Forget What I Said - An Update on Chelsea and the New Calf

T minus 1 day until Chelsea's due date.

About two and a half weeks ago I first noticed her udder getting bigger:

Cows have one udder, divided into four quarters...and each quarter has a teat.

Taken last week

And it now seems ridiculous that I thought that was bigger, given what she now looks like:

Taken a few minutes ago!

I have been waking up multiple times a night, with a start.  Has she had it yet???  I don't go out there and actually check, mind you...I just worry for a bit, and then (hopefully) go back to sleep.  (Although on Monday I was up for the day at 3:37a.m.)

We plan to do once-a-day milking (as outlined here on Prairie Homestead) instead of twice a day, so we needed a new paddock.  (Since this will be Chelsea's second lactation cycle, she should be giving more milk than last time, and even with milking only once a day we should still get about 2 gallons a day, which should be enough for us to drink and make other dairy products to our hearts' content.)

We loved the men who fenced in our pasture early in 2014, so we gave them a call, to see if they could come fence in this new paddock for us.  They are super busy - which doesn't surprise me at all given how great they are - but he said they should be out to install the fence in two weeks.  

That was about 7-8 weeks ago.

After talking back and forth for weeks, Mr. Mike finally told us last week that he just wasn't going to be able to fit us into their schedule in time after all.  (We only had 60 ft. to fence in (plus two gates to install), so they weren't going to be getting the super huge bucks from us, this might have played a part in the decision also.)

So....Jas put on his fence-building hat and went to work on Saturday.  (Seriously, if there is something Jas can't do, I don't know about it!)

Jas says this is just a "temporary" solution...but we'll see how temporary it turns out to be.

And the good - no, WONDERFUL - part:  this cost us exactly zero dollars and zero cents.

Noah was checking our rain gauge.  And note to self: buy a new salt block sooner rather than later.

We already had the T-posts.  We already had the baling wire.  We borrowed the horse panels from Jason's buddy who isn't using them, and was just storing them.  

Even with letting the children "help", the whole project still took less time than Jas had estimated.  (Our projects always end up taking longer than we expect!)

The juxtaposition of our pasture/cows with our trampoline and pool always makes me smile!

The temps were cooler, but now it is back in the 80s, and I know that Chelsea is so ready to deliver that calf.  

You are really only supposed to let a dairy cow be "open" for about 2 months before they get pregnant again...so "freshening" or delivering a calf every year.

But we need to time her next pregnancy better, so that she can deliver in the spring next time.

We are officially on baby watch....

...and we're all excited!