103rd Little International

I was asked and accepted the challenge to judge the equine portion of this year’s Block and Bridle Little International at Virginia Tech.  I had shown in it every year for my four years in collage and was overall Reserve Champion my senior year. 

Back in the olden days, we had to halter break and show yearlings. I think we had two weeks.  Now they use the school’s riding horses.  The yearlings may have been better behaved. 

There was an acceptable audience. 

I had 13 horses divided into 3 categories, advanced, intermediate and novice.  By the way, this is all judged on Showmanship. Each division had a different pattern.   They knew the pattern in advance. There were still lots of issues.  Instead of placing the ones I liked the best I had to work the opposite direction and place the ones that made the least mistakes. The first horse in the advanced division ended up winning the horse championship and was the overall champion as well.  So I feel like I made the right choice. 

There were 50 in the sheep division.

And 50 in the cattle division. 

This took the longest and put us an hour and a half behind schedule. 

There were only 13 pigs also. I still don’t understand pig showing. 

It just looks like a lot of chaos out there.  I saw a few people that I knew and everyone was very appreciative of my support for the event.  It seemed like all of the contestants had a good time. 

And I came home with a new yeti with a metal straw. 

 

In Bloom At The 4Rs

It has been rough weather for Spring plants. From two nights of 18 degrees to 80 degrees and drought to below freezing a couple of nights ago not to mention the wind it just hasn’t been growing weather. But somehow, I have some flowers blooming. 

I left a couple of patches of Star of Bethlehem. It is the flower that I unescaped from the field a couple of years ago. Since it appears to be an invasive species, Emily recommended I do away with it. But since it has already invaded I thought I might just keep a couple of patches and not let them go to seed.  It is a pretty flower. 

The Siberian irises never disappoint. 

And the old fashioned bearded irises are always the first color to bloom.

“Poppies, poppies will make them sleep.”  You can’t see poppies and not think of that famous line from The Wizard of Oz.

I just bought three pots of pink phlox this spring. The butterflies are enjoying them too. 
 

Prototypes

When Virginia and Mike gave us their exciting new last week about a new baby girl arriving in October, I immediately  thought, "what kind of quilt will I make for her?"  I have since spent a lot of time on Pinterest trying to get inspiration.  

At first, I was really drawn to this Urban Cabin pattern. 

I didn't like how wide the white was on my first prototype.  I ended up enlarging the picture so I could take some actual measurements instead of guessing.  Because why would I pay to buy the pattern. 

The second prototype turned out better.

But I kept looking for more ideas and came upon this...

After seeing the butterflies I thought, "this is it, in memory of Mama.”                          

 It is much more difficult than the Urban Cabin but I think it will be worth it.  I like how the butterfly can be all the same fabric or a mixture on two or three different ones. Now let’s get to work. 

Round Two

The calf that was on IV's then turned back out with her mother Tuesday, took a turn for the worse Thursday.   We ended up tube feeding her that night. 

She was too weak to stand Friday morning.  So she made another trip to the barn for 3 liters of IV fluids.  She also got an antibiotic injection and some steroids. 

The next morning she was much better.  

We turned her loose but there some confusion about the truck being her mother.

She eventually figured it out.  I hope this straightens her out and there isn't a round 3.  
 

The Cage.

Last year I did not use the broccoli cage. I do not remember why.  But I thought I would pull it out of the barn and try it again this year. 

It was a little tricky to get to the house. But I managed.  I also had to make a few repairs. Where I had used duct tape before I did a more permanent repair with fishing line. 

I had already bought four broccoli plants and  four cauliflower plants. After working a couple of loads of manure into the rows I went ahead and put out the plants. 

 They look happy for now. Maybe I will get by without having to use any seven dust this year. 

One, Two, Three, Four

The goats started kidding on the twelfth. 

We have had several singles, 

A couple of sets of twins, 

And today our first set of triplets. 

Sadie’s pet goat Glitter had a nice set of twins this evening.  Eight down, 30 something to go. 

And yesterday we had to pull our fourth calf. Joe was checking the cows and this one was laying down with the feet out. Only the feet were pointing up which meant it was coming backwards. She might have had it on her own but there is always a good chance a backwards calf will be born dead.  If the umbilical cord breaks and the cow doesn’t get the calf out fast enough it will drown.  Joe got her up and came and got me.  Fortunately, we were able to pull it by hand and didn’t have to deal with the calf jack on this one. 

Kid count -12

 

Sometimes It Just Doesn't Pay To Put On Clean Clothes.

Since we had pulled a calf Sunday, I had done the barn laundry and put on clean clothes. Then yesterday I was cleaning the poop that Draper keeps generating, out of the barn when Joe came up and said we needed to get a calf with scours to the barn and a heifer that was having trouble calving to the barn.  We picked up the calf first and tubed it with some electrolytes then went get the heifer up.  

It was a little bit of a hike but she came on with no trouble.  The problem came with pulling the calf.  It was coming with just the head and the front legs folded under.  I got the legs up and out with the chains on and everything was lined up to come out, but things were tight.  Joe worked the jack and we almost didn't get it out.  But leverage prevailed.  Unfortunately, it was dead.  It was dead before we started working on her.  

It was also big, maybe close to 100 pounds.  We had a month old calf on a cow Joe is going to sell.  So he skinned the dead calf and put the hide on the month old calf.  

One trip to the chute to get the calf to nurse and by morning she was taking the calf.  

Meanwhile, the scouring calf wasn't getting any better.  I started an IV and gave her two liters of fluids before she got up and pulled out the catheter.     

We tubed her with some milk last night and this morning Joe carried her out to take her back to the cow.  

She was bawling for her. 

She is not out of the woods yet, but she was back to nursing anyway.  Now I have more laundry to do.