Farm News 02-24-08

Sunday morning, after chores, 34°

Weight: 208 lbs., this is becoming embarrassing, down is that way ↓.

Problem

Sending Farm News out by email has become a BIG problem for various technical reasons. I publish it as a blog at http://idfaFarmNews.blogspot.com/. Please click on this link and save it, because I am going to quit sending Farm News by email. If you are having a problem or don't understand, send me an email at JamesL.Ware@gmail.com.

Barn News

Wednesday morning the temperature here was 7° and there was a strong breeze. During the day it warmed up to about 10° and then started dropping again when the sun went down. Days like that make it hard to keep the livestock watered.

A Note from Dr. M.

Before I started vet school, I worked for a mixed animal practitioner. One day we were called to see a cow that had been seen with a hoof sticking out her back end. Of course, the farmer had first noticed this 3 days previously. No hurry to call the vet there.

We spent HOURS trying to capture that bloody cow. We FINALLY pulled an enormous bull calf out of her. He wasn't breathing when he hit the ground, so I started calf CPR. I pounded on his chest, I blew on his nose, I pulled on his tongue and tickled his ears. He finally drew a breath, stood up, and promptly fell on me. I ended up with blood, amniotic fluid and of course the ubiquitous manure ALL over me. Ah well, all in a days work.

On the way home, we were starved, and decided to stop at the fancy new Mall of Georgia, for fresh made doughnuts. The line clearing power of two people who have just helped a calf live and are covered in the detritus of the effort is amazing. Never breezed through a line so fast!

Dear Dr. M., human births are almost as messy, but lack the cow manure, usually. Isn't your first baby due soon? You can think about cows while in labor. When your baby is about two months old and demanding a late feeding, you can think about cows some more.

Tripping to Chicago

Let's see, when I left off we were at Illinois Beach State Park and Zion, Illinois. The park was lovely and Zion was a pleasant town, but we weren't making any progress on our Quest, not that we were aware that we were on a Quest, we were simply pawns that cosmic forces were moving around the country. The cosmic forces put us back in the Aztec Ambulance and pushed us northwest.

Northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin are beautiful in a quiet sort of way. There are no great mountains or endless deserts, just nice farms and small towns. Somewhere along the way we found and adopted a lost kitten. As the sun was dropping below the horizon we came to Madison, Wisconsin, home of the University of Wisconsin. We were sure that we would soon see some long-haired people with flowers in their hair who would provide us with a place to spend the night.

We looked but we didn't find them. Madison is squeezed between two lakes, Lake Mendota and Lake Monona. The parts of the lakes we saw were about 2” deep and covered with a dark, whining cloud of mosquitoes. We spent the night at a park along Lake Mendota, slapping mosquitoes and generally miserable. The next morning the kitten died. We blamed the whole thing on mosquitoes and lack of hippies, and left going south, headed for Kansas City, intending to drive non-stop to get there.

Tom was wanted by the police in Kansas and Wisconsin for skipping out after posting bail. He had a driving license but didn't care to use it, for obvious reasons. He also had a tendency to self-destructive behavior. While driving south through Illinois Tom insisted on taking a turn at driving. About twenty minutes after he sat down behind the wheel we were sitting at the side of the road talking to a Sheriff's patrolman about Tom's lack of a license.

I took over the driving and followed the patrol car, in which Tom, handcuffed, was sitting in the back seat. When we got to the county seat Tom was charged with driving without a license, booked, and put in a cell. I parked the Aztec Ambulance in front of the courthouse, where it attracted considerable attention because (1) the occupants were hippies, (2) the paint job was great, and (3) it was an old vehicle in perfect condition. The 'hippie girls' spread a blanket on the grass in front of the courthouse, we bought some picnic food, and settled down for lunch.

That was when the sheriff arrived. He parked his car in the reserved spot next to the Aztec Ambulance, got out, opened the back door, and released his big, dangerous, police dog. The dog charged straight for us, stopped a few feet short of us, and stood there momentarily, hair on his back standing up. It was secret weapon time for us. One of the women was menstruating. The dog walked over to her, stiff-legged, stuck his nose in her crotch, took a deep sniff, and started wagging his tail. He sat down, smiled at everyone, gave a friendly “woof,” and we rewarded him with a few snacks.

Meanwhile, back at the courthouse, the sheriff was screaming the dog's name, strutting around stiff-legged, and turning from red to purple in the face. The sheriff wasn't willing to come over to retrieve his dog, so he continued to shout at it, which attracted attention from some of the local folks. There were ten or fifteen people standing around the courthouse square enjoying the excitement, when one of them, with a loud, “Haw, haw,” pointed at the sheriff.

I would have kissed that guy, but I figured he would probably misinterpret the gesture. The sheriff, a savvy politician, saw the guy pointing at him and quickly retreated into the courthouse. Two hours and $50 later, Tom walked out of the courthouse, climbed into the Aztec Ambulance, and said, “Let's get the hell out of here.” A sheriff's deputy followed us all the way to the county line, where a deputy from the next county picked up the task. Thus, driving at 50 mph all the way, we reached the Mississippi River, crossed it, and said goodbye to Illinois.

Books

The Appeal by John Grisham

I made it halfway through the book before I quit because of boredom. Legal novels about important constitutional issues can be fascinating. This one counted the number of leaves on the trees, it had way too much extraneous detail.

Lone Star Silver by Jackson Cole

A good book about straight shooting Texas Rangers defeating bad guys. In addition, it was a large print edition.

Ask the Parrot by Richard Stark

This is the first book by Stark I have read. It was pretty good and in large print. Apparently Stark has written several books featuring Parker, a master criminal who wiggles out of tight situations, taking other people's money with him. I'm going to try another Stark book, soon.