January 23, 2011, the temperature reached 18 degrees below zero at our farm between Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Here is a photo of our bull, Osceola Winchester, doing fine after being out in the cold all night. With the ice cycles hanging from his hair, Winchester tinkles when he walks. Reminds us of a Christmas carol.

The new calf, YoYo survived just fine snuggled up next to her mom. The sheep and goats also seemed to make it through the night without any problem.

How do they do it? We are all wrapped up in blankets inside, sipping hot tea.

It's a bit difficult for the cows to eat when the hay feeder is full of bull. This is our bull "VW". He would much rather be inside the feeder than outside.

Several times we have had to tip the feeder up and over the bull with the tractor loader so he can get out. He is well fed and his fat stomach tends to get stuck between the uprights.

Fortunately for the cows, we have three other feeders and the bull can only jump into one at a time, so the cows do have options if they are hungry.

There's never a dull moment around Highland Cattle!

It's Christmas. Season's greetings from our family to yours!

We observe a Christmas Eve tradition of taking treats to the cows at midnight. They low gently as they crowd around the manger. It really does seem like they are singing Christmas Carols in celebration of Jesus' birth.

We wish you an abundance of joy and happiness as you celebrate Christmas.

May God bless you and your family.

Mr. C is a young Araucana (Americana) rooster that came to us from Shari and Dave Groendyk at Texas Corners, a suburban area west of Kalamazoo.

Shari ordered 8 "Easter Egg" pullets (baby female chickens) online. Araucana chickens (or Americana as some people call them because they were bred in this country instead of coming directly from South America) lay eggs that are green, pink or ivory instead of plain brown or plain white.

At four months old one of Shari's pullets started crowing in the morning - her little girl chicken turned out to be a little boy chicken. The residents of Texas Corners like hens, but roosters are too noisy. Looking for a home for "Calliope" she renamed him "Mr. C" and brought him to Wild Rose Meadows.

When Mr. C arrived, he wanted to explore the barn so we let him out with the other chickens. They did not accept him into the flock.

Here is the way Mr. C's first week went....

• 1st night: Mr. C. hid under a pile of lumber in the far back corner of the barn where the older hens and roosters couldn't get him. We don't think he slept much the first night.
• 2nd night: We took Mr. C into protective custody in an unused horse stall with a Barred Rock hen for company. He roosted up in the corner of the stall where she couldn't get hm. We don't think he slept much the second night either.
• 3rd night: Mr. C roosted on top of a nesting box along with the hen, just out of reach of her sharp beak.
• 4th night: Mr. C roosted comfortably on top of the nesting box right next to the hen.
• 5th night: Mr. C roosted comfortably on top of the nesting box right next to the hen.
• 6th night: We opened the stall door. The hen went out.  Mr. C roosted on top of the nesting box by himself.
• 7th night: Mr. C. went out into the barn and roosted comfortably with the other chickens, like he had been there forever.

The adoption is a success. Mr. C is now part of the flock.

 

Scottish Highland Cattle are known for their long hair and their long horns. Both males and females have horns.

It’s rare that cattle break their horns, but when a horn is broken it needs to be repaired immediately. If blood vessels inside the horn are ruptured, the broken horn can cause tremendous pain to the animal as well as exposing the animal to serious health issues or even death. With immediate attention, horns sometimes grow back together if the break isn’t too serious.

Whopper is a dun (brown) yearling Scottish Highland bull who broke his horn this week. I went out to the pasture to find his horn bent and bleeding. There was danger that he could bleed to death or get an infection in the break, or that flies attracted by the blood could lay eggs which could enter his blood stream and mature into maggots eating his body from inside out. He needed immediate medical attention.

Doctor Brown, our farm veterinarian said most horn breaks are not serious, but just to be sure, he came out to the farm to check on Whopper. This particular break turned out to be very serious. Doc had to amputate the end of the horn. Blood spurted from the crushed blood vessels. Doc applied antibiotic paste liberally to the wound, then packed it with gauze, wrapped it with ace bandage, and then wrapped the entire horn in duct tape. As you might imagine, this was a tricky task on an 800 pound bull suffering from intense pain and without the benefit of an operating table or even anesthetic.

Whopper was already feeling better the next morning. He was up and eating normally, looking for treats. He looked like he was back to his normal good nature. The bandage should come off in about two weeks. The end of Whopper’s horn will scar over and he should have no ill effects from losing the end of his horn, although he may appear lopsided for awhile.

The core of a cow’s horn is made of bone. The bone grows from the skull through to the tip of the horn. The bone has blood vessels running throughout as well as nerves. The bone is a living part of the cow as with any other bone. With proper nutrition and good health, the horn will continue to grow throughout the life of the cow, although growth slows as the cow ages.

The outer shell of a horn is made of keratin. Keratin is a tough, non-mineralized, structural protein commonly found in fingernails, claws, hair, feathers and hooves.

A thin layer of tissue connects the outer keratin shell of the horn to the bone. This tissue is a living organism of the cow. Upon death of the cow, this tissue dies which will cause the outer shell to slip off the underlying bone.

Horns differ greatly from antlers found on deer, elk, and other species. The anatomy of antlers is simpler--antlers are made only of bone. Antlers die upon maturity each season and are shed annually. Therefore, they are not a permanent part of the animal's anatomy as cow horns are. Unlike antlers, cow horns do not branch out, having just one point at each end.

Meet Winchester, a new member of our Highland family. Winchester comes from Cooley's Green Acres in Rapid River, Michigan, about 100 miles West of the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

Winchester is a yearling bull with a pedigree from the state of Washington. He is unrelated to Highland Cattle in Michigan, which gives us a chance to improve our herd genetics.

Winchester was bred at Heath Acres in Vancouver, Washington. His blood line comes from Five Star Farms in Trout Lake Washington on his father's side and Hart Acres in Tacoma Washington on his mother's side.

Winchester is light yellow in color, our first true yellow Highland. Most Highlands that are classified as yellow are really light red or strawberry blonde. Winchester is a true light yellow.

His disposition is wonderful. Winchester loves to be brushed and looks forward to eating treats out of our hands.

We are really excited that Winchester of Cooley's Green Acres has come to live at Wild Rose Meadows.

 

Broken equipment is a constant feature of life on the farm. And of course, equipment only breaks when we need to use it. Today the starter on our big 40-year-old tractor broke just as I was beginning to mow hay - hay that was already way late in being harvested and way over-ripe due to all the rain recently. You've heard the saying, "Make hay while the sun shines." We've had a lot of clouds lately. But all clouds have a silver lining, and this particular one was no exception.

The first thing I do when a tractor breaks is to call Zip's Repair Shop in Zeeland. Jason, the owner, asked me to describe the noises I heard when I tried to start the tractor. He suggested I remove the starter from the tractor and take it to Floyd's Electric Motor Repair in Grand Rapids. When I pulled the starter off the tractor, I found that the housing had broken and the teeth on the starter gear were mangled.

That starter was a sorry sight (see photo)! Fortunately, I was able to remove the pieces of the broken starter housing so they wouldn't jam up the flywheel. I turned the motor over by hand using a large screwdriver to inspect the ring gear one tooth at a time. I was lucky again - no broken teeth. Broken teeth on the ring gear would have required pulling the engine out of the tractor - a major expense.

I took the starter to Floyd's Electric at 8:30 am. The technicians immediately dropped what they were doing to check out the broken starter while I waited. They looked up part numbers on the computer and found that it would take at least a week to order another housing to replace the broken one. To save time, they sent me to Wayland to the tractor bone yard (salvage facility) to see if they had a similar tractor out back with an intact starter. As luck would have it, the bone yard had no similar tractor from which to scrounge parts.

The technicians at Floyd's Electric then went upstairs and looked through rows and rows of old starters they had saved, until they found one with an intact housing similar to the broken housing on my starter. The main difference was that the number of screw holes and the locations of those holes were different than the screw holes in the housing of my broken starter. The technicians machined new screw holes in the old housing to make an exact fit for my starter. Then they replaced the gear and spring on my broken starter. Finally, they put my old starter on the test bench to be sure it had a lot of life in it yet before giving it back to me.

At 2:30 pm Floyd's Electric's technicians called me to say my starter was repaired and ready to pick up. They even gave it a new coat of paint. They had me back in the field 6 hours after I took the starter in, and they charged me only half what I expected to pay.

Who knew such a business existed any more? Floyd's Electric in Grand Rapids is definitely the kind of business we all want to do business with!

A whole bunch of kids are looking forward to baby chicks three weeks from now, so we filled up the incubator today with 36 eggs. Chicken eggs require 21 days to hatch.

Isn't it amazing that a chicken can produce a brand new egg in a day, and then sit on it for just 21 days to hatch a baby chick?

The incubator is constructed of styrofoam.The eggs can be seen through the windows in the top of the incubator.

There is a tray in the bottom into of the incubator into which we pour a little water to maintain humidity.The lid has a heat coil, a thermostat to turn the heat coil on and off, maintaining the required temperature of 99.5 degrees, and a fan to spread the warm air evenly across the eggs.

In the bottom of the incubator above the water is a screen. On the screen sits an electric egg turner that turns the eggs every fouir hours. The automatic egg turner is not required, but the eggs do need to be turned three times per day, so the egg turner is a nice feature.

After 18 days we will remove the egg turner and lay the eggs on their sides on top of the screen for the last 3 days until they hatch.

If all goes well. 21 days from now we will have a whole bunch of baby chicks for the kids to see and touch.

 

It’s midnight in mid-June. The rain is coming down hard. Thunder rolls overhead. I feel dampness on my arms when water seeps in the seams of my rain suit. I am about a quarter of a mile back of the barn in the meadow by the creek, feeding the third bottle of the day to Rascal, our blind calf. He is now 8 weeks old and grazing along side his mother with the rest of the herd. It would be difficult to know he is blind if I didn't tell you.

As Rascal enthusiastically sucks the warm milk from the bottle and the rain patters on my rain suit, I am mesmerized by a thousand flickering fireflies floating effortlessly against the dark backdrop of the trees that surround the meadow. They float above the grass, blinking eerie green beacons of light against the darkness of the trees. It’s like sitting in an Imax theater with the screen curving around, where a person is right in the middle of something much bigger than himself. Who would have guessed that fireflies would be flying in such a hard rain?

Nightime on the farm is special. On a rainy night, the darkness is really dark! There are no streetlights out here. On a clear night the stars are spectacular. The moon can light up the landscape so brightly a flashlight is unnecessary. There is a chorus of a thousand frogs singing at the tops of their lungs. An owl calls from a nearby tree down by the creek. A short distance away a pack of coyotes call to each other as they hunt. The coyotes fall silent, then the night is pierced by the scream of a rabbit being caught. Nature has a way of keeping everything in balance, and it’s not always a quiet process.

Rascal is done with his bottle. He and I play for a couple of minutes before he heads back into the meadow to find his mother, and I head back to the house to catch a few minutes of TV weather before turning in for the night. I take one last glance around the meadow, still mesmerized by the sight of a thousand flickering fireflies as they wink and blink their eerie green glow. Then I walk back to the barn through the rain and lose sight of the fireflies and the stars when the  mercury vapor light on the barn takes control of the darkness.

I’m going to miss those midnight walks back to the meadow when Rascal is all grown up and doesn’t need a bottle any more!

Traditional old fashioned bright orange poppies call out "farm, " don't you think? Allis Chalmers tractors were painted bright orange to match oriental poppies. The Allis Chalmers Corporation called it "Persian Orange." Dave's Grandma and Grandpa had a poppy patch just a few feet from the back porch. When the poppies bloomed we knew it was time to start harvesting the hay crop.

When we moved to the farm in the month of September a number of years ago, we didn't know the treasures waiting to be discovered the next spring. You can imagine how excited we were when the snow melted and a parade of flowers started popping up around us. The first flowers that spaing up in the yard were the bloodroots brought up from the woods, and helliborus that stays green all winter. Then the trilliums surprised us, followed by bright bulb plants - white and pink hyaciths, yellow daffodils, blue squill and red tulips.

By late April the flowering trees and shrubs burst into bloom - cherries, dogwood and quince, followed by snowballs, bridal veil and viburnum. The flower gardens turned bright lavender and pink with money plants and phlox, interspersed with purple spheres of alium. Peonies announced the transition into summer, and the processsion of flowers continued well into the fall.

One of the benefits to living on a farm is room - plenty of room to plant all the flowers a person's heart desires. We are thankful that the people who lived here for 30 years before us like flowers as much as we like them.