When the Cow Gets Sick and the Water Freezes

Happy third day of Christmas. Big day today because we're stepping it up a notch, treating Aunt Phyllis for mastitis. She didn't quite kick it last time with our first round of treatment. Taking it to the next level. I've brought Phyllis down here just for the ease of— hey, if we're gonna treat you, we're going to next level, we gotta get you close to the house. One thing is we've got her in a close encounter with her Calf, come on. You ain't gonna do it without alfalfa, are you? Oh, hey. Although time-consuming, one of the best things you can do for mastitis is just milk it out a lot. So we're gonna milk her like 3 times a day and give her the calf 24/7. This one teat keeps clogging up and it's got the mastitis. Okay, it's milking right now. It's milking pretty good right now. Hey, yesterday when I did, I would get about 3 or 4 squirts and then it would lock up on me. I had to catch this for the pigs. I'm very happy about this. Oh, there it clogged. Spoke too soon. This doesn't come anymore. Nothing's really at the end. All of a sudden doesn't come anymore. Nothing's at the entrance really, but if you feel up in here, it's just a big knot where the other ones are extremely loose. Very warm water, and we're going to massage this, try to loosen it up. Oh yeah, she see it's really irritated towards her See, then we can get some out for a little while, but don't milk too hard. I seem to have opened it up a bit more this round. I'm gonna go ahead and give her her daily ration of alfalfa. It's one of those times it seems like a beginning to a— to quite a work, to quite a job ahead of us. It ends up being what separates the hobbyists from the homesteaders, I reckon. It's 20 degrees out here. I'm gonna visit her like 3 times a day. The chores must go on, my job must go on, the family must go on. I think I've actually milked her out Nearly. I wish you guys could feel this. It's like a hard piece of clay or something up in there. It's crazy. And if you feel the other ones, it's just— there's nothing. It's just like a loose fleshy bag. So that's kind of how we'll measure our success, by her ability to let it down without it clogging, and then the hardness of this knot. It's kind of like, I don't know, organic Icy Hot, but for Cows, we're just gonna rub this on the udder. It should get the blood flow going. We've done this last time once a day. Usually that's enough to kick it when we, you know, light treatment for mastitis. But this time I guess it's gonna linger a little bit. Check on the pigs and chickens real quick. Nice and dry, frost-free in here. Yeah, you put it under pressure like that.

Hey, hey, you got your own food!

We're hoping for a morsel. Oh, they're getting a few. I'm gonna get Phyllis out of the stanchion, Hamburg out of the stall, clean out some of That went well this morning. I think I'll just let you guys out in this area as well. You can have the two stalls. I'll see you guys after lunch. You guys ready? No, Josiah, I thought you were out there. Really?

Really?

I think maybe you put the jacket over this.

Can you even move?

Hey, where's your shoes?

Out here.

Oh wow, they're right there where they're supposed to be. It's good to see that you guys out and about moving around while we did chores. Back now. Oh my gosh, what is going on?

Oh! Dad, come over here!

Okay, you need some help? Yeah! They called me over for some help. I've got a lot to do with, uh, business-wise. Polyface Design launch this week. A sale this week till the end of the year. Joel's signing. What? What, Gideon? There's a lot I got to do. Giving away a lot of stuff. Doing a lot of emails. Doing a lot of promotional videos.

Alright.

Let's take— This is important. This is important. Okay, they used me well to get some of the heavier stuff done. You guys want to go in the tunnel?

Yeah, let's go!

Let's go. Let's follow Gideon.

Whoa!

Go ahead, show me.

Ah! Stop for another tunnel.

Nice!

There's a cow here.

What?

And here.

What?

There's a kitty down there. There he goes with his paddle.

There goes more. That's crazy. Okay, I don't think I'll fit down that one. No, no, it's so little. That's cool. Good job. Brings back memories when I was a child. All right, y'all have fun. I'll be around if you need some more big lifts. While the boys play, forgot the milk this morning. Thankfully it was in the ice. The boys are playing. I'm gonna do a bit. If you didn't see it, watch it yesterday. What's inside Polyface Design Box? Forward by me. Chickens, broiler shelter, shelter dolly, engine mobile, feather net, mini brooder, cows, shade mobile, Gotta work it. Took a breath. Let me show you guys a little leftover goodness. Look at this, roasted vegetables cooked up between turkey and goose, heated up, and it's gravy. That's a one-dish wonder right there, babe. Look, she got Snowball some clothes. Hold them up there, babe.

Okay, so These are little cats. Are they so cute? I'm just like— I just love them.

Show the little outfit there. The ones in the—

The little outfit.

Is that a devil eye on that?

No, it's sheep.

We'll just say that's a sheep.

Sheep. I've decided.

I don't know what it is. Good afternoon, ladies. Ready for another round of treatment? Got a bit of homeopathy. What's in it?

It's a phytolacca.

To be able to drench her. I shouldn't have given her so much alfalfa. I was meant to do this on an empty stomach. I guess I only gave her one scoop. No more alfalfa for you, honey. We're gonna milk this out. Let's hope we get a little further than we did this morning. Nope. Oh, there it goes. It's going. Okay, okay. And then it clogs. Warm water massage. All right, one more thing. Jonah's gotta hold the tail up. That usually helps. This is so much easier to do here in this flat stanchion. We put an herb— is it herb and essential oil? It's a, um, Injection into her teeth.

It's essential oils and herb tincture.

We'll save this in case you get mastitis. She's like, man, I'm in trouble. All right, let's cross our fingers that this water turned thawed out, or else our life is going to get a little more dedicated to the homestead. Oh boy. All right, it's not spewing out here. Means it might be flowing. I can go up here just to see if it's working. Here's the first outlet. I hear air. What does that mean? Oh man. All right, here it comes. Please come, otherwise we're gonna be hauling buckets. I hear something. Yes! Oh my gosh, you guys, you don't know how happy that makes me right now. I don't want a water issue on top of a mastitis issue. Look at this ice situation. You guys want to go ahead and empty it? Look how thick this got. That's like 5, 6 inches thick. That's rare here. Where do you guys want to get the water from? You have 2 hoses here. Are you sure?

Yeah, it's on and nothing's flowing.

Okay, let's check it. It was working just down, just down the line. Maybe it needs a minute.

It's been a minute.

Has it?

Is it working down here?

Yeah, go trace it back to where we got it working. I think it might be working against us to have, you know, grass is growing over this black line, and so now it's not— the sun's not hitting it and thawing it out. Put this above the grass. You know, this time next year, cows are going to be on deep bedding. Yeah, we won't be dealing with this. This is not a winter watering system, or it would be buried. If we could get this one on, we might have enough hose. And if we have to go further, I'm trying to figure out what's easier— get a bunch of hose up here or, uh, bucket water out here. We actually have a spigot right there, and it's downhill to it. We could actually drain our water at night. Gravity— get— use gravity to get water out of this hose. And we could even do water chores in the morning. We got it hooked up. Our watering hose here is— that was thawed out because it was exposed to the sun. Are you gonna share, Flossie? This makes me so happy. We dodged a bullet.

I think we should pour this out.

Okay, supper time. A Boston butt from the farm. Grandma, what you cooking up? You got some leftovers?

Oh, sweet potato casserole and cornbread stuffing.

Nice. One more treatment today. Well, no treatment, just milking her for all she's worth. You think we got changed?

Nope.

She's milking now. Let's see if she won't clog up. Hey, it's working, Beck.

Yep.

Ah, there it comes. You said it. Hey, hey, it's still— I want to say it's a little less naughty. It's hard to tell. You can for sure know if once we— if we can come out here next and milk it all the way out, then we'll know. Hey, it took only what, 4 or 5 washings?

Yeah, and she's really finishing her off here.

We're almost dripped it. I think this is gonna make a world of a difference just getting it out.

Yeah, I think we were counting on the calf to be nursing it and it wasn't.

Yeah, because it would plug and I guess the calf would move on to another teat.

Yeah.