What a fiasco!

I really wish you could have been in the barn this morning or at least had a hidden camera somewhere.......

We have been leaving Princess outside in the corrals, bringing the two calves inside at night, and penning them up in one of the inside stalls. We decided it was warmer for them, and they can't sneak under the fence and get milk before we get out there in the morning. This has been working quite nicely for us except that Princess can't focus on eating and letting us milk while those two calves are begging for breakfast. We decided this morning we would bring Princess in, put her in the stanchion, take the calves outside, and then milking would be a breeze. Right? Well, we came to the barn this morning, and Princess was standing at the door with her nose to the window (it is a fancy barn). We opened the door, and she walked right in. Piece of cake. Rebecca grabbed her halter and pulled Princess right into position. Great! Then, we realized we were out of the feed we needed for her. We had more at the house, but in the nick of time we discovered a stash, and put some in the bucket. Then, we went to take the calves outside. What was I thinking? Obviously nothing because as soon as we opened their pen, they wanted to head right to Mom and nurse. I do think they appreciated the fact that we had her tied up in position for them. :) We tried to head them off but that barn is not really set up for herding calves - they won and began nursing. That then left us with no choice but to try and grab the calves and pull them to the barn. Rebecca, Sarah, and Joshua did everything they could to pull, tug, push, prod, drag those calves away from Mom - to no avail. They may look small, but they are VERY strong! Sarah finally grabbed Rose Creamy Lily (what a big name for such a little calf). She had a firm grip on RCL's ears and was pulling with all her might. Joshua had managed to grab one of Heartbelle's back legs, and he and I managed to drag her outside. Sarah pulled while Rebecca pushed, and they got RCL out right behind us. We all ran back into the barn and shut the door. Dust was stirred up everywhere, I'm having a hard time breathing (I really am allergic to that alfalfa), and Princess turns her head, looks at us, and mooooos!

On the brighter side, we did manage to finally let the dust settle and milked about 1 gallon. We have discovered that we work well with one person on each side. As we get faster (and build up some forearm muscles) we will be able to milk with only one person. We grabbed our milk can, took Princess out to eager babies, and came back to the house - exhausted, dusty, and splotched with manure only to discover that we left the milk in the barn. :)