Moderate Success

I attempted to mik Hyacinth last night. It was pretty much a disaster. She'll stand still as long as she has something to eat in her bowl, but the instant it's empty, she starts kicking. I estimate that I was able to get about two cups of milk, but none of it was usable.

With all the thrashing around, I had milk squirting everywhere, so not all of the two cups went into the pail, some of it got spilled and she stuck her foot in the pail several times, which, as you can imagine, contaminates the milk terribly. The whole process was very frustrating. Especially since preparations to milk (all the sterilizing, etc.) are time consuming. It's frustrating to go to all that trouble just to have Hyacinth act awful and spoil the milk. I suppose it can't be fun for her either with her head in a headlock and having someone squeeze her udder.

Well, I tried again this morning armed with a slightly better plan. Instead of pouring all of her food into the bowl, I just gave her a little at a time. It was a pain, but it worked. I was able to milk her without any feet in the pail and I got 12 unspoiled ounces.

Poor little Cosmos must have cried all night. He was so hoarse that he could barely manage to whisper-cry this morning. Rose seemed to have fared better. At least, her voice was strong. I hated to think of them without their mother last night. As luck would have it, we had one of the coldest nights we've had in a while - about 34 degrees, and we've moved our only heat lamp to the chicken palace. So Rose and Cosmos had to rely on the hay and each other for warmth.

Our donkey plan was a bust, too. We could neither get the halter on Kip nor get him in the trailer long enough to shut the door. Whenever anyone goes out there with me to the donkey pasture, they are on high alert and they know we're up to something that they aren't going to agree with. We'll have to try something else today.

Today Tom is taking a class on organic fertilizer usage. It's a mandatory training before anyone can purchase and use fertilizers - or large amounts of fertilizers, I guess. We just found out that he had to have the training before he can treat our pastures. So we're a little late on the weed management of our hay field.