I haven’t been too nice to Ferdinand the past couple of months. Every time he looks around I’m chopping off things on his body. This past weekend we chopped off his horns and burned them at the root. Ok, let me be honest. Milly contacted a friend that knows all about that kind of thing and she had him come over and I watched as he dehorned and seared. As you can see Ferdinand is now without horns. I’m not sure if the passenger side horn was completely gotten so we’ll see if Ferdinand comes out lop sided or not. Our friend had a chopper off thingy and an electric hot iron that he used to cauterize the holes. I held on tight to Ferdies leg and told him to breathe and promised to take him out for ice cream afterwards.  Ferdinand was pretty shy of me the rest of the day and ran to the opposite side of the pasture every time I glanced his way. The next morning during my regular milking time I let Ferdinand out as usual to suck on the opposite side of Rosebud. Side note****It’s really nice to have the calf sucking at the same time as milking. Rosebud lets down and the milk flows freely and rapidly. We only get about 1/4 of the milk due to having the calf stay with the cow but it is still about a gallon and a half a day which is sufficient for us. I also only have to milk once a day as we lock the calf up at night and milk in the morning. I’m not sure if all calves are as vigorous as Ferdinand but let me tell you, he butt’s the udder about as hard as I can punch. It’s dangerous. Milly went out and milked the other day and quit half way through as she was so surprised by the all out assault she felt while she was on the opposite side of Rosebud. ************************************* Back to the morning milking. I let Ferdinand out of the shed and he jumped around and started plotting his revenge on me. It just so happened to be switching between rain and snow and the yard was pretty well one big puddle. I assumed the position on the opposite side of Ferdinand and was milking away. Ferdinand was butting as usually when all of a sudden I felt Rosebud falling over on top of me. I felt a mighty push backwards and I thought I was a gonner. Ferdinand had butted the bag just at the time Rosebud was standing kind of awkward and had really given her a push. I somehow managed to grab the milk pail as I flew backwards into a soupy mess of manure, mud, and water (and whatever else resides on our cow pasture field.) I laid on my back long enough to get soaking wet from heels to head and then I jumped up to look around, hoping the neighbors were out of town and not around to see my uncomfortable state. I looked over at our house and much to my dismay…Milly was clapping in the window and smiling for all she was worth. I was once again happy I was already married. I really wasn’t mad at Ferdinand. All I could think was “I probably I deserved that”. Without saying one cuss word I went back to milking while the water settled in my gum boots. Milly was ready and waiting when I got in the house with a change of clothes and a towel. I think she was afraid I was going to let everything just dry on me and she wanted to head that thinking off right away. It wasn’t one of my most graceful moments. I guess it beats when I fell off the hay pile last night. I’m not sure how he did it but I’m sure Ferdinand arranged that mishap as well. But once again, I probably deserved that as well.