What do these all have in common?

A Yellow Cricket.

Prickly Pear Cactus

Cows

.

Sunflowers.

Gimme your best guess!!

Even The Cows Are Hot

Texas gets hot.

H-O-T   HOT!

In fact, you know it's super hot when the cows start looking for shade.

Watering Hole

I had to drive down this one country road and find my friends the cows again recently.

I think I need to see animals ever so often, because I grew up on a farm seeing them daily.

and I miss that kind of contact.

Hi, guys!!

I think they remember me!!

Or they're just friendly.

Or maybe it's because I'm just standing near their water and they're thirsty.

Oh, a mama and her baby!!  They want to come see me.

They sense I'm a mother...and a lover of animals...

...or they're thirsty too.

A Cow's Spring

                                                          No memory lingers

                                                          Of mud's misery, of dry hay,

                                                          Nor of snow and ice.

                                                          Warm in the Eternal Now,

                                                          The cows graze, gorging on Spring.   

 

 And speaking of grazing . . . the Obamas, who are vacationing in Asheville this weekend, made an excellent choice for good barbecue . . . they also went hiking . . . I keep wishing they'd stop by and set a spell on the porch.


 

Lane Brothers Dairy ~ Sepia Saturday

The young man in the buggy is my paternal grandfather. The date is sometime in the early 1900's; the place, Buffalo Avenue, Tampa, Florida.  These are the Lane Brothers and this is their milk delivery wagon.

By the time I knew my grandfather, he was retired. The family dairy had been sold and absorbed into a larger dairy. There was no talk of cows in the family, my father having happily put behind him his days of drudgery at the dairy. Indeed, when we moved to NC and bought a milk cow, my father simply shook his head in bewilderment and chagrin.

This recipe book dates from 1931 -- when the dairy was thriving.

Prize- winning recipes -- all using LANE BROTHERS MILK!

Our future milk cow ... here we go again!

For others' Sepia Saturday  posts, go to http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com/
 

Cows kind of look like Aliens

I was driving down a country road today
and had to pull over when I spotted a large group of cows.

No one suspects cows of anything.

They're so big and sweet and innocent.

They could be plotting terrorism for all I know.

One of them decided to come check me out...

Look at this bizarre hump on it's back.

What's its purpose?

I think I know...

And look at these ears!

Why do cows need such large ears?

Radar detection?

flying capability?

And then I saw the tongue.

It was the tongue that sealed the deal.

Anything with a tongue like that...has to be alien!!

I'm on to you, ALIENS!

I'm keeping an eye on them.

Grab a camera and a critter and join Camera Critters!

The Cow Mattress

Did you know that there is a product out there called a "cow matress?"

It's a padded mattress for cattle, specifically dairy cows, to rest on.

It puts less stress on their joints when they get up and down.

Apparently, happy cows make happy milk.

So, I'm torn...do I want organic, grass-fed cow milk?

Or comfy, happy cow milk?

And what's next?

Hamocks for our chickens so they're more relaxed and we have better eggs?

Or maybe pedicures for our pigs, so they produce better pepperoni?

I actually think this was an awesome invention, and I wish I'd thought of it first!!

Around and About

. . . odds and ends from the past few days . . .

I'm still trying to get a picture of all four banty chicks but Mama hustles them indoors as soon as I point the camera their way.

They are feathering out and are beginning to need more space -- in the next few days, I believe, John plans to move the little family to Justin's chicken tractor, currently occupied by two banty hens.

When I was on my way to the grocery store a few days ago, I was stopped by an outbreak of two naughty calves. They had slipped under the fence and were out for an explore. The mother in the lower left corner is saying something like, "You better get back in here this minute!"

Fortunately, Justin and Claui were taking their dogs for a morning stroll (click on the picture to see what's happening) and quickly turned the bad babies back in with their mamas.

You can see that the calfies aren't a lick repentant and will probably get out again as soon as we move on.

The garden is coming along well -- squash plants are bigging up; tomatoes look good -- thanks to John who mulched them heavily. The broccoli, however, was so full of worms ( I know how well the bt stuff works -- but with all the rain we had, there wasn't a chance for the spray to get a foothold. When I plant more, I'll use row cover to protect them.) So yesterday I yanked out the wormy, buggy plants and gave them to the chickens -- who were delighted.

I'm trying to get out in the garden in the cool of the morning -- then spend my afternoon and evenings writing. Just now I'm back in 1887, with the DeVine sisters at the Mountain Park Hotel in Hot Springs, NC (formerly Warm Springs). I'll tell you more about the hotel (which unlike the DeVine sisters really existed) tomorrow.

A Defining Moment

There comes a time in our life, that we reach a soul-defining moment.

And we just know, in the depth of our being, that this decision, that at this point,
we are making a decisive choice to take a different path...

to make a mark on the world.

I've had a soul-defining moment.

I reached for something I thought was beyond my grasp...

And I got it.



Now I have my chance to flourish.
To make a mark.
To make a difference.

And I'm ready to take it on.

Wish me luck.

Camera Critters is SO much fun! join us!