Shades of Green Farm

Cattle Pictures-- SO Cute!

Are bovines cute? They sure are as babies and I think even our big old ladies, Pip and Pen, have their cutish moments. When I went to take pictures of our newest heifer, Camila, I took the opportunity to catch the other gals on film as well. (There's another word-play question-- digital cameras don't capture anything on 'film', so what do we say now? "I caught them on the memory card" "I snapped some digitals of them". Hmmm...)

Anyway, here are the gals of Shades of Green Farm South Poll herd.

Pen-- Penelope Bovine-- is about 10 yrs old. She's the top gal in the herd. She's just finished licking some salt and is looking pensive as she savors the flavors in that good Redmond Salt.

Pen with her yearling calf from last year, Bette. They look so sweet together, but really Pen is keeping Bette from getting to some of that good salt.

And now just Bette, face on, looking much smaller than her size. This is the baby born looking like a bull, and acting like one too. (Is this where the term bulldyke came from?) At birth, she was a wild thing; now, she lets me pet her now and then, and loves to hang out with her younger sister, Loretta Mae.

Here's Philimena, the first calf born on our farm... the very bonita lady who has been a curious gal from the start and the one who stole my heart... and kept it. We were offered $1,000 for her last summer; she is the epitome of a young South Poll heifer... and we're keeping her.

And, of course, Pip with her young one, Camila... you won't find Pip far from her baby right now and when I come around, with a camera or not, she stays very close. When we gave Camila her ear tag, Pip bawled and almost came close enough to knock Salud over!

Camila is another fine specimen, with her light coloring, although she's a bit shaggy like Bette was.

If you didn't notice while admiring our gals, take a look at the grasses these gals are standing in... over 2' tall in some places! What a great year this has been so far, and we've got more rain on the way today and tonight. Haven't fed hay since winter, which saves us much-needed money. Yay for long, wet springs and summer when the rain still finds her way to our farm!

Camila is Born

For those keeping up with our small but growing herd of South Poll cattle, on June 28th we were blessed with the birth of our latest girl calf. Two months earlier, I wrote about Penelope Bovine gaving birth to Loretta Mae...  a month later, we began wondering if Pippy Freckleface would ever give birth. Pip grew wider and wider, and walked slower and slower, until we were sure she was carrying twins. In truth, we were hoping for twin boys... calling for them with the mantra "beef in 2012!"

You see, last year Pip and Pen had two heifers, Philimena and Bette, and we were thrilled because the year before, they had two boys, which might make great meat but no babies to grow our herd. Then we had those boys turned into beef and Wow! was that meat incredible... and we became eager indeed for another boy to be born... hence our mantra, which didn't work.

But that's okay, because now we've got our 4 new heifers, which will provide the base family of females for a decade or more to come. Next year, Phili and Bette will be bred and the following year Loretta Mae and Camila will be, which will allow us to retire Pip and Pen (as long as we have either rain to grow the pastures or money to buy the hay for cattle not producing anything but pleasant memories... which may sound ridiculously sentimental but that's how we are).

Here's a picture of Camila, who was named by our friend Salud, in honor of all his support in helping me learn what's healthy in a young calf and after-birth cow, how to attach an ear tag, and his all-around great guy help to us on our farm.

I'm trying to post a little movie about Camila nursing on our YouTube channel at ShadesOfGreenFarm... still haven't made that happen on our slow connection, but check it out and see if it's there.