs into breeding groups and then getting them out into their pastures before turning out the bulls to join them. We didn't have enough help from friends or neighbors because they were busy with their own tasks, and, again, we really wanted to get this chore done before another rain system hit, so I had to take a day off of school to help out.
Mama cows are very noisy when separated from their calves!!!
Calves are less noisy and typically quite curious.
Once Jeff had brought all the cows and calves up to the corrals from the pasture they were in, it was time to sort the calves off of their mamas and vaccinate them.
This went really quite smoothly. I helped work part of the squeeze chute and helped with the sorting process.
Then, we were tasked with sorting the cows into their breeding groups. I was in charge of moving a metal gate and sort of using it to allow some cows from a larger pen into a smaller pen, while keeping other cows out of there for the time being. Well, even though really our cows are used to people, used to corrals, and typically work very smoothly, they are still unpredictable, very large animals. One cow decided she did not want to go into the smaller pen and backed up forcefully into the gate I was holding...which resulted in me catching the metal gate with my chin, and expressed as a deep gash under my lip.
Jeff and Carol walked me back to the house and Carol, a former First Responder, examined my lip and assessed that I probably should have it looked at and might need stitches. A quick trip in to the clinic in Chester and a visit with medical provider left me with three stitches under my right lip. Honestly, I'm quite lucky that the damage wasn't much worse.
Icing my face after receiving stitches. Fun.
With fresh stitches in my face that I wasn't really supposed to get wet, I had to put the kabash on my plans to swim on Friday and really took all exercise fairly easy until several days later when I knew they were set and good to go.
Jeff, Carol, and Tom finished working and sorting the cows on Wednesday and then later Jeff and Tom brought them out to their respective pastures. I was bummed to miss out on the rest of the day because I do like working with the cows and I really like driving them to pasture. I'm sure I'll have more opportunity in the future! I'm glad my "incident" wasn't any worse than it was. If nothing else, I have a decent story. I may have a scar, too. Perhaps having a story and a possible scar will up my bona-fide Cowgirl quotient?
Life
Last Thursday was Divisional Track in Great Falls. We had qualified almost all of our kids for Divisionals, so a great number of our athletes competed. Overall, it was a mixed bag of performances. I'd say largely people did well. We had a lot of personal bests and gritty performances. I was very proud of the hurdle crew that I worked with throughout the season. In the end, we qualified eleven of our student-athletes for State, which will take place this Thursday through Saturday in Missoula. We will be represented in the following events: Boys-- 4x100 relay, Pole Vault, Javelin, Shot Put, 100 Meter Dash, and High Jump. Girls-- Pole Vault, Shot Put, Discus, and 800 Meter Run. Should make for a fun weekend with so many kids qualified in a variety of events!
I am also very excited to watch Christina Aragon compete at the State Meet this year. She is a phenomenal distance runner from Billings who has already competed at some high stakes meets, including recently at the Payton Jordon Invitiational. Right now, she is ranked fifth on the all-time fastest high school girls 1500 meter run list, with names like Mary Cain and Alexa Efraimson. And she's from Montana! Check out this article from FloTrack if you're interested in learning more about Aragon: 4:16 High Schooler Christina Aragon...
Jeff and I also attended some Graduation parties over the weekend as both North Star and Chester-Joplin-Inverness celebrated their High School graduations this weekend. It was interesting to see people's reactions to my stitches as we attended events together.
All in all, it was a good week, even with a minor hiccup. Hope you all had a nice week, too!
Wow... busy week this past week! This current week will be no different. Let's take a quick look back and see how last week went down in Fitness, Farm, and Life!
Fitness
Lots of wrap up this past week, as April came to a close. I finished up with one ten-day yoga challenge, two month-long running challenges, and a three-month long fitness program. I'll break down each of those individually (I'll try to be brief) and also will fill in with the weekly stats and year-to-date info. #RunnersLoveYogaITBand Yoga Challenge
This was a ten-day yoga challenge that I decided to squeeze in late in the month, even knowing how busy I would be. I wanted the time to myself to wind down and refocus, and typically ended up doing these stretches at the end of my day. This series was also specifically focused on ITBand, which for me is perpetually tight and is an issue. These stretches felt SOOOOO GOOD!!! I'm definitely going to keep an eye out for future RunnersLoveYoga challenges. You can check them out on Instagram (@runnersloveyoga) and on their website: http://www.runnersloveyoga.com/
Here's a few photo collages of some of my yoga poses:
#runnersloveyogaITband days 1-5
#runnersloveyogaITband days 6-10
#MillionMileMonth
I participated in this challenge as part of my involvement with Team Beef Montana. I pledged a goal of 50 miles of running, and I hit my goal on April 29th with a nice early morning run. #OiselleFullHalf
This challenge was through the Oiselle blog/team that I'm on. The goal was to pick something relating to the number 13, and do that, because 13 is "half" of a full marathon. Some people chose to run a full half-marathon, for example. Some people decided to do yoga thirteen times in the month of April. Those are just a few examples. I decided for my goal to do thirteen different running routes or workouts-and not repeating any- within the month of April. I completed my last unique workout on the treadmill on April 27!
Here's how all my 13 different runs/workouts ended up looking on paper. :)
Shape Up Montana
I was again a Team Captain for our family Shape Up Montana participation and also coordinated three teams at school, while also participating on the family team myself. Shape Up Montana runs from February 1 through April 30. Individuals earn points for their teams based on their activity. This year, I set a goal of scoring 600 points. I hit 622 points on April 30 and was really happy overall with my fitness level and improvement over previous years. I was really proud of our family team and the teams from school for their hard work, too.
Here are the overall stats and activities from last week: Sunday- Icebreaker 5-Mile race! <<Read Race Review HERE>>, 15 min yoga Monday- rest, 15 min yoga Tuesday- 30 min yoga, 30 min vigorous workout with track kids, and 3 mile easy run with distance runners Wednesday- 3 mile easy treadmill run. #OiselleFullHalf challenge complete! 15 min yoga
Thursday- rest, 10 min yoga
Friday- 3.2 early morning run, #MillionMileMonth challenge complete!
Saturday- 15 min yoga
Here's how my April calendar filled out overall! Busy month, and not just with fitness.
And here's Year to Date- Year To Date, through April 23 Running: 184.7 miles Walking/Hiking: 65.7 miles Yoga: 900 min <-- I gained 110 minutes of yoga last week! Wow! CC-Ski: 500 min / 14.1 miles *Done for the season Alpine Ski: 3 days *Done for the season Mountain bike: 34 miles - Watch for this to pick up as Tri Training continues!
What's next in Fitness?
I have a 10K race penciled in for May 15, weather dependent. Jeff and I are also signed up for a color run on May 22. Has anyone ever done a color run? And, I also have my triathlon training. I've created a training plan and I am starting this week. I'll write about that on my Tri Tuesday post (which obviously isn't going to be published on Tuesday...), so stay tuned!
Farm
We had another rain event last Sunday/Monday and the ground stayed REALLY wet for most of the week. So, this meant that our seeding efforts were kabashed. Jeff and Tom branded our yearlings one day and also turned our cow/calf pairs out onto pasture.
The cows were really ready to move to bigger pasture.
We are so, so thankful for the rain that has happened. Our crops that we have planted so far are already beginning to break the ground surface, and the grasses in the pastures are looking more lively already. We have had about three inches of rain in the month of April, which is unheard of in these parts. I think the El Nino weather pattern has officially come to a close for us, which is good. El Nino means drought in our geographical area. Transitioning to La Nina is a much better outlook for cropland in Montana-- bring it on!
Our peas are sprouting!
Life
Again, not much to report in the "Life" category. I am super busy with Track and Field, and I did get my typical springtime cold last week. Thankfully, it wasn't that bad and didn't really keep me down. I did get a Stitch Fix box this past week and am working on a review blog post for that, too. Keep on the lookout for that!
That's all for today! Thanks for reading, everyone, and have a great week!
Lots of sunrise runs lately! Love that it's starting to get light out at 5:30 for early runs!
First off, thanks for everyone's support and enthusiasm with my big Triathlon Announcement. (ICYMI- READ HERE!) I can't reiterate enough how awesome it makes me feel to know I have such support out there!! You all know how to make a girl feel great!
Now, let's take a big picture look at how the week went in fitness, farm, and life.
Our cows were all lined up along the fence when I went out for a recent evening walk.
Fitness
I really wasn't feeling well last weekend, and my fitness took a little hit going into the week. I was able to scrape together a few short, or slow-paced runs, but everything else got pushed on the back burner due to being busy with track and seeding. I did get a lot of steps on my pedometer this week, but I didn't record them here, so you'll just have to take my word for it.
Heading in to the last week of my fitness challenges, I've got to do three runs that total 12 miles and are each a different route than I've done so far this month in order to reach both my MillionMileMonth goal and my @Oisellefullhalf goal. I'm about 20 points away from hitting my Shape Up Montana goal of 600 or more total points.
I also picked up an easy yoga challenge last week that started on Thursday that I'm really loving. It's specifically for runners, through @runnersloveyoga on Instagram. A new pose each day focusing on IT band stretching. I am really loving it. It doesn't take much time, but the benefits have already been great!
Image source: @runnersloveyoga on Instagram. Snapshot of each of the poses in the series.
This Week's Shenanigans: Sunday- 4 mile run on flat, easy terrain, and a short pasture hike with family.
Nice to see our cows on grass that's turning greener by the second! We walked through ths pasture on our hike.
We also spied this rare pincushion cactus on our hike. They are hard to find!
Monday- rest/nothing Tuesday- early morning 2.2 mile hill run. First outside early morning run of the year!, 15 min yoga Wednesday- rest/nothing Thursday- rest/nothing Friday- 4 mile easy run before leaving for track weekend trip.
I paused on my run for a photo op with this old pickup.
Saturday- 30 min yoga
Year To Date, through April 23 Running: 170.5 miles Walking/Hiking: 65.7 miles <-- Really pumped up this one this week, again! Yoga: 790 min CC-Ski: 500 min / 14.1 miles *Done for the season Alpine Ski: 3 days *Done for the season Mountain bike: 34 miles - Watch for this to pick up as Tri Training continues!
Farm
After we dried out from the RAIN, Jeff and Tom were spraying and seeding this week. We finished seeding our barley and moved on to spring wheat. Whoever wasn't running the air drill, which is the implement we use to seed our crops, was spraying our crop land in preparation to being seeded.
Seeding barley at sunset last week.
The guys worked some really long days, trying to get as much seeding and work in as possible because we were set for another spring storm today/tomorrow. As such, we had to get a little creative with meals and food, as far as timing of when we ate, and all that. I even brought one meal out to the field because they were seeding at the farthest away field from the house and everyone agreed that we didn't want to eat dinner at the end of the work day- at 10:00 p.m. or later. Meals in the field are a more common occurrence for us during harvest, but the weather was good and it was just as easy to bring it out there. Tom said he wasn't sure if he could remember ever eating in the field at seeding time. I was out of practice for this, so I didn't have every little detail thought out, but we all got fed and got back to work, so I'd call it a success.
Jeff takes a break to eat during seeding.
Life
We are at the busiest part of the season for track meets. Last week, this week, and next week, we are slammed with both High School and Junior High meets. It's hard at times for me to balance farm, track, and my own fitness and well-being. Hoping to continue to stay healthy. Thanks to my family members who continue to be understanding about my track coaching during this busy time, and are willing to make sacrifices and adjustments of their own.
Along the track and field theme, each year our team takes one overnight trip to an out of town meet. I've never gone on this trip before, but this year I went along. Our meet was Saturday in Missoula (a 5-6 hour bus ride from school). We left on Friday and took our team to a Carroll College track meet in Helena, where one of our former athletes was competing, then drove on to Missoula for our meet on Saturday. Our athletes really loved seeing college-level competition, and definitely seeing their former teammate competing at that level. It was really cool to see the team gather around her and soak it all up. I'm glad we could give them this opportunity.
Some of our athletes, in white, gather around for some wisdom from our former athlete, in center, wearing gray.
First off, thanks to everyone for your nice comments about our cat, Quincy, which I wrote about in THIS POST. He is doing great and we are so happy to have him home!
Wow, what a busy week... Two track meets for me this week, seeding has begun, we gained a new calf chore, and you know, just keeping on with balancing work and fitness into the rest of this crazy thing called life! Read on for all the highlights!
One of our runs this past week started at our old yard. Nice to see this familiar face!
Fitness
I am continuing to make progress in all of my various fitness challenges and programs (#Oisellefullhalf, MMM, and Shape Up MT), somehow. I've had to get a little creative with finding times to run. Early morning runs, afternoon run breaks at school, and late evening runs are possibly becoming more a part of my routine. I mean, if you can call my life this time of year "routine."
Also, working/coaching at a track meet should be its own fitness category. I get a ton of steps on my pedometer those days, and it's exhausting! We had a meet on Wednesday - a meet that our school hosts - wherein we arrived at the meet at 6:30 a.m. and I got on the bus about 12 hours later after the meet was done. What that means is 12 hours of literally not sitting down once. Not even once. I'm not asking for sympathy - I love meets and I love that I have the opportunity to help give young people a positive track and field experience - I'm simply sharing how working at a meet can feel so exhausting.
Track meet days!
One thing that was a bit lacking this past week was yoga. I guess I had one morning of leading yoga at track practice, but that's it. I'm planning to pick that back up this week, for sure!
Here's how the week shook out: Sunday- 4.7 mile trail run with Jeff
We took the dogs, too. Here we are on a trail between two winter wheat fields.
Monday- 30 minutes yoga, 8 mile bike ride
Bike selfie!
Tuesday- 3.2 mile run -- Jeff cooked dinner while I was out running! Best. Husband. Ever.
When I got back from my run, Jeff had grilled steak and asparagus and served with baked potato. I added the cheese. SO DELICIOUS!
Wednesday- Track Meet-- 5 miles of walking Thursday- 3.1 mile run in town Friday- 5 miles of walking, 20 minutes core exercises Saturday- Track Meet-- 6.5 miles of walking
Whew. Busy week of fitness! I recorded 45.7 points in Shape Up Montana last week, not including the 10 point bonus for doing the challenge. That's my highest point week so far! Crazy.
And, here's how my YTD stats are coming along: Running: 148.7 miles Walking/Hiking: 53.7 miles <-- Really pumped up this one this week! Yoga: 685 min CC-Ski: 500 min / 14.1 miles *Done for the season Alpine Ski: 3 days *Done for the season Mountain bike: 34 miles
Farming
This week, we unfortunately had a mama cow die, leaving an orphaned calf. This means we are now bottle/bucket feeding him twice a day. It's a special bucket with a nipple at the bottom and we mix up some formula for him, called milk replacer. He's learning to adapt. In fact, he's forming some new habits and alliances that are pretty entertaining, and annoying at times. I may do a separate post on that... stay tuned! All the same, I'm getting in on helping him with his feeding chores in the evening.
Here's the little fella. We're trying to think of a name.
Jeff and Tom worked hard at the end of last week and over the weekend to seed our peas. We are seeding yellow field peas in two different places, and they finished up over the weekend. Next, they are seeding just a little bit of a hay mix including peas, oats, and alfalfa, I think. Then, they'll move on to barley. We are *supposed* to get rain later this week, and I know the goal is to have all the barley in the ground before the rain comes. However, no one would be mad if seeding were interrupted for a day or two due to rain. Everyone send up a rain dance-- we would GLADLY suspend the seeding operation for rain! We really, really need moisture!!
We can work hard and do everything right, but in the end we're very dependent on nature to have a good crop.
Life
Outside of fitness, track and field, and farming, there's not a whole lot else going on to report on this week. A LOT of my coworkers at school have been coming down with bad flu viruses and I'm really trying hard not to get sick. I did get a flu shot just a few weeks ago, so I'm hoping that will help. BUT--this is typically the time of year that I do get sick. Extra vitamin C for me!
Have a great week, everyone!
Hello from all of our pets! Clockwise from top left: Harvey, Quincy, Peanut, Iggy, and Abby.
Have you been hankering for a glimpse into the life of the rancher during calving!? This time of year, we are quite the bovine maternity ward round here! In this post, you'll learn all about the extra special circumstances of when cows have twins. Special thanks to Jeff for helping me write this post and making sure I had my facts correct. Enjoy!
As I mentioned in my previous post, overall, everything is going very smoothly with the calving operation this year. The weather has been agreeable to late-night and early-morning walk-throughs, and we've had relatively few issues with the birthing process in our cows. Sure, we've had to assist in a few births by helping turn a calf who was coming backwards or even "pulling" a few to help the cow. That's pretty typical.
We've only had a few calves die, which is also good. Each year there are a few who get sick or are born with some sort of issue and just don't make it. Obviously, we do everything we can to help the calves and their mamas, but sometimes there's just nothing left to do.
And then there are the twins. We can usually count on one or two sets of twins born every year. While it is a good thing to have twins in a sense because, hey, we just got two-for-the-price-of-one, it can also place added stress on the mama cow. Typically, a cow produces enough milk to raise one calf, so twins can really put a strain on her ability to give the best nutrition to both calves. Also, sometimes the births themselves are much higher stress and almost always require assistance, or even a trip to the vet. This year, we had three sets of twins. Sort of.
Our most recent set of twins. Keep reading to find out how they're doing!
When Jeff and I were gone to Minneapolis a few weeks ago, Jeff received a call from those manning the calving operation - Tom and our friend Jim - that we had lost a calf. It had been born dead. Not to worry, however, because the very next animal that calved had twins. They were able to "graft" one of the twin calves onto the cow who had lost her calf. Very serendipitous. Because the twins were born so soon after the other calf had died, the grafting took easily-- the mama who had lost her calf accepted one of the twins as her own calf, after a brief "warming-up" period.
A few weeks later, there was a cow who started acting really funny in the pen. She would stomp around, act a little territorial, and then began trying to claim the newborn calves of other cows. It's not unusual for a cow to have the first pangs of contractions, and look around, finding another cow's newborn calf, and confuse it for her own, thinking she had given birth. This cow did that with several others' calves. She showed signs of nearing calving, but hadn't given birth yet. For a whole day, she could consistently be found causing a ruckus. We knew she was close to calving but something just wasn't right about her.
Finally, she started the actual calving process. Only, it was taking her quite some time and she was making very little progress. Jeff eventually went in to investigate, you know, going shoulder deep to feel around inside the animal. What he felt was what he thought were twins, but who were tangled up together inside. He and Tom attempted to sort them out but couldn't make progress at it. They called the vet, who instructed them to load up the cow and take her to town to be checked out. The vet ended up doing a C-section to get the calves out, but they both were dead. The vet's opinion was that one of the calves had probably died a week ago or more, and the other one may have been fine but it was tangled up with its dead twin, so the cow couldn't birth him correctly. Ultimately, there was nothing we could have done. Jeff loaded up the cow and took her home, stitches up the side of her belly.
So, this is what a post- C-section cow looks like.
Again, serendipity would have it, that very shortly after this incident, another cow, actually a heifer, gave birth to twins. They are the two tiniest calves I have ever seen! One of them was quite weak, and was definitely not acting as lively as a calf should when it is first born. We thought for sure we'd lose him. Jeff and Tom piped some colostrum down him since he wasn't able to stand and suck on his own, and hoped for the best, but didn't really think he'd make it through the night, he was so weak. We all sort of agreed that with the teeny tiny size of these two calves and the way the one was sort of developmentally lagging, it seemed like they had maybe been born prematurely.
The next morning, on my early morning check, I couldn't bring myself to look in the barn to check on these twins. I just didn't want to start my day by finding a dead calf. But, fortune was on our side. Jeff called me later and said the calf was acting a bit more perky. The colostrum had done it's job and really seemed to be helping. The calf would make it after all! Both twin calves now seemed to be doing fine.
One of the twins with their birth mama.
She gives him a sniff...
...and lets him suck.
She's a heifer, so she's not quite all the way to being a full-sized cow. The calf could fit completely under her belly.
Gives you an idea of how small they were.
Only problem with these twins is that, having been born to a heifer, she has a very small bag (udder). In other words, she does not have much milk, even for two tiny calves. So, the idea light bulb struck that we could try to make a pair out of one of these twin calves and the c-section mama who had lost both of hers. We'd have our work cut out for us, though, as it had been two days since she had given birth via c-section to the dead calves. The longer you wait, the harder it can be to graft a calf. Add to the mix that she had become very nervous around humans and in enclosed spaces. I chalked this up to her having the traumatic experience of the entire c-section ordeal, but opinions are mixed on this. She also could just be a nervous sort of cow.
It took several days of locking her in a feeding chute in the calving barn and bringing the twin calf up to suck while she was penned in. Jeff and Tom tried everything they could think of to try to get her to claim him. She would let the twin nurse, but would never act like she had any interest in actually raising him. At times, she'd kick at him to keep him from nursing, but mostly the calf was getting fed. It just didn't seem like she would accept and raise him as her own, although the fact that he was able to nurse gave us some hope. Tom has always said in the past that if a calf can nurse enough from a cow so her milk passes all the way through him, and her scent/hormones are on his "hind end," the cow will then almost always take the calf. In this case, she'd sniff the calf, but never had any inkling of wanting to actually mother it, and always just escaped the barn immediately rather than trying to keep the calf with her.
Here's the c-section cow locked in the feeding chute so that the calf could nurse.
We had talked about different options. He could be a bottle calf that *guess who* would probably get to feed every day. Or, he could go to the neighbor's herd, who had just lost a calf of their own. Without settling on anything, we just kept trying to make it a pair with what we had, as futile as it felt at times.
Then one morning, probably fed up with the battle of wills between himself and the cow, Jeff just decided to go for it. He pushed the young, tiny calf out of the barn and into one of the larger pens. The cow immediately walked up to the calf and began licking him off and mooing at him-- as if she had just birthed him right then and there. Like, "Hey! I've been looking for you for over a week! Where have you been?!" Just like that, in spite of all of our best efforts, the pair was made.
Here's a short video Jeff took of the cow and calf-
Now, every time I go out to do my walk-throughs, I check in on this man-made pair. Pretty much without fail, that cow is within two feet of the calf. She does not let him get away and appears to be very doting. Who knew!
So, that gives a glimpse into what goes on during calving, and especially the drama that can come with twins. I am proud of the attention and care given to our animals. Also, I think there's a lesson in there somewhere about an animal's will and instinct. People can try to influence their behaviors, but animals gonna be animals in the end. They'll do it their own way.
And just for fun... A friend of mine tagged me on Facebook with this cartoon. What do you think?!
