Foot, meet log. Log, meet foot.

Splitting firewood (yes, wearing shoes). This is what happened after I dropped a heavy log round on my foot, edge first.

Pretty, no?

Fortunately it was just a bad bruise. Nothing broken.

Awww (sniff)

This photo of a young couple reuniting in the hospital after a horrific car crash is understandably going viral.

Here's the story. I'm glad they're all right.

Farm injury

For the last few days, Don has been complaining about a severe pain in his left arm -- a shooting pain that traveled up and down, sometimes localized and sometimes all over the arm. He took a small fall off a ladder a couple weeks ago and mildly hyperextended the arm, so he wondered if it was related to that.

When the pain didn't abate and it was getting harder for him to work, he took himself off to the doctor, who almost instantly diagnosed him with a classic case of tendonitis (apparently unrelated to the fall).

So he came home with a "tennis elbow" compression strap and strict instructions to do NOTHING for a couple of weeks.

Doing "nothing" on a farm is not easy, especially in the fall when there's so much to be done before the snow flies. This afternoon our friend's daughter Miss Serenity came over and cut a log into rounds for us (never mess with a teen girl who can handle a chainsaw!) so we'd have a few days' worth of firewood. (It was 25F this morning.)

Right now Don has his arm in a sling and is applying ice as well as using the compression strap as necessary. He's also frustrated by his relative immobility and we may hire a local kid to help do some of the projects (under Don's supervision) he had planned in the next few weeks.

Such is life. We roll with the punches. Could be worse.

Butchering Pearly

I'll repeat my warning I put up every time we butcher: DO NOT READ THIS POST if you are vegetarian or have a squeamish stomach. This post shows pictures of our heifer being butchered. I don't want anyone whining that they weren't adequately warned about the graphic nature of these photos.

Okay?

Okay. That said, today was the sad day we had our injured heifer Pearly butchered.

Normally I don't get sentimental over our livestock. When it's time to butcher a steer, it's no big deal. But this is the first time we've had an injury on the farm so severe that we couldn't let the animal live.

If you recall, Pearly cut her ankle on a sheet of roofing tin I carelessly left on the ground. The cut was so deep it severed her Achilles tendon. We've had her in the barn for the last week since she could barely hop around on three legs. Fortunately the mobile butchers were scheduled to be in our neighborhood today, so Pearly didn't have to suffer too long.

My normal morning routine (for the cow/calf pairs currently residing in the driveway) is to put their hay in a couple of wheelbarrows, then let the animals out one by one. Since I didn't want them in the vicinity when Pearly was butchered, this time I let the animals out, but didn't put out any hay. They milled about in confusion.

I wanted all the animals down in the pasture, out of sight of the barn. We haven't put the animals in the pasture yet this year because the grass isn't tall enough and we don't want them eating it down too quickly. But this was a special occasion. Once I put some hay in a wheelbarrow, they followed me readily enough.

A couple hours later, Potlatch Pack showed up. The business is run by Mel and Chance, an uncle/nephew team.

The first thing to do, of course, is the actual killing. Notice the quiet and respectful stance Chance takes as he approaches the animal. He keeps his rifle tucked out of sight until just before he aims.

These guys are experts. One shot -- that's it. Very quick, very humane.

They dragged her out of the barn and hoisted her up to drain the blood.

The men wear waterproof aprons and holsters with knives. They constantly sharpen the knives on a sharpener which also hangs from their belt.

Skinning. In their capable hands, this procedure takes only ten or fifteen minutes.

They use a modified chain saw to cut the carcass in half.

The men are constantly hosing themselves down, as well as their tools and the carcass. They keep everything very clean.

See that white sack? Sadly, it was as we suspected -- Pearly was quite pregnant. That's the fetus.

Hanging the carcass to finish skinning and finish cutting in half.

Into the truck, along with the carcasses from a neighbor's farm.

The men have barrels for putting unwanted organs and other parts, but they always empty the stomach because otherwise it would take up too much room. This is the half-digested hay from the stomach.

But how far along was the fetus?

The men have seen fetuses in endless stages of development. A cow's gestation is nine months and ten days. They estimated this one to be 7 1/2 months along. It was a girl. Notice the pearly-white hooves, just like her mom had when she was born.

In the end, the men buttoned up their equipment and left me with so little to clean up that I was done in two minutes. These guys are consummate professionals and it's no wonder their reputation as experts is widespread in this region. They took a sad situation and did the job quickly and cleanly. We're grateful they're here to do it.

I sometimes say this blog is to share with you the good, the bad, and the ugly about rural living. Today was a little bit of all three. The good is we will soon have meat in our freezer. The bad is we lost an otherwise healthy heifer. And the ugly is we lost an unborn calf as well. Such is life in the country.

Well crap

Well crap. Bad news.

I spoke to the vet this morning and told her about Pearly's injury. It didn't take a rocket scientist to confirm my fears: Pearly sliced her tendon. You've probably heard the term hamstrung? It's a crippling injury that, in livestock at least, is a death sentence.

You can see how she's pretty much on three legs. (We put her back in the barn shortly after I took this photo.) Without surgery and therapy, she'll stay on three legs. People can recover from being accidentally hamstrung -- cattle cannot.

And the pisser is, it's my fault. I saw that piece of sheet metal lying on the ground and it passed through my mind that I ought to pick it up before someone got injured... and then I didn't follow through.

So I called Potlatch Pack, the mobile butchers whose humane and efficient slaughter is legend in this area, and made an appointment for Monday. It breaks my heart to put a heifer in the freezer, especially one that is healthy and strong, but I guess it taught me a harsh lesson: picked up the damned hazards when I see them rather than putting it off.

The silver lining is we'll have some meat again. We're out at the moment, so it will be nice to have a full freezer.

For my vegetarian readers, expect a somewhat graphic post early next week. I'll put up sufficient warnings that no one is caught unawares.

Injuries on the homestead

Life is never dull around here. Suddenly we have a blooming crop of injured animals.

Ruby (one of our herd matrons and Victoria's mama) slipped on a wet board and sprained her right front leg or ankle. She's been limping for a week.

(Notice how her weight is on her left front leg.)

JJ, one of our barn cats, was attacked either by a coyote or another feral cat. (JJ is a formerly feral cat.) He got his leg ripped open something terrible.

This cat -- cripped in one paw and blind in one eye when he adopted us -- is a tough old guy and is recovering nicely despite the dire appearance of the wound.

Worst of all, Pearly (Matilda's oldest calf with us) sliced open her ankle on a piece of sheet metal. The wound is serious. She's been on three legs for several days now. Most of the time cows can recover from awful-looking injuries quite well, and at first the wound didn't look terribly bad. Bloody, yes, but not serious.

(Slice is on bottom of right leg.)

A bleeding wound is actually a good thing in a way (as long as it's not bleeding too heavily), as it helps keep the wound clean.

We've been keeping her in the barn so she doesn't get mud in the wound.

But after several days of little change in Pearly's leg (except it stopped bleeding, of course), we're starting to get concerned. There's no swelling or apparent infection, but she's not putting much of any weight on the leg. We're wondering if the cut went deeper than we thought.

Thoughts of putting her in the freezer have crossed our minds...

At any rate we'll be calling the vet tomorrow.