Random Thoughts about Life on a SC Farm: Finally Some Sunny Days and a Cow in the Wrong Place!

Job 12:7-10

7 “But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you;

8 or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you.

9 Which of all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this?

It's been a while since I blogged about life on the farm. It's been a long winter with so much rain and dreary weather that wasn't conducive to doing anything but sitting by the gas logs and reading a good book! I wanted to get a jump on spring gardening and routine maintenance of the yard, but the weather just did not cooperate until the last few days. I must confess too, that my time spent for writing has been devoted to writing about a sweet little calf named Crybaby and his adventures on the farm. Crybaby has his own Facebook page and his antics are enjoyed by young and old. A childrens' book is in my head. I just have to figure out how to write it and get it published. That's a new venture for me but one that so many have encouraged me to do, that I think Crybaby's followers will enjoy it.

But back to gardening and outdoor activities. The weather was pretty enough one day last week that I was able to take time to prune the roses in my rose bed. I have loved roses all my life and get my "rose knowledge" from my mother. She loved roses and always had a bed of beautiful roses. Because I always had a horse and manure was in good supply, my job was to muck out the horse stall and put the manure on mama's rose bed. I also helped weed but she never let me prune, I guess because she maybe didn't trust me to do it the right way. But now I have my own rose bed and it's my job to prune. I arm myself with leather gloves, long-sleeves, and my garden boots. Those thorns are relentless and as I am aging, my skin is easier to scratch. I have several Knock-out roses in the bed and I really pruned them back. They had gotten to be a large size and were crowding out some of the more fancy tea-roses. I've found that you can really prune Knock-out roses back and they will come back just fine. As I prune, I am always on the lookout for praying mantis chrysalises that have been deposited in the branches. I take care to remove them and put them in a bush near the house where they can develop and become complete insects. The chrysalis is a very pretty object in nature (to my mind) and once I thought the branch and the pretty object on it would be nice in a vase in the living room. At that time, I just thought it was a growth on the branch. Only after the living room was literally filled with hundreds of baby praying mantises did I realize what I had done!

I am careful with how I prune the tea-roses as they are a little more delicate. I have to remember that I am pruning to get beautiful buds to enjoy later this spring and summer. I have several favorite roses in the bed. One I enjoy the most is one called Mr. Lincoln. It is a dark red and has the most wonderful fragrance in the world. Another of my favorites is a beautiful pink rose that started out being called Princess Elizabeth but when Princess Elizabeth became Queen Elizabeth so did the rose! I think that is neat story.

I still need to work in the bed and weed out that despicable chickweed. How I hate that stuff! I have not found a way to keep it from coming up over the winter so my major task each spring is to weed all the borders and beds of chickweed. One positive though, is that the cows love to eat the chickweed so I always take it and throw it over the fence for the cows. I pruned the roses and left the prunings on the ground, thinking to come back the next day and gather them up. Of course it rained so it wasn't until today that I was able to get them up. We have a large ditch down in the pasture that Harry has been working to fill up and keep from washing for several years. We take all our yard waste and brush from pruning there. It eventually breaks down but while it does, it provides a nice shelter for birds.

Harry helped me prune the fig bush, or should I say tree, today. The first time I ever pruned it, I was scared to death because I thought I would kill it. Not so. We have pruned it about every other year now because if we didn't, it would be too big to pick the figs. I've found that taking out some of the branches from the middle opens it up and the figs can get air and seem to produce better. There is nothing like fig preserves on a hot biscuit with butter slathered all over it! Mmmmm!

I have a Kawasaki Mule that is the best thing to have to do yard work and just running around the farm. It has a hydraulic dump bed on it and I am able to manage it by myself quite easily. Today as I was driving the Mule down through the pasture to dump the last load of fig branches and rose prunings, I noticed one of our young heifers had her head stuck in the fork of a tree. The cows love to scratch themselves on trees and somehow this one had gotten her head stuck in the fork of the tree. She was trying frantically to get loose but was just making herself more upset and more panicked as she tried to get her head out. Our cows are pretty tame so when I walked near her, she seemed to calm down. I called Harry on the cell as he was at the barn doing something to a tractor---he is always doing something to a tractor. He came down where she was and spoke to her, and she immediately calmed down. Harry was able to lift her head (not an easy task) and help her get out.

I couldn't help but give thanks to God for allowing us to have an afternoon of working in the yard with my sweet husband helping. If we had not been working and pruning, and I had not ridden down in the pasture to discard the brush, that poor cow might have eventually hung herself or broken her neck trying to get loose.