The Bovine Bugle

Son Ben takes on more responsibilities

Yesterday Ben hooked on to the rotovator with the tractor and tilled the garden to prepare it for planting. I can remember when Ben was younger and would ask me when he would be old enough to do that job and now, all of a sudden, he is able to do it all himself. He probably started just driving the riding lawn tractor when he was 5 or 6 years old, and by the time he was 9 or 10 he was driving the farm tractors by himself. I think children who grow up on a farm are given responsibilities at a younger age than most children. If done in the right way, this is a wonderful gift for them that will serve them well the rest of their lives. Ben has had some close calls and has had a trip to the emergency room at the hospital, but he is a very mature, responsible 15-year-old that has been my right-hand man the last two months.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

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Hot days and a cool pool

Today we finished the new fence we had been working on for the last few days. The area was one of the grazing paddocks for the young heifer/steer group. We built the new fence to keep the animals out of a wooded part of the paddock that also had several ledge outcrops. In the past we have had an animal get injured running through this area. With the high tensile fence, I was able to run a fence over this rough terrain and keep the animals out of it.

Son Noah was my big helper on this project, but part of the deal for his services was that I would help him dig for diamonds and jewels once the fence was built. He had a shovel, hoe, and a pick in the wagon ready to go to work once the fence was done. So Dad and Noah went digging in the woods and around the ledges, but didn't have much luck finding any precious stones. We did find some interesting stones which Noah brought home to the front steps of the porch and later pounded into smaller pieces. The best part of building fence on these first really hot, muggy days of summer was jumping into the pool at lunch time.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

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The laying hens get a new summer house

Today I was working on the laying hen's summer house. I made a set of laying boxes that would attach on the inside of the uprights of the shelter so that we wouldn't have to take the layer boxes out every time we moved the shelter. We move the shelter every 2-3 days to a fresh spot in the pasture. This keeps the hens clean and gives them fresh grass to eat and fresh ground to scratch.

I was working on the lawn so I had a view of the meadow where Scooter and his herdmates were grazing. Scooter had been a little stand-offish since last Thursday's procedure and we hoped he wasn't having any ill effects. As I worked, I could see Scooter and his mom. At one point, Scooter started jumping around as if he was getting excited about something. Then I spotted one of the older Angus steers walking into the grazing strip where Scooter was standing. Scooter ran up to the older steer and started butting heads with him. They played and wrestled around for several minutes, all under the watchful eye of Scooter’s mom. It was interesting to witness the social dynamics of these animals. Because we always separate our animals, we rarely have several age groups of animals interacting together. I wonder if it makes the animals happier in a group with animals of all ages?

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

A new fence means a new paddock for the cows

After chores this morning my brother-in-law, Marty, wanted to know what he could help me tackle. He had worked pretty hard for me yesterday, tearing down old barbed wire fence and doing some mowing in the Christmas trees. I said let's rebuild that fence so that the older heifers and steers would have some fresh pasture, and then we could finish in the Christmas trees.

We ran a second strand of barbed wire on the posts where Marty and Steve worked yesterday, and then tightened up both strands. By the time we were done, Marty was a pretty well-trained fence builder. We opened up the gate to the new paddock and the happy heifers and steers ran in and started munching happily.

With the fencing done, we headed to the Christmas trees to finish mowing the grass growing between the rows of trees. We chose several years ago, even before becoming organic dairy producers, to stop using herbicides to control the grass growing around the Christmas trees. This means we have to be a little more diligent with our mowing and we have to do hand trimming with a hand sickle up close to the young trees. This keeps the grasses, goldenrod, and vetch from smothering the young trees and killing them. Marty and I took turns running the DR Fieldmower that we use to mow between the trees. Even though the mower is self-propelled and has several forward gears, it still gives you a good work out walking up and down between the rows and manuevering it around the trees. It does look nice once the mowing is done. The trees are beautiful this time of year with all the new, lush growth.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

The farmer runs the marathon

On May 30, I ran with a team in the 16th annual Vermont City Marathon in Burlington, Vermont with my son, Ben. Our family took care of things on the farm for us.

Ben and I left Franklin around 5:15 AM. Dad, my brother, Steve, brother-in-law
Marty, and Karen and the boys were doing the morning milking and barn chores. It was about 28 degrees with a little frost on the windshield! We picked up other members of the team--my niece and her boyfriend--and then on to Burlington to meet our final relay team member. It was an awesome day. The weather was great and the race was intense. It was the largest race any of us had ever participated in, with close to 4,000 runners at the start and over 5,500 runners in total competing.

Derek started the race running the shortest leg, 3.1 miles. He handed off to Ben who ran 5.8 miles. Ben passed the relay bracelet to me and I did the longest leg, 6.2 miles. Jeremy took over for me and did a 5.5 mile leg and he handed off to his sweetheart, Jamie, who ran the final 5.6 miles to the finish. We completed the race in 3 hours 21 minutes. This was good enough to finish 29th out of 326 mixed relay teams. My niece, who was the driving force behind getting us to enter and compete in the marathon, was ecstatic. We all had a great sense of accomplishment after the race.

Another farmer in Franklin, who also serves of the with me on the elementary school board, sees me out running quite often. He comments that he should exercise more, but with the demands of his large farm he can't find the time. With the slower pace of our farm, and with the decreased time demand on us during the summer when the cows are out on grass, we have the time to take care of ourselves maybe a little better. I like to think our quality of life is just a little better because of the way we have chosen to operate our farm.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

Random statistic from the U.S. Census Bureau

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are more than 9 million milk cows in the United States. No word on how the census takers got the cows to fill out the census forms. Watch our mascot, Gurt, sign a petition to help end global warming.

Breakout on the farm

Karen and I were just about to turn in last night when we had an unexpected surprise. I went out on the porch to cover the grill when I spotted a young heifer walking in the road in front of the barn. We quickly jumped into our boots, grabbed a flashlight, and headed outside to find out what had happened. The heifer was one of the eight young animals we had turned out about 10 days ago. We coaxed her back the pasture beside the house and immediately saw where she had gotten out. The eight youngsters had destroyed the fence corner right by the road. They broke a couple of posts and a pole brace as well. The funny thing is we never heard a thing.

We flashed the light out into the pasture and saw that the other seven animals were there. We drove the heifer escapee through the gap in the fence and I kept them in while Karen drove the pickup over to use as a floodlight while we repaired the damage. Karen took over on guard duty while I brought tools and fence posts to repair the fence corner. It took us about an hour to get things toggled up. The heifers and steers didn't help our progress by continually sticking their noses into what we were doing. We don't know what spooked them and got them running so crazily that they crashed into the fence hard enough to break through it. By the time we turned off the truck lights they were calmed down and they made it through the night without incident.

I was just glad I happened to go out on the porch at just the right time to see that heifer in front of the barn. Otherwise, who knows where those heifers and steers might have been in the morning.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

The cows get moo-ving to new quarters

It was a rainy day today--a good day to do some inside work in the heifer barn. The heifer barn is where our young stock are kept until they are old enough to go outside. We have two rows of tie stanchions in the heifer barn, one row sized for younger animals and the other row sized for older, larger animals. The heifers on the small animal side were getting too big for that side, so we moved 12 of them over to the now empty big animal side. Before moving the animals we had to fix several leaky water bowls and a couple of chain ties on the big animal side. Once that was done, we shuffled the heifers and a couple of Angus steers across the gutters and alley to their more spacious confines.

We then moved the remaining four heifers on the small animal side to the far end of that side, and then moved four calves out of the calf pens and onto the small animal side. These calves are two months old, the age we normally move them out of the calf pens. At 2 months of age, they are eating hay and grain well and are ready to be weaned off milk. With these calves out of the pens we could then clean those four pens, bed them with fresh sawdust, and move the remaining three calves in to the clean pens. This left the last three pens to be cleaned tomorrow to be ready for the two heifer calves born the other day. All together we moved 23 animals around in the heifer barn this afternoon. Whew!!!

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

A busy day in the barn maternity ward

It was a busy day on the maternity ward of the farm. When I was bringing the cows in to the holding area for milking this morning, I found a cow in the barnyard with her new calf. After corralling the rest of the cows, I went and got the wheelbarrow and brought the heifer calf, followed closely by her mom, into the maternity room. Karen and I had just given both pens a good cleaning, so we were all set for mom and her calf. It was the second calf for the cow, Bea. Farmers would refer to a cow like this as a "second-calf heifer". With Bea and her calf taken care of, I went ahead with the morning milking. We brought Bea in at the end and milked her into the fresh cow bucket. This first milk from a cow that has just given birth is colostrums, very rich in protein and in antibodies which help the newborn calf fight off infections. I fed Bea's calf 2 quarts of the warm, rich colostrum.

The second arrival of the day came in the evening. I went out to bring the last few cows into the parlor to milk when I saw a cow in labor in one of the freestalls. This cow, Keesha, wasn't due for a week, but she was definitely having her baby tonight. We put her in the other pen in the maternity room, right next to Bea and her calf. Son Noah was really hoping to see the calf being born, so the vigil began. We checked Keesha's progress a couple times an hour. Unfortunately for Noah, bedtime came before the calf did. A little after 8:30, Keesha gave birth to a heifer calf. Like all cows, Keesha promptly began licking and cleaning her calf. This both cleans the calf and stimulates its bodily functions. I made sure both new mothers had plenty of fresh hay and water and left them to take care of their newborns.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

It’s June. Think Christmas.

With all the cows, heifers, and steers out grazing with their needs met for a few days, and with the baby chicks well-situated, it looked liked a good time to plant our balsam fir transplants. The weather looked good for today and tomorrow so I headed off to the rental place to get an earth auger. We use the auger with an 8" tip to make the holes to plant the trees. It took me two hours to auger 110 or so 16" deep holes. I always do a few more holes than I have seedlings just in case I lose count while I'm making the holes.

The planting goes pretty fast with the holes already prepared. Son Noah kept my Mom company while wife Karen and I headed over to plant the trees. We brought a bucket load of compost, the trees, a wheelbarrow, a round-pointed shovel, and plenty of insect repellant with us. In each hole we put a shovelful of compost to mix with the soil that was augered out of the hole. Then the transplant is planted, taking care to arrange the root mass in the hole and to pack the soil/compost firmly around the tree. It took us about two hours and 3 wheelbarrow loads of compost to plant 100 trees. There is something very calming about working with plants/seedlings and the soil. While you plant that tree, you are thinking about how it will grow, and how you will shear it and shape it into a beautiful tree for some family to enjoy during some future holiday season.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

Extra farm hands volunteer for the weekend

We had some extra help over the weekend. Saturday, son Ben had his buddy Seth Erno over for the day to help us catch up on some chores. My sister, Patty, and her husband, Marty, arrived in the afternoon and stayed until early Sunday evening and they gave us a hand with some things, too. With my mom recovering well from her surgery and my dad spending time taking care of her, Karen, the boys, and I have more work to do around the farm. It's nice when an extra hand shows up. My brother-in-law, Marty, helped Ben and Seth put sawdust in half of the freestalls Saturday afternoon, and he helped me milk Saturday night and both milkings Sunday. He really impressed me Sunday morning, showing up at the barn at 5 a.m. just as I was starting to milk the cows. No one had been up that early in the morning to help me in quite a while! He really lifted my spirits, going out of his way to help me when he could have been snoozing in bed.

Marty's pitching in and helping me was a great of example of what happens on a family farm. When there is a special project going on here, or it’s a busy sugaring weekend, or its time to put in a couple thousand square bales of hay, or when some one is laid up or hurting, someone always shows up to give us a hand. And we always return the favor when we can. That's why small family farms built such strong communities and why the large factory farms are tearing apart this sense of community in towns all across this country.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

Cowback riding: Do not try this at home!

Amy had an interesting question prompted in a May 25 entry, about some of my young stock getting out and visiting the neighbors. She wondered, “Do people ever ride cows?”

Her question brought back a neat memory for me: We had a cow, Brandy, that we could ride. I don't know which one of us four kids had the idea to actually get on the cow. Brandy, who I named after a character in a John Wayne movie, was always a very friendly cow. At some point one of us decided to try getting on her back, probably my brother, Steve, who was always the one to try anything. The most memorable rider of Brandy was a relative of ours, Bill, who was from Connecticut and happened to be visiting the farm. Bill has Downs Syndrome and, boy, did he get a charge out of Steve and me helping him on to Brandy's back and giving him a ride. My mom still talks about that event every once in a while. This all happened in the early seventies when I had just become a teenager. I don't remember what my dad thought of his kids riding one of the cows.

I wonder why my boys haven't thought of trying to ride one of the cows in the present herd. I can think of one, Kelsey, who would be a good candidate. I guess I won't mention the idea to them. They get plenty of good ideas on their own.

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont