Russell Ramblings: On to Cows

We moved from goats to cows in our homeschool studies this week.  We learned about the letter "c" and the sounds it makes.  Our lesson for cows was that God helps us to grow.  We discussed how milk from cows (or goats) helps us grow physically and milk from God's word helps us grow spiritually.  We talked about how to get milk and meat for our hearts - reading the Word, praying, singing, and memorizing Bible verses.

Since cows, like goats, is a fairly familiar topic to my boys, I decided to have them come up with some questions they have about cows.  They wanted to know the answers to the following questions: "How are calves born?"  "How do cows make milk?"  "Why do some cows have rings in their noses?"  We answered these questions through some youtube videos and books.  One of my favorite books from this unit was Milk: From Cow to Carton by Aliki.  This one answered how they "make" the milk.  (I appreciated how Aliki even included goats at the end of the book!)

We made a cow collage on our school room wall.  We included different breeds of cows, where cows live, what they eat, and what products we get from cows.

Since our units are set up for 6 days, we will be finishing up cows next week with attempting to make our own butter from cream.  I'm not sure how this will work with store-bought cream, but we'll see.

In other news, there is a new goat in the pen.  Meet Ziggy - our 2016 buck for breeding.  

He's been busy already, and we are eager to test our does for pregnancy.  We need to wait until 30 days post breeding to test them.  We like to test for pregnancy and CAE with one blood sample in the fall.  We will be opening our goat kid waiting list in the near future, if you are interested in a Nubian goat.

To wrap up my post, here's a picture of EJ - just riding along with life here at Russell Homestead.  He's a very happy, content baby!  Thanks for stopping by!