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Buddy update….
….yes our rescue efforts with a twin abandoned by his dam continue. Dee Carter, our housekeeper, farm hand, and most of all, dear friend and neighbor, has made “Buddy” her particular labor of love. As his mother quickly figured out, “Buddy” isn’t “right”….hind legs crippled, hooves malformed and mostly blind. So he wanders the home pasture, trying to stay close to the herd, but often left behind. Twice every day, Dee hunts him out and feeds him two half-gallon bottles of milk replacer. “Buddy” is five months old now, generally in good health, eats grass in addition to the milk. Thanks to Dee and Wooz, he’s had some kind of a life…but now we’re trapped…
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Heat checking….
….as we get ready to implant our latest embryos from England. We’re using our best cows for this project. The CIDRs were pulled just last weekend and this was the first time we could detect heat. Of the 16 cows we’re prepping, 10 came into heat today. Eight days from that point we’ll be implanting the embryos and then a tense time as we await the results. For our city friends: this is what we are looking for. The 8-day clock starts running now. The embryos are waiting in a canister a few miles away…eggs that were fertilized in a mating of cows and a bull we selected for their conformation and…
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It’s become a ritual for the past year….
….to end our work-day with a glass of wine and the latest episode of a lovely British t-v series “Lark Rise to Candleford”. The show is a lovely profile of an English hamlet and village in Oxfordshire at the close of the 19th century. Change is coming….”progress”….and it evokes mixed emotions from the residents, who see an idyllic life coming to an end. The other day one of the visitors to the rural area said “it takes courage to change” only to be corrected by a hamlet folk who said “sometimes it takes courage to stand still”. We were reminded of that by this story: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/tiny-nebraska-town-1100-jobs-citing-life-38807185
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A late spring….
….is plaguing our friends in Germany. Translation: Germany must shiver until June. Thanks to our Koenigswinter bureau chief, Gisela Volkert.
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A special place in hell….
….reserved for Monsanto, I trust. Now they’ve found Roundup in California wines….not some of them….all of them. Even the organic wines! Thanks to Church Matthews for the link. http://naturalsociety.com/glyphosate-california-wines-tested-6795/
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My Christmas present….
….I think I just saw it on my grandson’s Facebook page! https://www.facebook.com/FarminRigs/videos/1500468473503360/ Thanks to grandson Sergei Gentry for the link. (and yes, you can use it anytime!)
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Beware “settled science”….
….I do try to stay away from politics here…there’s enough everywhere else. But with the increasing dogmatism (okay, fascism) in academia today it seems clear a lot of people are going to get hurt in the name of “settled science”. All thought and speech really is being regulated now among the “educated”….and the rest of us will soon be caught in the net. Our concentration here is on food…and nutrition. And this article raises the question of how many people have been killed by “settled science”. http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin
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Congrats to our butcher….
….don’t know how I missed this, but Blue Ridge Meats in Front Royal, VA—better known around here as “our butcher”—received great press about a month ago in the Washington Post. Doug and Lois Aylestock do it the right way and that’s why we selected them when we began selling beef (and later pork) direct from our farm. Here’s the story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/16/AR2010031600921.html?sid=ST2010031603046 Choosing the right farm to buy your beef includes choosing the right butcher. There’s a warning sign about one of the butchers right in this article though the writer doesn’t realize it. There is some point in the size of the operation where you have to be particularly careful.…
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Yes, heifers, too….
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Thistle Hill Alumni Club….
….when a Thistle Hill cow and Thistle Hill bull get together on “foreign soil”…good things happen! In this case, Elim Springs Rojo. Owner Rich Hamilton sends us this picture of Rojo, the son of our Watson and Izzie. Izzie left here bred and delivered at the Hamilston’s Elim Springs farm in southern Virginia. Rojo is now four years old. The same line that produced Rojo is still active at Thistle Hill, impressive animals and long-lived! Not incidentally, Izzie comes from the same embryo flush that produced Thistle Hill Magic, another great bull.