One Ahead, One Back

Bruce had another one of those mornings that actually started out last night.  While we were finishing up milking he started running the haylage in the mixer for this morning.  With the cool weather the haylage keeps well over night and, in theory, this would speed up feeding in the morning.  Before he had quite enough the unloader quit throwing anything down so he just shut it off.  This morning he climbed up there and found it had pulled its plug partially out so he assumed that was the problem.  Climbed down again and it still wouldn't run.  Climbed up and pushed the reset button on the motor. Climbed down and it still would not run . He  climbed up to make sure it wasn't plugged and all was well.  At that point he decided there was an electrical problem in the motor and called the electrician.  He had managed to get enough haylage down to mix 1/3 of a normal batch of feed so thats what he did, and fed it sparingly so everyone got something to eat as part of their regular routine.  The electrician was here before we were done milking and found some wires had come lose inside the motor.  As soon as milking was done Bruce hauled out the load of manure since it was darned cold this morning.  By this point Joe was here for tractor driving practice so Bruce grabbed breakfast quickly and proceeded with that plan.  It was noon by the time he had a chance to get the rest of the feed mixed and fed.  We have company this weekend, our son Jim and girlfriend Jen, so we took the afternoon off, sort of, and made a farmer shopping run and had dinner out.  That is our basic version of a day off.  We got home in time for Bruce to start mixing feed once again so we could milk.  The surgery cow is picking at her hay.  The food of choice after surgery is grassy, dry baled hay.  She looks a little tougher than we would consider normal but picking at feed is a start to recovery.  I always find surgery on cows interesting in the fact that there is never any swelling to speak of and they will lay against their stitches as though they aren't there.  Generally I am the one who takes the stitches out and that will happen in a couple weeks.

Tonight we at least had 1 less special needs cow with one passing her drug test and now getting milked into the tank.  This too shall pass, hopefully before anyone else has their calf!