Change of plans - this time for the better!

Just to keep all my non-facebook liking blog-followers updated on happenings at the farm....

I had given up on this foster calf idea ever working and was planning to have to milk twice a day for ages and to make lots and lots of cheese.... but then on Wednesday morning, one week after Bella had her calf and it died, we milked her and only got 4 L, rather than 12 L. We also noticed that replacement calf Romeo was happy lying down in the paddock instead of standing by the gate to wait for his milk. We put 2 and 2 together, but we didn't believe it until we saw it later, after breakfast. first we saw Bella licking Romeo clean and then she let him have a drink.

Bella with her new calf :)

It looks like Bella has officially adopted Romeo, and all of her own accord, no trickery required (only because we didn't think Bella would fall for it). We are very proud of her.

We are very pleased to have recruited a share-milker, a very greedy little share-milker at that! We had to lock him up in the evening because we only got 2 L for the afternoon milking, which we gave to Benny (the Braford calf that we brought home a while ago). The good thing is that Romeo is nearly taking all the milk by himself, so soon we will be able to milk only once a day, and then we will be able to just milk whenever we want, which means we will be able to go away for weekends and holidays afterall instead of being stuck with milking twice a day for the next few months!

The only downside is less milk for cheese, but at least there's no pressure to make cheese after work now, we'll probably just collect enough through the week to make a cheese in the weekend. We had actually started feeding Bella less grain to help her udder swelling to reduce and avoid mastitis, but now that we want more milk, and we know that Romeo will help take the rest of the milk, she gets more grain, which I'm sure she doesn't mind.

Anyway, I'll write more later about what we learnt during this week of foster calf limbo, just wanted to let you all know that we had happy ending.

You might also be interested in my series on getting started with homestead dairy

Interview with myself

Interview with Mark and Kate from Purple Pear Permaculture

Interview with Kim from the Little Black Cow

Interview with Rose Petal

Interview with Marie from Go Milk the Cow

Interview with Ohio Farmgirl

Buy my ebook "Our Experience with House Cows" on Etsy, Lulu and Amazon, or email on eight.acres.liz at gmail.com to arrange delivery. More information on my house cow ebook blog.

Reviews of "Our Experience with House Cows"

Kim from the Little Black Cow Blog

Fiona from Live at Arbordale Farm

Marie from Go Milk the Cow

Renata from Sunnyside Farm Fun

Gavin from Little Green Cheese (and The Greening of Gavin)

Farm update - August 2017

Its been cold this month, and very nice to have the fire going every night. Here's a photo of my boy in his cape, great for late night woofing at things. Most of July we were either preparing for the butcher to come or putting meat away. Its always a big job, but its only once a year, and its all done now. My lovely neighbour came over to help, so it was fun to have the company and work together. Taz was a champion once again as she helped us to move cattle in the yards ready to load for the market. Gus is not at that level yet and had to stay home (he cries when he gets left behind, but he just gets in the way and scatters the cattle). We have had a few sprinkles of rain here and there, but also plenty of cold nights, so the grass is mostly dead and dry, waiting for the warmer weather to revive our summer-active pasture. Gus in his cape Taz after she helped to move cattle Food and cooking It was all about beef in July and we are v...

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When I was growing up, my family never ate many dried beans, they just weren't something that was used much in NZ cuisine. If I did eat beans, it was always from a can (and most likely baked beans). And until recently I was still using beans from a can, but it can be difficult to get organic beans, and to find cans not lined with BPA. Then I had an opportunity to buy some organic dry goods in bulk, so I bought 5kg of kidney beans, 5kg of adzuki beans and 5kg of chickpea (garbanzo beans). I know, that is a lot of beans. And then I didn't really know what to do with them! Not just what dishes to put them in, but how to prepare them, I just didn't know what method to use. So I decided it was time to learn how to use all these beans that I bought, here's what I found out. I started with an excellent ebook called The Everything Beans Book , from Katie at Kitchen Stewardship, which has lots of bean recipes, but more importantly, an explanation of h...

Guest post: Is there a place for power tools in the garden?

One of my regular readers and commenters offered to write a guest post about a horticulture course, its quite a funny read, with some serious insights into our technology obsession. If you'd like to submit a guest post, email me at eight.acres.liz {at} gmail.com. While I am always happy to share links back to your blog or website, this contributor preferred to remain anonymous. I hope you enjoy their story.... -**- -**- -**- -**- -**- -**- -**- -**- -**- -**- -**- -**- -**- -**- Just a few days ago our daily horticulture classes were interrupted by an invitation to review some new gardening gadgets. The idea was to open half a dozen of electric hand trimmers , test them and fill in some review about their goods and bads. As nothing is more dear to a student – even a “hort “ one - to escape routine and mess around till lunchtime, we opened the boxes and got down to business. What did we...

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