2026-06-16 | 🐔 ☕ Finding Stillness After the Storm 🐔

ChickieLoo June 17, 2026

It is Wednesday morning now. Scott has been so sick the last few days. Luckily he has been sleeping a lot. For him not to work and to give in to his feelings of sickness says a lot. He thinks he might have gotten salmonella. You know how the hens have been sitting on way too many eggs and they’ve been stealing them and rolling them back-and-forth? It’s possible that one of the eggs that was underneath the hen made its way into another box and I gathered it thinking it was OK. All of the symptoms are in line with what he is experiencing. He did not have a fever yesterday or today, so that’s good. However, the other major symptom, which, if you know about salmonella, you know what I’m talking about, is persisting. The Internet says that this thing just has to run its course. I also did some research and found out that it would be better if I just got rid of all of the eggs that I have gathered for the last week or so just in case there’s another one that might have salmonella. With what Scott has been going through, I am not going to take a chance! So with a heavy heart, I had to get rid of six dozen eggs! That is so sad! But I have to keep us safe. I thoroughly cleaned out the nesting boxes, and I am in the process of breaking the chickens of their broodiness. Because of that, every egg that comes from now on will be safe. That’s a good feeling. They laid nine of them yesterday! So I know for sure they have been stealing them since I’ve only gotten about five previously.
Such is life in a ranch, right? 🥚🥚😭😭

My back started to feel better, but yesterday it started hurting again, so I took some ibuprofen. Today it feels better. I can still feel tenderness, but the pain is gone. Hopefully it is on its way to 100%. 🤞🙏

So have I got a ranch story for you!!! Yesterday when I was watching Elsie and her baby from our upstairs window, I thought the baby looked weak. Elsie’s utters looked very full, and the baby was not nursing, which is unusual, because in our experience, in the early days the baby nurses a lot. We had a mama cow get mastitis about a year ago, so we were concerned that Elsie had it as well. When that happens, the baby has to be bottle fed until mama gets meds and recovers. The last cow that had it never nursed again, so I bottle fed him for months. We knew she had mastitis, because we put her in the squeeze shoot and milked her, and there was blood in two of the teats and the other 2 were clogged. So we planned to do the same with Elsie. (And she was the one cow out of the 5 pregnant ones that we knew would do great all around with this pregnancy, because her last experience was so flawless!)
We went to the feed store and bought milk replacement powder. Then we got on the side by side and put some feed in the back and drive by the cows to lead them to the other pasture where the corral and squeeze shoot are. We had to get all the cows except Elsie out of the corral once they finished the treats. That went really well. We got her to go into the squeeze shoot, and Scott milked her. There was NO blood, and all 4 utters were fine-milk came out no problem. (On a side note, I wanted to try to milk her, because I’ve never milked one of our cows! It’s pretty cool!) so we knew that she did not have mastitis.

Once that was done, and what a relief that was! We went to find the baby. We wanted to bring him back to his mama. We found him curled up asleep in the other pasture. Scott was going to hog tie him, put him in the back of the side-by-side, and bring him back to mama. That was the plan! The baby had other plans. Scott tried to sneak up on it but it got up immediately and started running away. It didn’t look very weak in that moment! We followed it on the four wheeler, and it ran up to where the gate is by the RV And unbelievably, it got out underneath the barbed wire fence! Oh my gosh! That was a terrible moment, because it could have run off into the woods and gone to our neighbor’s house and possibly never be found by us! So we had to do some quick thinking. We drove the four wheeler back around the other way up to where the house is. We got our flags, which are these flags on the end of really long poles that help you to make cows go where you want them to go. We walked over by the RV and we saw the calf, thank goodness! It was in the woods behind the RV. So we needed to get the calf to run down the hill and out the gate which we had opened. so Scott went around one way and I went around the other way and that calf ran down the hill and ran right out the gate into the pasture like it was supposed to. We were so relieved! Mama ended up coming from the other pasture and found her baby and all is well! now, we just have to keep a really close eye and see if that baby nurses. There’s no reason why he shouldn’t be doing it. If it looks like he’s not, then I will probably have to bottlefeed it. We just have to wait and see. I’m just so relieved that Elsie does not have mastitis. That was quite the adventure! I’m glad it turned out well!

Thank you so much for the recipe for pickled eggs! It looks simple to do. We are very busy right now, so I won’t be able to do that for a while. The appraiser is coming today. We will know this afternoon if we have done enough in our house to qualify for our loan. I’m very nervous about that. With Scott being sick the last few days, we haven’t been able to tidy up like we wanted to. So we’re going to do everything we possibly can write up until he gets here today. I will let you know!

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Table of Contents

2026-06-16 | 🐔 ☕ Finding Stillness After the Storm 🐔

☕ Finding Stillness After the Storm

🥣 A Heartfelt Reflection on Your Care

🥚 Learning from the Coop

🐄 Elsie’s Quiet Confidence

📆 Weekly Recap: A Gentle Sunday Shift

🦋 Bluesky

🐘 Mastodon

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