Then there was five !

Even though only one pup has left so far from Smudge's litter of six, it is noticeable  and have to keep remembering on head counting that all our present that there is now five and not six. Smudge has done such a wonderful job with rearing her brood and her laid back attitude to it all hopefully have been passed to her pups.

Video tonight of the pups was taken this afternoon, as I found our daughter Molly on the patio filming, as she says at the start of the video, she is, "filming nature", I don't think any Hollywood directors or David Attenborough needs to get worried just yet. Lol.
As she films me with Harvey and then Kayla, I noticed that the bruise I have on the back of my left hand shows up more on camera than it does in the flesh and is the remnants of a lot bigger bruise after I saved a fresh calved heffer from hitting her foot against a metal bar by cushioning it with my hand, in other words, I got kicked. The parlours I milk in are herring bone, but in this one the cows are also milked from the side still and for the best part of the time even the fresh calved heffers (A young cow that has had its first calf) rarely create much fuss to be milked, but this girl just decided to kick out and just caught my hand between her foot and the stall bar some way in front of her, thought I had broken it for a minute, but as a rule of thumb, if you can bare the pain and still work it, you keep going and for the most times nothing will of been broken. Last time I hurt a hand was a few years back when opening a door to a parlour and two cows tried to squeeze through a one cow door and my hand was still wrapped around the handle and with the force of one of the cows against my hand I lost my finger nail on my finger on my right hand next to my little finger and I think it must of dislocated slightly, as the end is now more bent over to the side, learnt to let go of the handle quicker though.
 As for the heffer that caught me around three weeks ago, I gave her the benefit of the doubt, as sometimes if their unaware your there they can lift a leg out of surprise as you touch their udder. So I just approached her again talking  to her, so she was aware I was there and I then put the cluster on with no problem and three weeks later she has not lifted her leg since. When they weigh around 500 to 750 kilos and you weigh around 53 kilos and on a good day with the wind behind you can muster 55 kilos, its best to take a diplomatic approach to a cow letting you milk it and make sure you have a kicking bar (this is a device that is a metal bar in the shape of a c that fits up under the back leg by the stfle and hooks up over the hind quarters and then if the cow tries to kick it causes her a bit of discomfort and most cows this is enough to stop them kicking) to hand if that don't work. Lol
You also may notice I've had my shearing ready for the summer ( look out for Arctic conditions from now on) and I am now sporting the same haircut as our youngest daughter who attempted to cut her own hair a few weeks back and we keep laughing because I keep saying, "We look like twins now,"  but she tells me "You can't be my twin Mummy, because you are my Mummy."

Really late now, did not realise the time, so a quick finish with a photo of the two oldest dogs on the place now, Dolly and Ysobel, who are both seven years old and now retired from breeding.

Old girls, Dolly and Ysobel