Spring has Sprung!

Well we are past the ides of March, but around here it has seemed more like the ides of June or even July. We had something like 7 days in a row where temperatures were 80 or above, certainly not typical for March in Indiana.  

So warm the weanlings fought over the water! 

Because of the unseasonably warm temperatures this week, the farm was crazy busy! 
So what was I doing this week that made me busier than usual?  Well check out my picture!  

Go Cat Go!

This is actually the boss chisel plowing, but I was his relief.  We would trade shifts throughout the day and part of the night.  Chisel plowing happens in the spring and fall and helps reduce the amount of weeds in a field and break up any clumps of dirt that appear among many other things.  All I know is I am happy to do it!  Chisel plowing is one of many things we do to prepare the fields for planting.  This week I also disked a field with a compactor pulled behind it, if only I had taken a picture of that!  It was two things behind the tractor!  We don't usually get the opportunity to get started so early, but with the nice weather we were pretty darn productive!  


Besides spring plowing starting early, I noticed a few other things this week.  Things from my ranger days, say a few Ring-billed Gulls!  

These guys, who are not by any means sea gulls (there are no seas in Indiana in case you forgot), like to follow along behind the plow and pick up the worms and other creatures that might appear when the dirt is turned up.  I had to take a picture of them from the tractor just for my old ranger friends! 


Another nice sighting this week was this! 

Deers!!! 

They crept right up the edge of the calf farm and were munching on some tasty corn left in the field.  I will always call them deers because of the one couple I had from who knows where that had never seen a deer let alone more than one!  Their excitement caused them to say deers!  and ever since then I feel the need to share their excitement with the same phrase.  


Other than plowing and my wildlife sightings I still took care of all my babies!  We are so darn full that when weaning begins this week, we need another pin to move them to.  Thank goodness the weekend was perfect weather for fence building/fixing.  The boys fixed up a very nice pasture pen for some of the older weanlings.  So now the new guys have somewhere to go!  


New little guys will be here by the end of the week!  


I guess that is my hodge podge update for now.


Hope the week treats you well!  




Calf Count: 76

An Average Day

Hey all!

This week was a little boring so I thought maybe I should tell you what exactly "boring" is.  Everyday has mandatory requirements of things that need to be done... aka... chores!  Now these chores don't seem like much to me anymore mostly because I do them everyday but to an average non-farmer they might seem a little more than normal.  So let's begin.

I usually get to the farm around 730 and get everything ready for the day.  I start chores by checking on everyone then I proceed to make the milk!  Yes I make the milk!  We do not have any cows on our farm as you may recall so that means we use a substitute for the real thing, milk replacer.  It comes powdered so I add water and with our homemade tank it gets all mixed and ready for the boys!

Doesn't he look hungry to you?! 

When the milk is ready, usually about a 10 minute task, I grab my pitcher and get to work!  I measure out milk for each calf and feed them their breakfast!  After an hour give or take I'm done with milk and then I feed them grain to get them transitioning to a solid diet instead of just liquid.  Morning chores including milk and grain usually takes anywhere from an hour and a half to two hours.

I usually have an hour to kill before my next big chore and usually I can pass the hour by giving shots and bedding the huts as needed.

Smores loves a clean home! 

After an hour or two I return with my tank and make either a batch of red gatorade for calves, just electrolytes really, or just water and feed it out again.

By then it is usually lunch time for me so I get a break to return later.  Most days I usually leave the little calves for lunch and don't return for a few hours unless I have vaccinations to give, sick calves to treat, houses to bed, or calves to move.  Those few hours available I tend to go check on the rest of the herd or try to help in other areas of the farm.

Then around 330 or 4 I am back to the farm to feed the calves again.  Another hour to two later, I am done and ready to go home.

One thing to note though before I had my lovely homemade milk tank I used to carry all this milk in five gallon buckets.  Eight five gallon buckets per round were needed and milk weighs eight pounds per gallon so forty pounds a bucket.  Which means that just in milk I could carry 640 pounds a day! Thankfully I got a tank as a late Christmas present, but I definitely got strong fast before the tank!

My job requires a lot of manual labor but the calves appreciate it and I enjoy it all the same.  Any thoughts are questions leave them for me and I will respond next week!

Smores likes the sunshine even if it is just on his nose!  

Hope your week goes well and you get a little sunshine to enjoy just like Smores!

Operation Learning Vacation

Hello again friends! This week is a bit of a change of pace.  No little guys to check out in the pics because I had a "vacation"!  I was away from the farm so I consider it quite the vacation but an average outsider may not.  My terrific mother heard of a conference about women in agriculture and thought we just had to go!  So off we went...to Amish country!  

You know you have arrived in Amish country when you see hitching posts and buggies!  

We arrived and the learning began.  The conference was educational in purpose but we did have some fun!  I learned a little bit about being a citizen of agriculture and spreading the word...ahem...thus the blog.  Then a bit about working through the generations.  We ran away for lunch because the Amish don't just have horse and buggies they have great food!  So we had lunch and then continued our enrichment.  That evening after dinner and learning about crops in Costa Rica, think real hard and I bet you can come up with them...bananas, coffee, and cocoa we went back to the hotel to relax.  Relaxing began but as we began to wind down we lost power and had to rough it Amish style with no power.  The whole town lost power for hours!

An average amish farm, no electric required! 

We awoke anew with electricity! We attended a couple more sessions and then took to the streets!  My absolute favorite part about Amish country is the fabric stores!   They are all terrific and many stores have a fabric department included even the hardware store!  I was in heaven!  Mom even took me to the real deal fabric store where I was in awe for at least 45 minutes before our stomachs interrupted my dreams!  I didn't even take pictures I was having so much fun exploring!   From now on I want to buy all my fabric in Amish country oh my!

Finally we had to head home, I did miss all my baby boys.  We passed a few buggies and headed out.  It was a great trip, we learned a lot, shopped a bit, and explored an area not so far from home distance wise but a different world in terms of culture.  Overall a great trip that somehow managed to extend the week!

I hope you enjoyed this special post!

So long!  

Calf Count : 72