New Adventure with Christina

We have embarked on a new adventure with Christina.  Dairy cows need their hooves trimmed regularly.  We took Christina out to the dairy we bought her from last September and they did it.  It was pretty traumatic for her because they had to take a lot off and it's a long ride.  We decided that we'd try maintaining her hooves at home.  Our plan is to do one foot each week so that every hoof gets attention once a month and therefore never needs too much removed.

Today we began training.  My husband pulled one foot up, we slid a bale of straw underneath, and he took a few swipes with the rasp.  He wasn't try to accomplish anything, just get her comfortable with picking her foot up and some handling.  She did pretty good.  For the next three Saturdays, he'll do the same with the other feet.  Then next month he'll try to actually do some work.  We ordered a book on how to trim hooves.

Every morning is a CMT test.  Christina had mastitis 12 days ago.  We treated two quarters with antibiotic but one quarter has not fully cleared up.  Some days it's a solid positive.  This morning it was just a trace.  Yesterday we decided it was time to know what we're dealing with and took a sample of the milk to the lab.  I sure hope it was a waste of time (that it comes back negative) and she's just taking a while to clear up.

We re-organized the freezers and discovered that we had much more frozen fruit than I realized.  Since we'll have to get a full beef in those freezers this spring when beefy goes, we have to make some space.  Fruit cobbler has become a regular evening treat.  We mix apples, peaches, apricots, and strawberries with some sugar and tapioca power and then make a cobbler topping with oatmeal, flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, and cream.  It is absolutely amazing.