Friday, January 2, 2009

A new Year as Cattlemen

We had a very nice New Years celebration starting off with a good-sized bonfire attended by Nancy and kids, my parents, and the Morphis family.  After it petered out, the parents took Nancy's kids home to bed, we put all the other kids to bed here and then we (the remaining adults) had a quiet dinner of "gourmeten" (where we each cook our own food over a little raclette grill.)  The grub was top notch and just when we thought our tummies had had enough, we broke out a fondue pot and totally stuffed ourselves on fresh fruit and chocolate.  The eating took most of the night and we couldn't even finish a single game of Het Kolonisten van Catan before we had to break for sparkling cider, toasts, kisses and fireworks.  Good times.  Of course, we weren't smart enough to end it there and proceeded to stay up chatting till around 3:00 in the morning, which really puts a damper on getting an early start the next day.


(Picture from the seller)

Unkigiash has some extra spending money, and somehow, we decided that it might be a good idea to invest it in some calves to raise up for slaughter.  Yesterday, while the Morphis family was still here, we decided to all head down to Canton Trade Days (where a whole city in the middle of nowhere turns into a gigantic flea-market/garage sale for one weekend.)  In the next town over, there was a guy selling a couple of bull dairy calves.  (At a dairy, the milk cows have to have babies on a periodic basis to "freshen" their milk supplies - these little bull-calves are the undesirable by-products of that operation and the dairies get rid of them cheap.)  Josh bought 2 Holstein bulls and 2 Jersey bulls.  They are supposedly 5-6 months old, but I question whether that is actually true.  They are in very marginal health so it was a bit of a risky investment, but we are hoping they will all pull through and get healthy.  We gave them each a dose of pro-bios (a yogurt medication to get their stomachs working right),  some fresh water and feed, a bit of hay, and locked them up in stalls to keep them from contaminating each other (if they haven't already.)

3 comments:

Nancy Sabina said...

It was a great party - thanks for inviting us. I'm bummed I missed the fun on New Years Day though. I've always wanted to go to Canton Trade Days.

Catherine M. said...

Yeehaw! We had a smashing time with you! Thanks for the good times.

Unknown said...

Joe,
It'stoo bad "Grandma Lucy" (Alex's grandma)isn't around any more to give you advice on those calves. She used to buy baby calves at auction and raise them with bottles. She dealt with all kinds of illness and issues. Good luck with them!
Lynn