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By CAROLE SOULE

The kids hooted as they pulled on lead ropes and dashed around the barnyard, each with a calf in tow. They didn’t need any encouragement to run in this competition; what child doesn’t want to race about with a calf? The calves were just as eager. It’s...

By CAROLE SOULE

A few weeks ago, we had a contractor build a wall of enormous concrete blocks to contain our cattle in the barnyard and create storage space for the sand we use for their “bedding.” Unlike our fences, which always seem to be falling down, this wall is...

By CAROLE SOULE

The big, shaggy Highland cow darted across Route 106 as I watched, stunned, on the roadside. Truck brakes screeched as the 16-wheeler slowed just enough for the cow to reach the roadside. It was 2009, and this was the second time within moments that...

By CAROLE SOULE

“Look, he’s happy. He’s wagging his tail,” said a visitorI watched as Titan, a 200-pound Belted Galloway steer, swished his tail. Titan had arrived at my farm with five other Belted Galloway calves a week earlier. These calves had just been taken from...

By CAROLE SOULE

Last week, I shared a story about Mr. Devon, a calf whose weaning had gone sideways. He had an extreme and possibly deadly case of scours (calf diarrhea), and every treatment we tried failed. He’s the only one of the Devon breed of beef cattle on...

By CAROLE SOULE

Not too long ago, we were weaning 12 calves at once. Seven had been born here on Miles Smith Farm, and five more were purchased so we’d have plenty for our summer campers to train. So, twice a day, farm helper Diane and I took the temperature of each...

By CAROLE SOULE

On the first day of summer camp here at Miles Smith Farm, the kids hardly knew a hoof from a square knot. They didn’t want to get their boots dirty, and some swatted non-stop at the horse flies and no-see-ums. Then they met their calves: Peaches,...

By CAROLE SOULE

Twenty years ago, I was a vegetarian. Now I eat meat, but not just any meat; knowing how the animal was raised is essential to me.For those still-vegetarians, there is a huge commercial push to create “fake meat.” Recently United States regulators...

By CAROLE SOULE

Who doesn’t love to time travel? How is that possible? It’s easy; just read a book about the Civil War or watch a Star Trek movie. Of course, the future is fiction, but the past welcomes us via well-researched nonfiction books. Time travel just got...

By CAROLE SOULE

This column is adapted from the prologue to Carole's book, "Yes, I Name Them," available in September. Carole shares her 26-acre Loudon farm with husband Bruce and a herd of Scottish Highland cattle.  The 1957 Sears Christmas Book offers a pony—not a...

The bellowing in the holding pen stopped as I walked across the barnyard. Five calves watched me open the gate to come in and feed them in the pen -- a space I think of as the nursery. A day earlier, I had separated these calves from their moms. Why...

Ever since reading Agatha Christie’s “Murder on the Orient Express,” an overnight train has called my name. When husband Bruce suggested we visit a former farm worker who relocated to the Florida Keys, I booked a sleeper car from New York City to...

By CAROLE SOULE

This column is an excerpt from the author’s book, “Yes, I Name Them,” available in September 2023.Someone has lived on my farm for about a century. She started life as a fragile sapling and grew into the big apple tree that stands in our backyard....

By CAROLE SOULE

Four more calves were born last week. I’m always thrilled when a calf is born, especially when it stands and nurses on its own. When a calf is born, I like to bring the mother and baby to the safety of the holding pen so that the pair can bond without...

Every once in a while, a story that should have been a tragedy turns out to have a happy ending. It began on a rainy Tuesday in July 2022.It was the second day of our Farm Day Camp, and the campers had left for the day. The animals had been fed, and I...

By CAROLE SOULE

This month, Bruce and I joined hordes of people flocking to Logan Airport on our way to visit with family in St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. We aren’t the only ones who left our farm this week. Two days after our departure, nine of our Scottish...

By CAROLE SOULE

Have you ever wondered which is smarter: cows or horses? I think they’re intelligence is about equal, but their behavior is different. Here’s what I mean:Horses’ primary protection from predators is flight. In the wild, when a pack of coyotes...

Want to buy a cow? It could live in your backyard and eat the grass. Then you could feed it expensive fermented hay all winter. It could supply all the manure you could ever want – and more. To the point, how would you turn an inconvenient pet into...

By CAROLE SOULE

At Miles Smith Farm, we have two kinds of cattle: Scottish Highlanders and Angus/Hereford cross-breeds. There are many differences between these breeds, but one is particularly striking. The Highlanders, both males, and females have enormous horns,...

The first call came in at about 2 p.m. on Tuesday. Eleven of our cattle had escaped from a borrowed pasture at Early Sunrise Farm on Sargent Road in Gilmanton.The demand for grass-fed beef had depleted our existing herd, so I had recently purchased...

By CAROLE SOULE

I was a vegetarian for five years, mostly because I didn’t want to support massive feed-lot operations which corral 150,000 cattle or more and can process 3,000 a day. I didn’t have any plan to save the planet from beef. But I did – and still do –...