A Cow in the House

Early last Monday morning around 6:30, I had just crawled back in bed after feeding Simon when I saw a strange sight out in the hallway. Matt was hunched over, scurrying quickly to the bathroom with a big load in his arms. I knew he had gone out to check on our herd of cows, that are all supposed to have a calf here in the next few weeks/months. Zethan had actually snuggled into our bed by that time also, so we both jumped outta bed and ran to see what the commotion was.

It was a sweet little bull calf! Matt had rescued it just in time. Its momma must not have liked the birth experience much and decided to trounce the poor little thing. She was shoving it all through the mud and snow and stomping on it. It had a few cuts and wasn't breathing well. Matt washed it off in our tub and then laid it on a towel to warm up in our bathroom. The kids {and I} thought it quite peculiar to use the bathroom with a calf watching us!

He called the vet and then decided to take him in. The vet thought that maybe it had a collapsed lung from the momma cow stepping on it. The vet, shaved a spot on each side of the calf and put a needle in each side to draw out the air that had collected outside the lung. That way the lung could fill up properly again. It should be able to recover just fine! 

It was just so cute, Simon couldn't resist going to visit it.

It didn't take too long and it was up on its wobbly feet. It wanted to check out its living quarters. The poor little thing was just so cute, I couldn't resist letting it visit us in the living room!

It wobbled around and got some of its strength back.

Then he decided he was even ready for a real meal! When Matt first brought him in, we used a drencher to give it colostrum. Which is the first milk a calf needs to get a good start and usually gets from its momma. A drencher is a long tube, that is put down the throat and then you can squeeze the bottle and fill the calf's tummy with warm milk. It helps get the body temperature back up as well. It was super cold from being outside in the mud!

Lillie thought he made a good house pet!

He only enjoyed the house for that morning and afternoon and then out to the barn he had to go. But he likes his hay bed out there too!

Baby Owls

These are some pictures Matt took of some baby owls we found in a tree in our yard. There were three of them! It was pretty cool! Lillie didn't really care about them though and Titus for some reason was scared of them=)

This is the best picture of all of them! We haven't seen them again since that day but they must have hatched in that tree. They couldn't really seem to fly very well yet. They would kind of flutter from branch to branch. Maybe they were just too scared to fly. I don't know.


There were a couple of other birds bothering them. They were screeching at them. I'm not really sure why. I don't know much about birds so I couldn't even tell you what they other birds were. Matt said maybe a mocking bird since they were harassing the owls. Who knows!?

Meet Jasmine

A few weeks ago our little dog Princess (a dachshund) got hit by a car. We (well most of us, okay only the kids and I) were so sad. She was really protective of us and our house/property so she would yipe yipe yipe and bite at anyone's heels who tried to even get close to the house. We had her for almost 2 years. She was so tiny when we got her. Dachshunds are small anyway but then she was the runt of the litter as well, so she was itty bitty. I guess 2 years has been kind of the 'unlucky' number of years for our dogs. Before Princess we had a lab/husky mix dog named Maya and she was the best dog ever. I still miss her=( But she got hit by a car as well before we got Princess. We only had her for about 2 years too. She was my little baby. We got her shortly after we had a miscarriage so she was really special to me. And then she had a litter of puppies a couple months after we had Titus so that was a really fun time with all the puppies. She was such a good mama dog. Anyway.....
So hopefully this time around we can keep our pup for longer. We are definitely going to train, train, train her not to go to the road!


She is such a sweet but ornery little pup! She is an Australian Shepherd/Border Collie mix. She is just so soft and fluffy. And we can tell that she is going to be a smart dog! She looks just perfect for the farm!

Lillie loves her new little Jazz! She just asked me today if she could feed Jazz every day! Of course she can. I love that Lillie likes to help do the chores and help outside. Now if only I could get her to get excited about helping inside the house=) But she really does like to help with things outside. Maybe its because her Daddy is the one who does the chores so she gets to be out there with him helping out! Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's why! She likes to water the garden and feed the cats and the dogs. Since Matt has been cutting wheat and planting soybeans like crazy I made sure the animals were all hydrated during these hots days and Lillie just thought it was great getting the bucket for the water and watching it to tell me when it was full. And then putting it away when we were done! She makes a great little farm girl!

Matt grew up with an Australian Shepherd that was a wonderful dog so after Princess got hit I was talking with him about what he thought would be a good dog to get and we talked about a few breeds. I said that if I saw a lab/husky mix pup for sale that I wanted it (just because I loved Maya so much). And he thought maybe an Aussie or maybe a Collie and then he said an Aussie/Collie mix would be about perfect. I didn't start looking for puppies for sale for probably a week after that conversation and the day I looked at the paper online someone had posted an ad for these puppies. I was so excited! So I made arrangements to go look at them. Matt wasn't able to come look at them with me but said he thought I would pick 'a good one'. So off I went to find the newest member of our family. I thought this little girly would fit right in! They were all so adorable though! There were 2 colored like this and 4 black and white ones.

On the way home she was whining in her cage and Titus was so concerned about her. He kept saying "Okay, puppy, okay puppy" And then she would whine again so in a sad little voice he would say "oohhh, okay puppy" It was so sweet!