Maine State Grange

Webmaster’s note: The format of this column includes all of the Quill’s Endians participating at various times and in various ways! Phil writes this month’s column.

Alternating Notes

This past week held notes of dissonance. Discordant, sad strains in the melody of fall’s alternating glory of rain and shine, a long-awaited harmony.

Benjamin headed off to Draft Animal Power Network field days in Vermont. This means we employ help at chore times. 

Our cows know our boundaries.  If anyone else tends to them, they need to find this new human’s boundaries, much like children in a classroom with substitute teachers.  For example: we milk in a parlor with two stanchions.  While one cow is milked, the next one is let in to be prepped.  We milk in the same order day after day.  The cows know when their turn is coming and busy themselves with hay until then. 

Unless…they need to test someone new.  Since last Wednesday when Ben left, the jumble has begun after the first cow, Polly.  Astrid refused outright to come into the parlor just to see which tricks might be employed to persuade her otherwise.  I stepped in with apples…the stomach wins the heart.

I made it my goal to just keep up with grazing rotations while Benjamin was away.  The hens move every two or three days, the hogs as they use up a paddock, the cows twice daily.  I was on top of everything until Eliza calved on Friday. 

Everything went well.  This is Eliza’s 7th calf.  

We typically give a new mama a day or two in the barn to keep an eye on things postpartum.  When I walked into the barn on Saturday morning, I immediately knew something was wrong.  Eliza was unable to get up and bloated.  I set to action with Fisher, who was milking cows that morning and our oldest son, Alexander.  We propped her up with bales of hay.  She started to belch and get rid of the bloat.  I figured she would be up in no time. 

After milking she was still unable to stand.  We gave her some oral calcium and glucose, hoping her system would recover quickly.  I called our vet.  By 1:30 that afternoon, she had passed, most likely from internal bleeding postpartum. 

This is a big loss, as sad as it was unpreventable.  Eliza was our oldest cow and the herd matriarch.   She left us a cunning, super-smart, little heifer.  This wee slip of a calf has big shoes to fill.

Ben returns tonight (Sunday).  The cows will have to behave again and… he’ll have a good-bye to say and a tree to plant over Eliza.  The regular melody will return.  As will those dissonant notes.  Alternating necessities each in their turn, the flip side one of the other.

As our many summertime guests head home for the winter, I entreat all of you to please spread the good word.  Our local farms are overflowing with bounty and quality unlike anything you can purchase at the grocery store.  “The best dairy in Hancock County” (according to Google reviews) is in your neighborhood.  Visit your farms and eat well.

Heather and Phil Retberg and their three children run Quill’s End Farm, a 105-acre property in Penobscot that they bought in 2004. They use rotational grazing on their fifteen open acres and are renovating thirty more acres from woods to pasture to increase grazing for their pigs, grass-fed cattle, lambs, laying hens, and goats. Quill’s Endians are members of Halcyon Grange and publish a newsletter for their farm’s buying club of farmers in the area, and generously permit us to share some of their columns with Grangers. Visit the Quill’s End Farm Facebook Page for more information.