May 12, 2012 Saturday
Fern and Ella spent last night together so there was no milk this morning, well, I got 1 cupful. Tonight I had better luck getting them in.
Martin and the kids stopped in and went swimming in the river, walked the fields looking for turkeys, and Martin helped me out with some new computer skills.
Nancy came for 6 hours and did a lot of work. She dug up all of Sally’s potatoes, some of which had rotted but some of which are doing well. Then she mowed the lawn and dug the invading grass and clover clumps out of the new asparagus patch. I am finding a few spears.
May 13, 2012 Sunday
I got off to a fast start this morning so as to be ready for a brunch invitation to The Front Porch restaurant in Dixfield with DS Martin and DIL Amy. Martin rode his bike down to help with chores but I was largely finished by the time he got here. We discussed various plans for further simplifying my animal chores. Getting the calves separated away for the night and consequently carrying their feed is a nuisance.
Amy and the kids came along about 10am. The place was crowded due to Mother’s Day. The kids patiently drew pictures on their napkins while we awaited our food, which was very good.
Back at the farm, Martin filled a tub with manure for the azaleas and rhododendrens that Amy is planting at camp. Martin put the weaning ring on Ella. So we will try this for now. I won’t need to separate anybody but will have more milk to deal with. Fern gave 2 gallons and a quart this morning after 13 hours without Ella. It will be interesting to see what she gives with Ella weaned. If I am once again swamped with milk, no time will have been gained. I always feel strange complaining, or hearing anyone complain, that we are getting “too much milk”. A thousand generations of ancestors would be shocked at the concept. But thanks to the FDA, yet another part of the natural order is mutilated. A product of inestimable value cannot readily reach those who would most benefit.
May 14, 2012 Monday
Clearly I have not solved the cow/calf separation issue. With the nose job on Ella I expected to find Fern full of milk this morning. Instead I got a ½ gallon. That was partly because she resisted letting down but I surely got half of what was there. I can’t be sure if Fern put up with jabbing by the nose ring or if Milton got it after all. It has been my firm belief that Fern would kick Milton off. Tonight I will separate the calves again. I will try to separate just one of them so as to identify the “culprit” sooner.
I did not have to wait for tomorrow morning to discover who is sucking and how. I went to collect eggs midafternoon and caught Ella nursing more or less with the side of her mouth. A few people on the forum report success with the weaning rings but only with the spikes facing the calf and mostly not even then.
This morning I did not see anything of the hen with 8 chicks. I don’t know where she has been in the habit of spending the night and thought she might have taken the chicks out early to forage. Sadly, not. This afternoon the chicks were foraging by themselves and I found a pile of feathers that used to be their mother. The chicks are about 3 weeks old and have wings and are impossible to catch. The weather now is not terribly cold, around 40f at night, but torrential rain is predicted for tonight.
Update #2: I take it all back. Ella wasn’t really getting anything. Fern is stuffed with milk. We’ll see how it looks in the morning.
May 15, 2012 Tuesday
Fern was still stuffed this morning but I only got 2 gallons. She let down fairly well at least to start with.
Four chicks made it through the night. They were smart enough to come into the henhouse tonight so will be warm and dry. The other mama with five did not show up today.
I picked some very nice asparagus.
May 17, 2012 Thursday
Fern is giving slightly more each day. Until I got the weaning ring on Ella, I was taking the machine off Fern before she was all milked out so as to leave some milk for Ella. So she is habituated to not letting it all down. I wonder how long it will be before she lets down fully.
Of the two free range hens with chicks, there remains one lone chick. He runs around grabbing a bite where he can and looking nervous.
We had fine weather today. Yesterday Nancy and I set out the sunflower plants. Today she staked them and we put on floating row cover. There is a chance of frost.
I have not been feeling well. I am suffering sporadically from hives and have a toothache. Actually, I believe I am on the mend but feel tired. DD Sally in AK has been sick but today reported feeling a lot better. Her DS Gabe is on his way home from Kazakhstan for a visit.
May 18, 2012 Friday
The sun was shining beautifully at 5:30 am. After several trips to the barn and much calling I finally got Fern in at 8:30. This is annoying. I used to walk way, way down in the pasture to fetch Helen, who was notoriously stubborn and contrary but I was younger then. A pasture walk on a fair morning was seldom a hardship. Now I don’t feel much like it. I wish I had proper gates close up. Then I could keep her nearby at night. I don’t wish to lock her in the beefer pen. All three would have to stay in together and I would have to put down hay and maintain another water tub. Grr.
Fern continues to give a bit over 2 ¼ gallons. I don’t think Ella is getting any.
Both my toothache and my hives were less troublesome today.
Nancy H did a lot more mowing . The place is beginning to look good.
Here is the essay I submitted to the NY Times Magazine contest, “Why it is ethical to eat meat. The winning essay was not exactly bad. It employed a point I introduced in several essays and articles in the last few years and I am glad to see used, namely that by eating grass, cows translate the energy of the sun into useful form and the author touched on another of my frequent points, namely that vegan agricultural production is by no means more efficient than animals production.
Why it is ethical to eat meat
In the 1950’s, nutritionists, reflecting the anti-breastfeeding zeitgeist, assured us that formula was fully equal to mother’s milk. In fact one prominent Berkeley expert theorized that cows’ milk was superior because human milk was too low in calcium. Mothers were made to feel guilty for breastfeeding, hearing “You’re starving that child!”
Mother’s milk and meat are two foods upon which humankind has flourished since the year Dot. As with breast milk, the fact that we now need defend the ethics of eating meat presupposes that there is a fully reliable, even superior, alternative. If there is, vegans may safely invite meat eaters to join their party, enticing them not merely with a cleaner conscience but with better health. If meat does not support better health, then meat eaters must make their ethical case under the vegan threat of meat-induced illness, perhaps maintaining that damaged health is the price for expressing solidarity with the habits of ancestors.
There is plenty of precedent for such self sacrifice. Many people have chosen to pay a high price for sticking with an awkward ethical position. Often children must bear the shibboleth for parents’ ethics, be it nudism, free love, political or religious extremism, veganism or for purposes of this example the gratifications of eating meat. Shall I compel my children to eat meat when vegans have declared it a stain on the soul, a threat to personal and planetary survival and lacking in dietary importance? Or is it vegans who are injuring their children by imposing their dietary choices? If either group is injuring their children the ethical position must be reconsidered. As someone who has observed first hand the effects of the above listed enthusiasms, I wish to defend the children.
Take it as a given that children should be nourished in a manner that optimizes their chances of reaching their potential for growth. While nobody is tracking overall outcomes, vegan kids are clearly under stress. What else am I to think after 50 years of observing the dear things’ pale skin, easy fatigue and often desperate craving for meat? Compare this with the rosy cheeks, cold hardiness, strength and stamina of children on a diet of milk, eggs and meat.
The environmental impact of meat raises an equally compelling ethical concern. If any of the accusations against meat, that it causes ill health, unbalancesCO2 or methane, competes unfairly for finite resources, had the smallest basis in Natural Law, herbivorous mammals would have been Darwined-out long ago. Yet the allegations against meat perpetually pile on and are believed by people so innocent of biological reality that if we were discussing babies, they’d be seeking them under cabbage leaves.
Now that we have killed the buffalos, the patient cow at the bottom of the food chain living on grass has become the indispensable converter of cellulose, Earth’s largest crop, into food digestible by humans. Do we allow them to die and leave them to vultures or do we eat their uniquely valuable meat? The ethical choice for ourselves and our children is to eat it and thrive.
There is an additional consideration. We know that a diet founded on animal protein is successful. Historically, we do not find any long term breeding population of vegans. Veganism as practiced today remains experimental. By definition, the burden of proof is on the experimenter. If a vegan diet can neither support reproduction nor prove sustainable, as is doubtful (see Holy Shit by Gene Logsdon), it must resign its claims to ethical sovereignty; eating meat will take its place by default.