"If I was a baby cow I would like to be born today."

Today was quite a good day at Snake Hill Farm. We began the morning plowing through old plant beds currently overgrown with thistles and dandelions. While that may sound boring, revving up these old manual lawn mowers (step 1. Hold the clutch 2. Get it in gear 3. Turn the blades on 4. Let go of the clutch 5. Push with all your strength) is an exciting and complicated battle. Parker was the lawn mowing master, but he and Savery let me try a few times, and it was quite an experience.

Then we drove up the hill to grab a tractor (which sadly we were not allowed to try driving) to move some large logs to be cut for sugar wood. As we drove past the cows grazing in the pasture, Savery told us to check out one cow lying on her side looking uncomfortable. She drove up the hill and we were supposed to see if we thought that cow was about to have a baby. In fact as we watched the cow stood up and amniotic fluid dropped to the ground. Yeah. She was having a baby. So we got the "animal guy," Roger, who lives at the top of the hill. He came down, cool as a cucumber, and told us just to sort of hang out and watch. We observed the cow lying, then standing uncomfortably as she advanced in the birthing process, but it obviously made the cow nervous. So Parker and I returned to the bottom of the hill to work on the butterfly garden we started last week. Savery returned about 20 minutes later, heralding news of a healthy calf that had needed the helping hand of Roger to exit the womb. I don't know exactly what he did, but it was something involving twine and a shovel. I can't say I'm too upset I missed it. For the rest of the morning we helped Savery calculate what percentage of an acre her gardens were, and then from there, what amount of organic chemicals needed to be added to those smaller plots to make the soil better. We also weeded thistles and dandelions and more thistles and dandelions from around the blueberries.

2 things I learned today- 1. Rasberry bushes are really prickly 2. Thistles are really prickly

As a special treat, we ate lunch near the cows and watched the mother cow proudly standing over its baby and licking its head. It was a gorgeous day, and as we ate our sandwiches sitting on a log, overlooking the valley below us, the to the left pasture, and the trees across the way, Savery said "If I was a baby cow I would like to be born today."