Milk At Last

9/17/07 - 1st Day - After Breakfast. Up at 5 a.m. to do our first morning milking in a long time. We brought Holga into the corral last night and fed her some grain and locked her in for the night away from the calf. We expected she would moo and moan all night, but she uttered nary a peep and was waiting patiently at the milking stall this morning. She did really well, and we were well pleased with her. We didn't take anywhere near what we could have, since we want to gradually build her up so that she provides enough for us and her calf - but she did really well. It was a great blessing to have fresh milk in my coffee this morning, and it was satisfying to drink the coffee and watch the sun come up to start a beautiful day.

For those of you who have not heard or read about us milking Pure Texas Longhorns, read about it here: http://purelonghorns.com/2006/08/longhorn-cow-milk.html.

As I drank my coffee, I was a bit shocked to see that the sun has moved so far south. It seems only a week ago or so that the sun came up straight over our beautiful valley, but this morning it was due west, rising up through the trees. I wonder what it is like for y'all Yankees up in the frozen north to see the sun disappear so far south as winter approaches. We're still warm here, and it was in the high 60's this morning. The temps will be cooling very gradually over the next few weeks.

Our generator cratered on us, so Brother Logan will be hauling it to the shop this morning some time. I have been charging batteries with the truck as a generator this morning, and we are currently running everything and the freezers off of the truck. Hopefully we'll get enough sun today to put a good charge on the solar trailer to get us through the night.

We're still needing donations for Ranchfest. Let's keep it coming until October 5th so we can have a productive week with so many folks coming down.

I'll keep you up to date on how the milking is progressing.

Your servant in Christ Jesus,

Michael Bunker