What's up today (bullchiting) thread.

We had a milk inspector come up from out of state who was not quite used to the way farms look in Maine. I am not exactly sure where he came from but he was used to mown lawns, windows that had been cleaned with windex, and where farms bought feed instead of produced it for themselves. That is just another way of saying they had a bit more time then we did. He started throwing his weight around a little bit and writing every farm up for every infraction possible, but in the end...about 3 months later, he went back from where he came from and us, we are still milking cows.

You have to overlook some stuff. Tanks have to be cleaned, lines have to be rinsed, and udders have to be cleaned off, but the bacteria count in the milk is what counts. That is where bonuses are paid, along with protein content, and herd averages. You get to be a gold star dairy, not because of what cows look like; they all lay down in poop, its using surgical grade iodine to clean off their teats, leaving it on for 30 seconds to a minute to really let it kill the bacteria, dry cleaning the parlor so you don't spread bacteria with water, and using proper detergents. Its not just one thing that gets you to being a gold star dairy, its a lot of little steps.

I was like a few of you too though. When I helped out on our 1200 cow dairy farm, I thought with so many cows one would be lost in a sea of black and white. NOT AT ALL. The guy that manages the cows could look at a cow, tell you when she was last bred, when she was due again, how old she was (within reason) and how much milk she averaged. When you spend 18 hours a day with the animals that make your livelihood, you get to know them...you have to know them.

My favorite commercial was a Humane Society one showing a video of supposed animal abuse where a dairy farmer was pushing around a dead cow with a bucket loader. I laughed because I was trying to figure out why that was abuse? Livestock die, and how else are you going to move around a 2000 pound animal?

 

You lucky SOB......................

 

Caffeine going in and time to wake up the wife, again. She doesn't want to get up.

 

I didn't want to get up today either...tomorrow will be even worse cause I gotta go into work...oh well, at least its OT $

 

Unfinished workbench project #4 is done and taken up most of my down time this week. I put a bit of time into this one as I was a bit rusty on my carving and painting skills. This was the woodpecker with the cross grained beak that I started and put down a few years ago. I cut off the beak and glued a new one on with the grain running out the length of it.

Rough out and laying in the feather groups.



All the feathers are pretty much done and the eyes are set here. I made feet from small brass rods with details filed in.



The bird is sealed and thin washes of paint are built up.



Here he is pretty much done. The base can either sit on a shelf or table or hang on a wall.

 

Thank goodness for pasteurization.

 

You got that right.

Maine is one of 8 states where you can legally sell unpasteurized products, but you would not catch me doing so. They say it kills the good stuff, but HELLO...it kills the bad too. I don't care how clean you are as a farmer, a cow can kick a milker and they often fall off and who knows what they suck up. Even if I had my own family cow I would buy a home pasteurizing kit.

 

I understand as well, I was not there, I am just a bit confused. You said they sell their milk through another dairy farm that they own. We used to do that ourselves, using the old dairy farm for dry cows, beef and calves, while the other produced milk. If that is the case with this farm then I can see why it is in such a disarray. Knowing you were going to be done milking, its conceivable they just dropped everything and never cleaned the lines out the last time. I don't think I would ever do that, it doesn't take that long to clean everything out and its not like its not all automated. But if you look at the parlor where the beef cows are, its all disheveled after years of non-use, but what does it matter, its not pumping milk through it anymore? But it almost sounds like these guys are going to crank it back up again. If that is the case then failing to clean out the lines the last time they used it is going to cost them big bucks. Our big parlor cost over one million dollars.

I'm not grilling you here, just trying to figure out what the farm is trying to do.

 

Awesome Jon. Really awesome. Will you be selling that piece?

 

Amazing work!

 

It is amazing they got this far with thoughts like that! Yuck.

The bible even tells a farmer they must take care of their animals. I can do things better I know with my sheep, but they are still cared for to the best of my ability.

 

Nice job!

I cut some basswood for a carver one time who wanted to make a big carving and had specific timbers for each part of his carving. So I cut the wood, sawed it up for him just as he asked...then waited, and waited, and waited! This was all for free too, but I guess that is what occurs when people have nothing into something, they could care less. So ultimately I used some of the 3 x 12 planks to use as ramps for my fourwheeler. Basswood is great because it is so light, but tree wise it was a waste. It was a massive Basswood...

 

fishingpol impressive as always

 

Good morning, nice day with upper 70's then a cool down in the evenings for a while, prolly fire up that greedy hungry beast out back that heats this place.
Have a good day and be safe.

 

Lovely work. You are just on a mission to get all those unfinished projects (UFOs) done, aren't you. when you are finished, I have a sewing room full of UFOs that you can start on for me.

 

Thanks Gas, but probably not. I havent sold any of my birds. I put so many hours into them and I would see little return for what they would sell for.