It's a yak! It's a bison!

No, it's a Scottish Highland cow!

We brought our newest additions home today: Whitehill Stardust, a registered dun Scottish Highland cow, and her little red bull calf (who's destined to be a steer very soon).

We stopped for gas on the way home, and the gas station attendants were rather enthralled with them. Well, after they asked "What is it?!" and were informed that they were, indeed, cows. I do wish I'd remembered to take a photo of them in the trailer. All you could see through the window was eyes, and horns, and hair.

Dusty (as we'll be calling her - Stardust just seems a bit... grandiose for a hairy cow!) is also re-bred to the previous owner's registered bull. Fingers crossed for a lovely little Highland heifer this spring!






The new beasts have been made comfortable in the temporary quarantine pen, which will be their home for the next 3 weeks. Hard to really tell what cows think, but Dusty seems to approve of the hay.

It was around 5pm or so when we got the cattle put away. We spent the remainder of the evening crawling around under the trailer, replacing panels that had holes and putting in some new insulation. Whoever designed the flooring in mobile homes is an idiot. Who thought flimsy wooden panels just -resting- on metal edging is all that's needed between the outside world and the insulation/pipes/vents? It's no wonder we've had mice. Anyway, the current repairs should at least keep Oz the cat from coming into the house through the vent under the kitchen table!

Went for a shower afterward, since it's absolutely filthy under the trailer. My shower was uneventful. Roy, however, had the fun of one of the valves on the shower column breaking and spraying water at force across the tub. We're without a shower (or bath) now until Roy comes home again next weekend.

Clearly I fail at blogging....

... but I'm just going to ignore that, and continue on like I haven't missed posting for over a year.

Roy and I went into town early today to try and get a garage door opener for his new machine shop. Not like early early; we made it to Home Depot by about 9:30am. They had one of their "one day only, no rain checks" sales on openers, so it was rather surprising that they still had most of a pallet full of them left. Guess not many people are thinking of installing a garage door at -15C?

Breakfast at Denney's (and the first coffee of the day: sweet, sweet coffee), then various shopping to kill time until our massage appointments at 1:45pm. Most useful purchase of the day: I got insulated coveralls from Peavey Mart. They should (hopefully!) make doing the outside chores rather more bearable this winter.

We got home just before the farrier arrived to trim Frejya the mini donkey's hooves. Scrambled around a bit to get suited up, then held Frejya while he trimmed. Those coveralls I bought? Best $99 I've spent in ages! Freja still needs another session to get her feet back to a reasonable length, but she looks SO much better already. Hopefully she won't develop ice balls in her hooves quite so badly now, either. He'll be back in 8 weeks to trim again, and to do Poppy's hooves as well. It's possible this will get me off my butt and working with Poppy to lead/tie and pick up her feet!

Today seemed to be a cow day. Got a couple e-mails regarding Sage, the Dexter heifer we have up for sale/trade, and a couple of messages on the phone about a Dexter we bought a couple months ago, and a Scottish Highland cow/calf pair I'm hoping to buy (I'm not sure why, but I'm just craving a Highland or two to meander about the pasture with my Dexters). Lots of phone tag this evening!

Oxo the frosty Dexter steer, and his half sister Sage hiding behind him.