While kids are at vacation Bible school right now, our cows are both at vacation bull school, which I’ve also been calling Love Camp.
Mommy Cow, our angus, has been with an angus bull for almost 6-weeks and now Maisy, our mini Jersey/Dexter cross, is with a mini Jersey bull.
By the grace of God (and I truly mean that) I met another mom at church who happened to mention their family just got into farming and they bought an A2 Jersey bull. After two unsuccessful artificial insemination attempts using mini Jersey bull semen, I have been looking for the “real deal”. It is very hard to find a mini Jersey bull “for rent” - most people want to sell you the bull but I don’t want one here for safety reasons.
We had considered a (very cute) Highland bull but hadn’t taken Maisy there yet. Then, boom! The perfect bull just appears 30 minutes down the road. If all goes well, we should have a calf and fresh milk next Spring!
Don’t forget you can support the farm and your health by shopping with Green Pasture and using “ALISON” as your promo code at check out. The fermented cod liver/butter oil saved my teeth after a lifetime of chronic cavities. They also have a great muscle/chest rub for when you’re sore or sick. https://greenpasture.org/
Remember when herding animals required manual labor? Actually we were shooting video but the animals thought it was the end of the world and ran straight for the barn. It was the fastest feeding time on record, maybe we use the drone more often?!
Don’t forget to keep your shepherd energy supply high with good nutrition. We take the fermented cod liver/concentrated butter oil from @greenpastureproducts everyday because it is packed with vitamins A, D & K along with anti-inflammatory omega 3s. It’s fermented instead of high heat processed like most fish oils. Grab some with promo code “ALISON” and you get 10% off. https://greenpasture.org/
I wasn’t a committed homeschool mom from the second my first child was born. I did quite a bit of research because I wanted to learn more about how kids learn - and truly what kind of environments are not just best for learning ABCs but for overall health and development. I wasn’t even sure I would be a good teacher. After reading many books written by education “experts”, we landed on homeschool.
I really had to unravel quite a bit of what I thought was “school” before I could even begin. I went to the same private school K-12 and equated learning with perfect exam scores. As a student, I forgot a lot of what I crammed into my head because I wasn’t learning for the joy of it - I was learning to survive.
I have come to see how much a child learns through simply living - and being bored! They are innately attuned to art, nature, science, nutrition, play, language - if only we give them a chance. I have truly loved homeschooling my kids, especially all the time we get to spend...
I lived for many years with the idea that I would be a career woman first and someday get to kids.
Biologically, this makes little sense as it gets harder to have kids as a woman ages. But even more mind boggling, I didn’t really even think much of it, like the way one considers what he or she is having for dinner. Actually I probably put more thought into dinner. Being a mom was a complete afterthought. One day a friend and I were eating lunch in downtown Seattle and she smacked some truth into my noggin. I decided, ok what the heck. What do I have to lose? We had our first when I was 38 - I found out I was pregnant the week I resigned from my TV news job. Our second came when I was 41.
If I could talk to younger me, I’d tell her that no career is worth delaying or sacrificing motherhood. It has been the most incredibly humbling, soul-stretching, heart-throbbing, belly laughing adventure I’ve ever had.
And don’t forget to grab the fermented cod liver/concentrated butter oil from...
