As most of you know, surprises are not my thing. I do not like surprises even a little. It is entirely necessary for me to know when things are going to happen so I can efficiently stress over all the minor details and possible scenarios ahead. Since moving to a farm this is especially true. We've found that surprises on the farm are mostly, SURPRISE, the yaks escaped, you have a bottle lamb, your dog at the chickens, theres a cougar/coyote/bear in the vicinity. Today however we got a very different surprise. A yak baby.
Dylan and I were really fortunate to have spent the weekend remembering why we bought this land in the first place. Since moving in at the end of March it's been a steady stream of stress and things going wrong. Things were getting pretty tense out here. Dylan was able to get the weekend off work and we spent some time exploring our property, something that we hadn't yet done with the exception of looking for yaks. Turns out 160 acres is a lot. It's so much more land than we know what to do with. While we were out there though we came across a few spaces that we'll keep in mind as possible build sites. It was really nice to have a couple of days to just enjoy the things we've been working so hard for/on. The stress over animals lambing and calving is done, the lambs are here and healthy. Little Nugget is doing super well, growing like a weed and being a huge pain in the ass. Calpernia's lambs are rambunctious and fat very healthy little ladies. Everyone is out in a pasture which is nice for me because I don't have to feed and water them a bunch of times a day, they can handle that on their own. Dylan fixed our kitchen sink last night so we finally have a functioning sink which feels like a luxury after so long. We enjoyed a nice little fire and Sunday night and despite the number of times we've regretted this move we were happy. |
| Our little Sunday night fire |
On Friday our highland cows arrived. Two beautiful heifers and a little perfect steer calf. I always said that hell would freeze over before we got cows, but hell ain't frozen and we've got three Hairy Coos. We first saw Highland Cows in Scotland a few years ago, and even I had to admit, they were pretty damn cool looking. So now we have some of our very own. They are even relatively tame, I may be able to pet them at some point!
 |
| Meet Bridget (Ginger), Brisket (Calf) & Jo-Jo (Black w/ Bieber haircut) |
Last night we wen't to bed thinking that all of our animals had either been delivered or been born and we would have no new additions until next years batch of lambs & calves. SURPRISE! NOW WE HAVE FOUR YAKS. Last night before we went to bed the yaks and Walske were in the back part of the pasture, not terribly unusual as it's thickly treed back there and makes a nice retreat from our billion degree days. This morning, they still weren't up at the front. Clearly I'm still dealing with yak panic after their last escape because not seeing them at night or in the morning sends me into an immediate panic. Out I went as fast as my little legs would carry me to circle the pasture and ensure they were still home. As I rounded the corner a tiny black and white spotted thing ran into the trees. More panic. My initial thought was that one of our lambs had gotten out of their pasture and into the yak pasture. As I was thinking about how I would possibly get the little one out I realized that there was no way I had an escaped and lost lamb and an entirely calm Calpernia. It was then that it came out again and I realized that in fact we had a yak calf. I think I've mentioned this before but yaks are more time costly than cattle to breed, they don't typically come of breeding age until they are nearly three years old, very rarely will they come into season at two years old. They only breed once a year, and being as our girls are just two years old we anticipated breeding them next year and getting calves in the spring of 2019. They don't breed the year after they've calved so you typically end up with one calf every two years after they've hit three years old. This is a significant bonus for us. Now we either have a yak bull that we can raise with our cattle and breed HighYaks for meat, or we can band a bull calf and raise it for meat. If it's a girl, we have a third female yak to use as breeding stock for our lovely bull Cameron. Either way we're happy little farmers today. I of course can't get close to it at all so the sex is still a mystery. Mama Mary (C20-2) is terribly protective which although painful for me because I just want to snuggle it, is a good thing.
 |
| Mary and her new baby (also Walske) |
I've been working on trying to get Nugget to eat grass, with no luck. By working on, I mean I've been picking tiny pieces of grass and putting it in her mouth, she typically spits it out with a little shake of her head just to let me know she finds it entirely repulsive. Yesterday I even pretended to eat grass in hopes that she would "learn" from me. Calpernias two lambs (Nuggets aunts) were eating hay and oats by five days old. Our girl is far behind. She does however love to eat my hair, which her aunts have never gotten into, so maybe she just dances to her own beat. It's really hard to say. 
