“Mama, we’re just like Green Acres, so I’m going to name her Eleanore.”

Well, little Eleanore bears no resemblance to Oliver and Lisa Douglas’s Guernsey cow, Eleanore, and thank goodness I can cook because I certainly could not pull off or afford nightgowns like Lisa. As a matter of fact Luit bears a similarity in salesmanship to Mr. Haney but I am a dead ringer for Mrs. Ziffel.    So Eleanore it is.

Little Eleanore was a surprise last night, coming about a week early from our calculations. Everyone wanted to know what was going on in the barn.

Becca was extremely patient and a very nervous first time mom, making her mama noise with every breath.

It took about 30 minutes of Mama licking and falling down to finally get her on her feet.

She took to nursing right away and easily drank from all four quarters.

Faline was born about this time last year, and she was pretty confused as to why she could not come in the barn.

The snowstorm took us by surprise with Noni and I busy with the sheep all afternoon and three surprise lambs who needed to get into shelter. We are so thankful for the storm, which made Becca come into the barn to have Eleanore, otherwise who knows where she would have calved, probably across the river like Annabelle did.

This morning the little teddy bear was fat and sassy, causing much stress for Becca as she ran around the barn kicking up her heels.

Eleanore is half Scottish Highlander, who have the highest percentage of cream in their milk, and Becca is Brown Swiss and Jersey, so it will be interesting to see if she will become a good milk cow cross. She certainly will be more suited to this climate than a delicate pure Jersey.

Since she is such a shorty and Becca is so tall, she can just walk right under her mom.

This afternoon we put the halter on Becca and Noni carried Eleanore to the corner of the barn, enclosed by a gate, so she could be at mama Becca’s side while I tried to milk her for the first time. Her udder and teats are so perfect, a dream to milk!

Mama was nervous to let her baby out of her sight for a second, but she went into the stanchion with no problems and Noni held her halter rope tight so she would not pull back. Becca was a champion and very patient with my milking. I have never milked a cow which is so tall, and she danced around a little bit if baby pants got out of her sight, but all in all she did great. Eleanore has been nursing on all four quarters, the front mostly, and so I just milked out the back quarters a little bit. She started to get nervous, and the pressure was off, so I only milked out a quart and a pint of colostrum. I did not want it to be a bad experience for her, and tomorrow I will milk more out of her.

“I vow to be bad and free and cause my mom all sorts of stress, wondering where I am and not obeying her when she scolds me, haha!” Hmmmm. sounds familiar.