United States or Sri Lanka ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
One curious thing he had noticed, the very first day, in his profession of shoveler of guts; which was the sharp trick of the floor bosses whenever there chanced to come a "slunk" calf. Any man who knows anything about butchering knows that the flesh of a cow that is about to calve, or has just calved, is not fit for food.
Her feelings were as cramped as her handwriting by the time she had got them down on paper; indeed, Joanna herself was wondrously expressed in that big, unformed, constricted handwriting, black yet uncertain, sprawling yet constrained, in which she recorded such facts as "Dot has calved at last," or "Broadhurst will be 61 come Monday," or as an utmost concession "I love you, dear."
It is of the best quality however, five or six months after a cow has calved. When she becomes with calf again, her milk will of course fall off, both in quantity and in quality. The impatient greediness of cow-keepers would have calves and milk at the same time, and on this account they seldom allow their dairies a fair interval for keeping up a successive supply of the best milk.
"Yes, so it was, all that was in Temecula," replied Ysidro; "but in the spring your father sent down to know if I would take a herd for him up into the mountains, with ours, as he feared the Temecula pasture would fall short, and the people there, who could not leave, must have their cattle near home; so he sent a herd over, I think, near fifty head; and many of the cows have calved; and he sent, also, a little flock of sheep, a hundred, Ramon said; he herded them with ours all summer, and he left a man up there with them.
His wife was looking out for him as usual, shading her eyes with her hands, and when at last she caught sight of his kayak, and it came nearer, she could see that it was Qasiagssaq, rowing very slowly. And when then he reached the land, she said: "What has happened to you now?" "An iceberg calved."
I remember one little anecdote his Father told me of those first years: One of the cows had calved; young John, still in petticoats, was permitted to go, holding by his father's hand, and look at the newly arrived calf; a mystery which he surveyed with open intent eyes, and the silent exercise of all the scientific faculties he had; very strange mystery indeed, this new arrival, and fresh denizen of our Universe: "Wull't eat a-body?" said John in his first practical Scotch, inquiring into the tendencies this mystery might have to fall upon a little fellow and consume him as provision: "Will it eat one, Father?"
They are of no further use as separate anchors, but they ornament the forecastle head, so we put them in their places.... The supply of fresh water is a problem. The steam condenses before reaching the tank. I hope freezing does not burst the tank. A large tabular iceberg, calved from the Barrier, is silhouetted against the twilight glow in the sky about ten miles away.
A solemn stillness pervaded the atmosphere; nobody spoke much above a whisper. Once we saw some wild turkey bustards, and Mr. Young managed to wing one of them on the seventh day from the dam. On the seventh night the cow, for which we had delayed there, calved, but her bull-calf had to be destroyed, as we could not delay for it on the march.
Half a dozen cows which had recently calved were now separated from the herd, and driven into the wide end of the enclosure. One by one they approached the narrow end, and when one had reached the extremity, and had begun to devour the alfalfa, of which they are very fond, a bar was let down behind her, so that she could now neither advance, retreat, nor turn round.
"The dam is by no means a large one, is eleven years old, of a mongrel breed, and has never produced more than one offspring at any previous gestation. I saw her two days after she had calved, at which time she was ruminating, and did not manifest any unusual symptoms of exhaustion. I may mention that the first four calves presented naturally; the fifth was a breech-presentation."
Word Of The Day