Cows Put on Heavy Fur Coats

Here's Thor in his winter coat.

I was looking back through some of the pictures I took last summer of my cattle. They all looked so sleak and healthy.   I took a bunch of pictures of them this afternoon so I could update the website. Gone are the sleak short haired coats, replaced by thick, fluffy ones.  It seems to me that they are wearing particularly heavy winter coats this year.

BTAP Juliette, very pregnant and fluffy.

Considering all the crazy weather we've had around the country lately I think it is safe to predict a cold and snow filled winter.  We used to try to predict the weather by watching the woolly worms' fall color, but you know, I've not seen a woolly worm in years!  Woolly worms and big Black Racer snakes used to be all around our house when I was a kid  We'd pick up the worms and  run a finger gently down their furry backs. They'd curl up in our hands.  And black snakes were everywhere. We'd find them hanging in the pear tree on the east side of the house, hanging from the rafters in the barn on hot summer days, and once we found one draped around the backdoor of the house. When I spotted a big Black Racer under the oak leaf hydrangea bush this summer it was quite an event! I hadn't seen one that big in a good twenty years!

The lack of woolly worms and black snakes makes no sense to me. A good 500 acres of the land around us is organic, so pesticides aren't the problem.  Maybe the increase in crows and hawks and coyotes have something to do with it.  If any body knows, leave a comment.

Here's little and very pregnant Bramble.  She is wearing one of the fluffiest coats of all.