"That blog is still busy; will you hold till Monday?"

Back in the mid-1980's I spent a couple years working as a receptionist and legal secretary in a law firm. Have you ever noticed how law firms never have nice easy names like "Smith, Brown and Jones?" The one I worked in -- no kidding -- had the ponderous handle of "Laugenour, Johanson & Robinson." Try saying that fifty times a day on the telephone.

Anyway, sometimes the phones were pretty crazy; and so one year for Christmas one of my coworkers gave me a mug that said, "That line is still busy; will you hold till Monday?"

I thought it was hilarious because it expressed how I so often felt. (That's why I still have the mug after all these years.)

Well, that's how I've been feeling this week as I remain immersed in taxes.

I've been putting everything else on hold while I crunch numbers. I don't use Quickbooks or any other computer program (I hate them!) so everything is done by hand.

But I'm making progress. Excellent progress. In fact, I should be done by tomorrow. Then I can re-emerge to join the living and might even answer some calls... er, emails.

Please stand by.......

Another one bites the dust

Among the many projects I've been finishing up in the last two weeks, another one bites the dust today.

Last year I was contracted to revise a book entitled How to Start a Home-Based Craft Business, by a fellow named Kenn Oberrecht. Mr. Oberrecht had gone through five revisions of this book and wasn't interested in doing it again, even though the book was badly out-of-date (understandably and most notably in the section on computers and their usage in a craft business). Because of my experience helping run a home-based crafts business -- as well as being a freelance writer -- I was contacted and then contracted to revise the book for a flat fee (no royalties).

It was actually rather a delightful project with many fine editors. I am just now reviewing the final pdf before it goes to press.

Last week's projects included a magazine article and a column (both due Friday) as well as finishing up the layout for the quarterly Dexter magazine:

This week will be entirely devoted to taxes (insert groan). Our appointment with the accountant is on Friday and I have not -- quite literally -- even begun to work on them (insert double groan).

At this point I would like to apologize to everyone whose emails I have NOT answered. They're piling up, and they're likely to pile up even more this week. I'll get to them, I promise!

Meet Matilda, our universal donor

Well well well. It worked after all.

I refer, of course, to Matilda's gentle acceptance of Polly as her own calf. We knew this was accomplished this afternoon when we caught Polly greedily nursing -- and Matilda was perfectly happy to allow it!

We call Matilda our "universal donor" because she will willingly nurse any calf she can. It doesn't matter if they're hers or not -- she just likes to donate her milk. Polly, as you can imagine, had been snugging up to Matilda ever since we got her -- but it took a few days for the bond to complete. Now we expect to see Polly nursing a LOT. The poor kid missed that nice warm milk!

Here's Matilda with a calf on either side -- happy as a clam.

What was funny was when Thor decided he wanted to be on the same side as Polly.

But Polly wasn't budging! She wanted that milk!

We'll still keep Polly in her own pen at night. She's old enough to wean; Thor is not. Matilda easily has enough milk for two calves, but Thor should get an advantage. But I'm glad for Polly's sake that she has a new mama.

Another tangible asset!

Don stayed home from church this morning to keep working on fences. I had barely arrived at the adult Sunday School class when he called on the church phone (I didn't have my cell phone on) and said -- we have a new calf!

We've been expecting Jet to have her calf any time, but to our shock and surprise, this was Ruby's calf. The reason this surprised us so much is we thought Ruby had miscarried over the winter. We've never had a cow miscarry before, but a few months ago I noticed Ruby had suddenly gone from fat (as in, pregnant) to skinny. We had just concluded in our minds she wouldn't be having a calf this year. So this one was totally unexpected!

Naturally she was born at the bottom of the woods, farthest from the barn. We can't keep a newborn calf out in the woods -- too much chance of predation -- plus we need to dehorn her in the next few days. Plus there's too much mud out there right now. Plus the weather has been cold and wet.

But first the barn needed a little fixing. As with everything else around here, the end of winter brings a total breakdown in infrastructure.

Don is clever at putting together stuff that falls apart, so within short order he had the door close-able again.

Next step... gotta get that calf in the barn. But how? Ruby has horns and new mamas can get testy. Our clever strategy: grab the calf and run. Well, walk. Damn, a newborn calf weighs a ton! At least it does when the mud is sucking at your boots and you have an angry horned cow somewhere behind you (Don was fending her off with a pole). Younger Daughter got these shots.

(Notice how the other animals are watching these proceedings with great interest. Nothing like a peanut gallery.)

Carrying the calf left me covered with meconium, the newborn poop. Guess I'll be washing my coat and gloves. But at least the calf was in the barn! Mama followed shortly thereafter, once she figured out where we'd taken her baby.

Here's the little girl (tentatively named Victoria). She's a dun like her older sister Smokey.

Ruby is an experienced mother and the little calf is nursing healthily.

Can you see why we're wary of those horns? That's why we dehorn all our heifers now.

So that's the latest tangible asset we've added to our farm -- another little heifer!

Fixing the $%^&#@ fences

It has been chaos -- absolute chaos -- here on Jurassic Farm during the last week. That's because with the advent of spring, the $%^&#@ cattle have been discovering new and creative ways to get through the fences onto the neighbor's land.

A typical sight. See the cows? Well guess what -- neither do I. But they're out there. Somewhere.

Oh there they are, the little turds. A good quarter-mile away. Chasing renegade calves is just what I wanted to do at 7 a.m.

Wheeeeee!

Almost home...

If it wasn't the Brat Pack (the yearling calves) getting out, it was Gimli the bull.

Get along, little doggie.

Right back through our nearly-nonexistent fence.

Okay okay, we'll work on the $%^&#@ fences.

See all the deceptively innocent and sparse looking vegetation on the ground near the base of where the fence line is? Well trust me, it was hell to get the wire to lie tight and flush against the poles with all those $%^&#@ bushes in the way. Oh how we longed for a battery-powered hedge trimmer!

For the record, there's something about working on fences that invites the worst possible weather. Over the couple days we worked, it rained, hailed, sleeted, snowed, and blew.

Remind me again about the simple joys of country living?

Random pix

Our barn cat, JJ, enjoys a brief interlude of morning sunshine.

"I'm the king of the castle! And you're a dirty rascal!"

Gas prices as of March 28:

As of March 30:

Romping dogs.

We were visiting our neighbor Enola Gay last week, and she served us tea, as is her wont. She even wrote her own blog post about it. Tea at Enola's is an experience not to be missed.

We've had almost nonstop rain around here for the past few weeks, resulting in lots of mud in the yard (and on the dogs). Here Lydia came inside and instantly staked out her spot behind the woodstove. (I give you the irony of a dog like a Great Pyrenees -- with four-inch-thick fur -- preferring to wrap herself around the woodstove.)

In fact she was just being selfish. She didn't want Major to have the coveted spot by the woodstove. Here she's giving him the ol' Evil Eye.

Some bumper stickers we saw on a car:

Pretty sunset pix from the last week or so:

Polly update

Oh my, things were much calmer today with Polly.

The wind finally died, which helped immensely. High winds make everyone tense and grumpy. Today was calm.

Polly and Thor have become buddies. A friend makes always makes a transition smoother, don't you agree? Polly tagged on Thor's heels, and because Thor hung with Matilda and Pearly (as well as Smokey and Nebuchadnezzar), she started integrating with the herd who is hanging in the driveway area.

Or as here, in the garden.

We had other issues all day - notably escaping livestock and frantic fencing - but that's another blog post. But for the time being, things are calmer here at Jurassic Farm.

The four seasons

I have a friend in Nebraska. He sent me this.
___________________________

Miss Sally Edwards is a highly esteemed third grade teacher at Washington County Elementary School.

In an effort to prepare her students for an all-important test, she compiled an exam consisting of 20 questions, which she administered to her class last Tuesday. The exam purposely covered a broad array of topics.

I call your attention to question #11, which simply read:

LIST, IN ANY ORDER, THE FOUR SEASONS:

1. ________ 2. ________ 3.________ 4.________

Now, could you possibly imagine that 67% of the students gave the following answer?

1. PHEASANT SEASON
2. DEER SEASON
3. TURKEY SEASON
4. HUSKER FOOTBALL SEASON