Well, the main update is that Girl is doing well, but she is really missing her outside time and while I have had time to do her tie ups and brush downs, with a bit of body touching, overall the holidays and the cold weather, I have not had the time or the willingness to get out as much as I would like, She has been on lead and we are practicing her commands in the barn but she has not been harness or hitched since late Dec.. Need to get my act together..

So DH’s ma got me Storey’s Working Animals Oxen a Teamster’s Guide by Dre Conroy as one of my presents, but it took a little long to get here, arriving this week, and I have devoured it, and it put working Girl at least twice on my goal list.

There is very limited info in the book on having your cow be a oxen but they do say right up front that for a very small farm, that for hundred’s of years the family milk cow can be pressed into service in regards to being a draft animal and that’s just what I have planned, I want a Girl to be a triple threat, Milk, Calvies for freezer camp, and draft animal.

The book is very clear, the more and younger you work them, the better off you are going to be, and I can see that have already set one bad habit in here, that made sense to me as it works with horses but its not a good thing for oxen or so says the book.. but it has a step by step guide on how to retrain this so , I will give it a go.

Turns out my cross-breed calf is not commen, her daddy’s side is not even in the book but her momma’s side is listed as the most common and even tempermented cross out there, and considering that my own research shows that her daddy’s breed has been breed for thousand years plus in france as a triple working breed, I think I have as good a shot for a winner as possable.

Girl says -I’m off-duty and just going for a walk with my farmer ma.