Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Off to a good start





Tuesday and it's raining. Well, drizzling. It's cool and overcast, about 44 degrees in a light drizzle that occasionally becomes light rain. We've had about 0.25 inches since last night. The rain is a good thing because we've fallen behind average since last autumn, and around here average isn't that much (about 16.8 inches per year).

As grass farmers we depend on the rain. Without rain, the grass doesn't grow. The prairie can take several years without rain; all the grasses and forbs simply go dormant, safely sleeping through times of drought. We grass farmers, on the other hand, cannot go dormant. Oh, we have plans and strategies to tide us over for a year or two or maybe three. And if a mega-super-dooper-severe-michaelmoore/algore drought develops, we have thinking brains. We'll figure something out.

Best of all, though, is when we avoid drought and receive adequate and timely precipitation. Which is what we're having today. Which is nice.

Other than checking and caring for cows and calves, a rainy/drizzly day isn't much good for working. Therefore I am not fixing fence or doing most of the other chores which have accumulated to my list.

I am a bit busy, though, for my newspaper articles are due by noon tomorrow and I'm in the process of finishing them off. So I'm not sitting on the couch, eating bon-bons and watching Oprah. More's the pity.

However, I do have the following video playlist prepared for your perusal, and even, perhaps, your approval.

It's cool and wet and mucky and squishy out today. Which makes it a perfect day to be born.



Hear the meadowlarks in the background? Enjoy, and have a super day.

6 comments:

  1. Those videos wee fascinating! I see that it takes a little while for the calf to get the ears and legs hooked together, so the inner ears can give balance. How cool that once the calf has the ears up and running, so it can stand, the Mom moves away, so the calf has to start learning movement control on multiple axes, which will allow it to walk anywhere it wants! YAY, SHAUN! YAY, CALF! Especially, YAY COW!

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    1. No quantity of words can stand in for moving pictures in such things. Knowing and figuring only takes you so far. Seeing is reality. Thanks for the kind words Scott.

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  2. May your life continue to have the correct amounts of rain and sun. At the correct times, of course.

    Paul L. Quandt

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  3. Ah, the beauty of birth.

    Thanks for sharing that Shaun.

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    1. Thanks Sarge. Hatching is cool, but live birth has a bit more gravitas.

      These vertical deliveries always remind me of the whale and bowl of petunias in the gravity well in 'Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe.' As the poet said, I'm sure glad that cows don't fly."

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