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I grew up on Coronado Beach under the flight path for North Island’s runway. The distinctive sound the F-4s make is imprinted in my consciousness as well as the smoke coming out the back end. So speed stable on the “ball” at the ship. Great fighter.
I was stationed on North Island when I was in the Navy from 64-66.I was attached to an Air Anti Submarine Warfare Squadron. The F4s were bad ass and their sound gave you goose bumps. Our pilots flew P3s.I loved Coronado and saw some celebrities at the Hotel Del. I rode my scooter there. Great beach and I had my first beer at a cool little Italian restaurant. I took my family there when the kids were around 8. We drove up the coast and stayed at the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco then flew home. Great memories.
Vito was on a carrier for two years toward the end of his Navy career. I think he was Operations Officer or something like that. In charge of takeoffs/landings, etc. Need to check.
I was a little off. He was in charge of communications for the strike group.
Now I'm back at a laptop I can give the full story, I hate typing on a phone.
This one was totally unexpected, came from one of our younger heifers, Adeline. She's only just gone 14 months old so the bull would have been on her at 5 months, and that's generally regarded as far too young to be fertile. We could see her udders had been changing over the past week or so, and she was a bit portly, but being a dairy/beef cross we tried to convince ourselves it was just more of the beef side coming through, and she couldn't possibly be pregnant.
We went out to milk on Saturday morning and she seemed a little unsettled but we put it down to the early start. She was staring out into the paddocks where she last saw the bull, while making a light moan that heifers sometimes do to "get attention", so we put 2 and 2 together, got 5, and figured she was on heat now she'd reached maturity.
(Gets a little clinical here, come back after eating if you prefer...)
After milking my wife found a large patch of afterbirth, and judging by the clean disconnect of the cord and the shape of some of the insides we thought maybe Adeline had been pregnant after all, and she'd miscarried due to her young age. I looked all around the stock pen and out into the adjoining paddock just in case but found nothing.
We were spraying out some of the paddocks in preparation for cropping, so I headed over to the farm entrance to open the gates, then just as I got back over to the stockyard next to the milking shed I saw a newborn calf lying sternum-down in the paddock, next to the gate Adeline had been standing at earlier in the morning.
What had happened was Adeline had managed to carry the calf full-term, give birth with no issues at all, and clean herself out before we came out for the morning, all without any of the expected problems with such a young mother. While trying to get the calf on its feet Adeline (or one of the other cows in with her) had managed to nudge her under the bottom rail of the stockyard and into a drainage ditch. The baby (a girl) managed to get herself on her feet, climb out of the ditch, and get over to the gate before lying down, exhausted. We don't know how long she'd waited there before I found her.
I picked her up and put her in with Adeline, then worked on her until she could latch and finally have her first feed. Yesterday she was very low on energy and we spent a lot of time trying to get milk into her, including using some milk from Tiger (her grandmother), and even trying to get her to latch directly to Tiger. Nothing was working, and Adeline was barely producing anything. Eventually we put Tiger, Adeline and the baby all in together, and Adeline drank from Tiger (we've been trying to get her to wean naturally, and failing), both calmed down a lot, and the baby then drank from Adeline.
Today the baby is up and running around, and signs are promising. We'll put them back in with the herd tomorrow all going well.
And that's why I'm not a farmer Matt. I'm way to lazy.
My wife's college room-mate was in Boston for a memorial service for her cousin this weekend so we went in and had dinner with her.
Hard to believe it's been almost fifty years. It was good catching up. Even better she laughs at my bad jokes.
Ans even better still was getting out of the house. I mean that's twice this weekend.
Went to cars n’ coffee yesterday caught up with old friends and met some new ones. Spent today cleaning the house putting my Dad’s stuff away until next summer and taking some of my stuff back out. Spent tonight babysitting a sick boiler at work and will be heading home soon.
08-24-2023, 06:50 PM
He was in charge of communications for the strike group.
Calf looks good.
