A Good Name

"There's a mouse in a bucket," my daughter came running in to say.  My husband put another bucket on top to capture it and they headed out to release it.  I told her, "take it away from the house." Boy, did she mind.  She took that mouse all the way to the back of the pasture. She came back in with her head held high and said with a lilt, "I took care of that mouse."

We have been at this homesteading thing for a year and a half.  Our first summer was just cleaning away weeds and trees and garage.  In August we got chicks.  We butchered the roosters in December, had our first eggs in February, and this past summer was our first growing season.  We are still in our first year of eating off the land and finding an annual rhythm that matches.  With so many squash to eat, I've found lots of good recipes, but most of them use eggs.

Our egg production is down to three to five per day.  Yesterday we got four.  In the summer, this favorite nesting box of the hens would have upwards of ten eggs every day.  Today there are only two.  We could push the hens into laying more by adding light to their coop, but that feels too industrial.  We will live with the way God created chickens to lay.

In the summer we were coming up with ways to use eggs, and I'm still in the habit of using them up.  But suddenly we have only a few in the frig and I have to pay attention.  This is part of the annual cycle that I am still learning.

While taking the picture of eggs, one of the hens came to check things out.  They really do look like little dinosaurs, don't you think?

Six days to Christina's due date and she seems the same.  My husband calls this area of the shed the cow's nest.  It's funny to call it a nest for such large animals, but it's a good name.  They each have their own place where they lay down, but they are always free to go out to the pasture if they want.  Today is cool and damp and they've been in the shed more than usual.  I think that beefy just hangs out wherever Christina is.

Christina has never kept a calf before so we don't know how this will go.  I'm not that worried about the delivery, but afterward we need to get Christina the calcium supplement as soon as possible, and watch to make sure that she doesn't reject it, and watch that beefy doesn't bully it. I guess we need to watch the weather too. 

Naming is an ongoing conversation at our house.  A boy calf will become a steer for meat so we'll only give it a reference, like jerky (or beefy).  But a girl calf will become a new milk cow.  Her name is important.  The girls are on in hot debate between Clarabelle, Jody, and Gracie.  My husband and I like Clarabelle, but the girls prefer Jody.  What would you name a cow?