Bottle Calf, Promise of Spring and a Lovely C.S. Lewis Quote

 This is the newest addition to the hilltop.....Yes, it's a bull calf.  Yes, he's adorable.  Yes, we're going to raise him and eat him.

More and more, people don't seem to understand the purpose of animals.  Farm animals are not meant to be pets, like this bull calf for instance, but to serve their purpose in putting food on the table.  I often wonder if those who think killing animals for food is cruel ever stop to wonder what on earth we'd do with them all otherwise??  You just can't have millions of cows taking over the planet!

This little fellow is a bottle baby now, just 2-3 weeks old.  I'm going to try to get two calves raised on the extra goat milk.  Right now we're still milking the three goats, feeding the three kids and the rest of the milk had been going to the house.  There's been enough left over that we can raise one calf at a time and this is the first one.

In another week or so we'll castrate and disbud (dehorn) him and he'll be good to grow for a couple of years. 

We disbudded the three goat kids a few days ago.  We keep a completely hornless herd for their safety and ours.  

 It's hard to imagine all the snow they're getting on the east coast when my daffodils are about 3-4" tall already.

The frogs have been croaking and today I saw a few honeybees flying around.  Of course today was one of our rare sunny days....No doubt the rains will return tomorrow.

 My litter of orange dwarf rabbits is now weaned and I'm enjoying these little sweeties a whole bunch!  I'm anxious to see how they turn out.  They are a litter of three boys and three girls and I named them Dietz, Torch, Beacon, Lumen, Glow and.....and.....oh crumb, I can't remember the other one right now.  Hmmm.  Anyhow, this is one of the little boys     --------------------->
No, we're not going to eat him ;-)



It's a long time until actual Spring, but we even have a few dandelions blooming already.  Wildflowers, doncha know, lol!

Not much else happening on the ole hilltop at the moment.  I FINALLY got the Christmas tree down today and gathered up the decor, but I confess that it's all sitting at the foot of the stairs waiting to get up to the storage room and then put away.  I've pretty much done nothing more that keep up with laundry and basic chores as I have once again succumbed to a nasty bout of diverticulitis, much to my disgust.  Can you say......chicken broth??   My best friend is currently a heating pad and  I've been on antibiotics and basically a liquid diet for over a week and was getting a bit impatient and disgruntled......

Then I read this by C. S. Lewis.....


 29 April 1938
I have been in considerable trouble over the present danger of war. Twice in one life—and then to find how little I have grown in fortitude despite my conversion. It has done me a lot of good by making me realise how much of my happiness secretly depended on the tacit assumption of at least tolerable conditions for the body: and I see more clearly, I think, the necessity (if one may so put it) which God is under of allowing us to be afflicted—so few of us will really rest all on Him if He leaves us any other support.

I am consistently in awe and amazed by the depth of  C.S. Lewis's thinking.  A very brilliant man was he and definitely more insightful than myself.

I always find it hard to be sidelined, so to speak, but no doubt it's good for a person to have time to rest and think.

Ah, well, I shall pull myself up by the proverbial bootstraps and chant to myself over and over that "this too shall pass" and endeavor to make a more interesting blog post next time!