Where to begin….

….well, to coin a phrase, “start at the beginning”.  Posting has been non-existent for almost a month, but not because there’s been nothing to report.  It’s breeding season and Wooz here discusses strategy with our vet, Dr. Monica O’Brien.

AI comes first, and we’re using two sires across some of our best cows:  Traditional Devon’s Falcon (our English bull) and Rotokawa 243, who has given us some wonderful calves in the past.  After that, came sorting the herd into groups….getting the right bulls with the right females.  In all, we’ll be using four bulls this time:  Jackpot and U2 plus limited use of two Traditional Devon bulls, a son of Falcon and TDA Churchill.

You can’t keep track of the players without a scorecard and fortunately I have the Devon registrar right on the property to keep things straight.  The weather this year cooperated and all the cows we prepared were ready when we ran them through the chute for the actual breeding.

Now we wait.  And right now we’re waiting for calves….the first from Churchill should be coming any day.

And a word about the past month:  we were distracted, of course, by the holidays.  And also by visitors, our dear friends from Germany, Kurt and Giesala Volkert.  And then three of the four of us came down with the flu.  Only Wooz, made of sturdier stock, resisted.  But all is well now and we’re looking forward to 2014, including our return to Cornwall and Devon.

Oh, and we lost power last night and our new generator smoothly kicked in.

Picture by Gisela Volkert