You Had to Know It Would Happen

Last year at this time, Christina was dried off, awaiting the birth of her calf.  This year we are still working on getting her pregnant. 

Last month her milk production suddenly started to drop.  She was giving about 4.2 gallons per day.  In three weeks that dropped to 3.0 gallons a day.  It was scarey when it was dropping so fast, but it does seem to have leveled off now.   One blessing is that as her production has gone down, the cream content has gone up.  This gallon from a few days ago is almost half cream!!  That's half-and-half on tap.

We've bred Christina six times since last January and we're still working on getting her pregnant.  The dairy we bought her from said that some of their older cows get to where AI (artificial insemination) doesn't work, but a bull will get the job done.  The problem is that full grown bulls are extremely dangerous animals.  They had a solution — a young bull.  This guy is only 10 months old, old enough to get the job done, but young enough not to be aggressive.  We are borrowing him for a while until Christina gets pregnant. 

He's young and small, so we're not sure he can reach, but we are confident he'll be motivated.  We may actually have to help by holding Christina down in the ditch so he can reach better.  We've been laughing about it all day.  My husband said, "Christina's needs a Mai Tai and a spry guy."

It was a long day going out to get him.  We took Christina with us and got her hooves trimmed.  When we got home he wasn't so sure about where we were leading him, so two of us pulled on his halter and two of us pushed him from behind.  Pretty soon he was running all over the pasture.  I hope he's happy here.  I really hope Christina turns up pregnant.

As we were driving home, we were thinking about how enormously helpful the dairy farmers we bought her from have been.  If we didn't have them in our lives, we are pretty sure we would have given up on cows by now.  There have been so many things to learn that no book covered.  But because they've always been available and helpful, we feel not only successful but confident.  Like so many times, God has provided wonderful people who have made this life possible.