We lost Landis.

One of our most important cow just had to be put down this past Tuesday. She was only four and a half years old.
On Friday night she got done milking as she was on of the last cows to be milked ( show cows and fresh cows go last)
She had just calved a few days earlier and was fat. She is also very big. She has been in a grass pasture and had lost a lot of weight but we could not put her on a diet since she was pregnant so the pasture was healthy for her and baby.
Well we are in the barn and my husband goes looking for her on the pasture since she did not come in to eat and he wanted to get her to her special pen.
The cows get food outside in the pasture and inside in the big freestall barn and they usually like to come in because of water.
She would always come into the barn since she knows she gets special food in her pen.
He finds her a few feet from the exit of the milking barn down on the floor.
The nightmare started that second . This was 9:30 at night. Next morning at 5:00 AM my hubby leaves for a two and a half hours drive one way to get the AQUACOW for her. He gets back home and we get her in and fill up with water. She cannot float her hips and hind legs.
She is so big and the aqua cow is even small for her but it helps to keep the weight off.
We keep her in for a few hours and then drain and we do that Saturday and Sunday all day and night. She is eating great and she is feisty and fighting every minute of it.
On Monday he drives again for another 5 hours to get a sling and see if that would help.
Again not working so good and she is also a bit to big for it.So we load her in to the trailer and take her to the University of Wisconsin -Madison where they are the best.
There they have a special sling that takes the cow to an aqua cow with controlled temperature and they can finally examine her and x- ray her.
They have state of the art stuff for cows there.
Hubby got home at 100AM.
The chief intern calls this morning ( She is awesome and has saved many famous Dairy Cows like the Jersey Veronica)

Well Landis dislocated her hips so bad there was nothing they could do.
She thinks it is because she was so fat that it was so badly dislocated ( probably got into a "fight")
We had to put her down. My husband is devastated.
We couldn't even save her ovaries since she just calved and its not cycling yet.

Showing Dogs

Some of you know that I have been showing dogs since I was 13 years old ( almost 30 years!).

Here is a picture of me winning at 15 with a clients Weimaraner named Yankee.

At 15 I was already one of the best handlers in the Brazil. I made my own money and had clients everywhere.

My Indiana Jones

MD loves Indiana Jones. We went to see the movie together when it came out. We had so much fun!!! Here is MD as Indy.

Check out the many faces of MD HERE

Learn Nothing Day- by Schuyler Waynforth

IS COMING!
On July 24 I will absolutely, definitely NOT post because all unschoolers are asked to take a day off (finally) and take a break from learning.
Other homeschoolers call us lazy, but they've been taking days off all the time. Unschoolers just do what they do morning and night, on weekends, in the summer. Let's give it a rest, people.

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Since I am the lazy unschooler I am copying this from my friend Schuyler ( I cannot come up with anything better to write or more clever anyway!!)

Vacancy

Playing in the sand pile next to the barn

I keep inviting unschooling friends to come over and visit our farm. I have plenty of room ( even if you have 7 kids-hint-hint or live in another Continent) and beds for all. The house is messy and the walls have lots of drawings on. I have guinea pigs that live in my formal Living room. We have a 20 dollar couch an only a table in the kitchen. Nothing is fancy but is fun. MD ( nowadays he likes to be called Mario, Luke Skywalker or Indy-for Indiana Jones) loves sleep overs. There are nice parks in town and an adorable free zoo around the corner. The air is pure like country air and has a wonderful mixture of manure and freshly cut hay aroma.


My lawn is made of dandelions and is almost knee high since we like it natural ( or I don't have time to mow it).


So you are welcome. Let me know when you can get here.

More Videos

Inspired by all the talks about this past weekend's unschooling conferences and a lack of time to sit and write, here are some homeschooling videos that are cool!
And for you all that made to the conferences.......how I wished I was there with you.......( hope I don't sound too envious)


And here are my favorite animal videos

Game Over- Addicted to Shrooms

The last post reminded me of this movie I love from YouTube:

Sinfull Morels

Forgive for I have sinned....

I have received a bag full of Morel Mushrooms this afternoon from my neighbours.

I could have frozen some. I could have shared with Brian.

Gluttony.

I ate them all. Every little bit of them.

I just love all kind of mushrooms.

Portobello, Shitake, Morels, White Truffles, Black Truffles,....

I am in heaven....er...going to hell....( if only I believed in that stuff).

HOT COWS!!!!!!

These are our new additions here at the farm.

I just hope they make lots of embryos so we can make our money back.

There are two sister from Canada one bought at this sale .

Here is Avery and her sister Ava :

Avery

Ava

And here is the "fancy" Jasper from the Regancrest sale

Retro ( the one on the left)

I have People!

When I said I had people I meant I had people. And what a wonderful writer she is.
She wrote this great article that came out yesterday at my local paper. She was on of the friends sitting right next to me during the "breastfeeding" incident. Here is the link to it:

http://www.postbulletin.com/newsmanager/?a=342167&z=10

Since this link no longer works here is a picture  scanned of the wonderful article written by Valerie Kiger who was sitting next to me during the incident :