We raise all kinds of animals on our farm and are surrounded by birth, life and death throughout the year. All of the animals are precious to us and we celebrate their life cycle in own way with them. Each, whether a sheep, goat, goose, duck, chicken, pig, horse or cow, have their own distinct characteristics. The poem below is about cows, but also about farms. Most of you never give a thought as your drive at high speed during the night in rural ares to what might be me just outside of the road's edge. Too often all you see is the glare of a security cutting the night.

If you have ever been to Vermont, you can appreciate a night with little light and the miles of farms in the valleys laying there waiting for the sun. There are few people in rural Vermont and the distances, while short, seem to be longer due to the isolation of each farmstead. Meadows and corn fields, growing or cut, and dairy cows are the totality of the landscape.

Here in East Texas it is different. Land fragmentation has subdivided the pastoral scenes with the intrusion of one house after the another on 1-2 acre lots to larger pieces of land. Long vistas of rural landscape are seldom seen. Our farm is unique in that is is a bit isolated and we own enough to allow us to control what we see. At the Rocky Branch Grass Ranch we have long vistas, but in the distance the are spoiled by civilization. Karl planted trees to create a living screen in time.

I enjoy most our cattle and at night they are huge animals breathing slowly in the dark. Maybe all cow eyes are on the sad side, but none sadder than on a Jersey cow.
In any case, I hope that you enjoy Hayden Carruth's peom and in your mind's eye see what he saw.


The Cows at Night
by Hayden Carruth

The moon was like a full cup tonight, too heavy,
and sank in the mist soon after dark, leaving
for light faint stars and silver leaves of milkweed
beside the road, gleaming before my car.

Yet I like driving at night in the summer in Vermont.
The brown road through the mist of mountain-dark,
among farms so quiet, and the roadside willows
opening out where I was the cows. Always a shock
to remember them there, those great breathings so
close in the dark.

I stopped, and took my flashlight to the pasture
fence. they turned to me where they lay, sad and
beautiful faces in the dark, I counted them-forty
near and far in the pasture, turning to me, sad
and beautiful like girls very long ago who
were innocent and sad because they were innocent,
and beautiful because they were sad. I switched of
my light

But, I did not want to go, not yet, nor knew what to
do. If i should stay, for how in that great darkness
could I explain anything, anything at all. And then
very gently it began to rain.

"The Cows At Night" by Hayden Carruth from Toward the Distant Islands: New & Selected Poems. © Copper Canyon Press, 2006

"Good judgement comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgement"
Will Rodgers

On September 9, I reported that the eggs we had in the incubator had started to hatch. We ended up with 26 chicks and 25 have survived. We left the baby chicks in the incubator for 24 hours until they dried and then placed them in a 100 gallon water tub with a warming light over it keeping one end of the tank 100 F degrees. Chicks arrive with at least 48 hours of energy and after that start to drink water and eat chick starter (fine ground high protein grain). We left them in the tank for two weeks and then moved them over to the old barn.

We have a special area fenced in quarter inch wire to protect them where they have room to run around in the day and sticks to roost on. We still have to use the warming light as many of our nights are in the low to mid 50's. The little chicks huddle in a circle under the light avoiding the middle where is ti most hot. they adjust where they sit based on their need for heat. Our little chicks are very spoiled and have lots of TLC.

If you want to compare how our little chicks are raised versus what happens to the chickens that turn into your dinner or lay your eggs, it is not a pretty sight in either of these videos. Thank goodness someone shares these videos to educate us.

Our chicks will graduate in a month to the chicken yard and start enjoying the search for bugs and worms and grass seeds. They are free range and at night snuggle against their mom's on the roost waiting to grow up and lay eggs.

Necked Ladies have been appearing all over the farm. This is because this is a pretty old place and over the last 160 years they got used to having their own way Actually these dainty ladies are flowers that suddenly appear in the fall from dormant bulbs that have waited all year to do their thing. Like all ladies, you have to treat them respect.
The bulb is very deadly if eaten.

Formally known as a Red Spider Lily The long slender stems host a delicate red lace like flower that lasts perhaps a week. After they die back, green foliage appears and lasts over the winter until spring. We have these flowers along the road, near old barns and juts here and there across the farm.

I am sitting on the porch of one our our lakeside log cabins as I write this. Fall has arrived on the farm. Acorns are starting to fall off the oaks and a few pecans shucks are ready to release a nut. The hardwood trees have a touch of color in them now and the maples by the house have a few red leaves. It is after lunch and the temperature is a pleasant 78 degrees. Last night it was 52 degrees. I like the spring, but I think fall is the best time of the year. We have generally sunny days and almost no rain. It's great to be fishing or just porch sitting. We have finished the work on the berry patch. Tasks that were put off when it was hot like re-working the corral chute at Rocky Branch have been finished also. There is always something to work on on the farm, but its a lot easier when its in the fall. Daingerfield has its fall festival this weekend. Pittsburg had theirs a few weeks ago and the pumpkin glow feast in Hughes Springs is the end of the month. Winnsboro will be having a month long Autumn Trails festival. This is a great time to visit East Texas and our farm.

While we had cabin guests that had escaped the city, we all loaded up and headed to Dallas for our annual visit to the State Fair of Texas. Big Tex is all fancied up in new clothes, but I did not really like his yellow shirt. The auto show has too many expensive cars that average 20 MPG.

We stopped by in the livestock exhibition building to say howdy to our heifer, Miss Kaya. She will be there for the entire fair to be an example of our breed. We thought she was the best looking one there. If you go to the fair, be sure and see her.

One special treat was a sneak preview of the Cotton bowl now that is has 92,000 new seats. The gate was unlocked to the tunnel and of course everyone made a dash like the UT Longhorns to make a grand entrance heading into the arena. About the time the grass was touched, a warden called out, "shame on you" and ran everyone out and she locked the gate.

As everyone does, we had our fill of fair food. I think the song in Charlottes's Web, A Veritable Smorgsbord is very appropriate for food at the fair. In our case we were not the rat, but we did have a great variety of fair food. Let's see.... Turkey Legs, Sausage on a Stick, Tamales, Fresh Lemonade, real Root Beer, fully loaded Funnel Cake, Tacos, Fletcher's Corny Dogs, fresh roasted Corn-on-a- Cob, and so on. If you have never been to the fair, or have not been recently, consider going. It is one of the best entertainment dollars you can spend in Texas.