Is This Really Me

For some reason I have been receiving emails about auctions in the state of Virginia.  I hope the top picks for me are just randomly generated.  Otherwise, I need to change something about my internet surfing behavior.  

I hope that I am not portraying myself as someone interested in crowbars 

and old lamp shades.  Or do they know me better than I know myself. 

 

Later Than Usual

Sometimes life happens and work gets put on hold.  We usually have the calves weaned by now but bad weather and difficult family matters delayed the process. 

But today’s weather was better, Joe had everything lined up and Mike was able to help.

We thought it would be easy for the cows to just follow the tractor and hay to the barn lot.  

But the cows had another idea.  They wanted to make an extra lap around the field before doing what they were supposed to.

We put groups of cows and calves in the barn.  Joe dewormed the cows and Mike helped sort them out of the barn.  Then they went into a different lot.  Next, the calves were dewormed and sent in a different direction.

My job was to monitor the gate holding the cows back.

There was lots of bawling as expected. After finishing up the forth group, it was time to move the cows out to a different field where they would have fence line contact with the calves.  This is supposed to make weaning less stressful. 

My next job was to babysit Jessica to keep her from getting in the way.  At 25 she has mellowed a lot and didn’t cause any trouble. 

Job done a few days late.

 

From The Kitchen Window

When Sadie and I were having another tea party Tuesday, I looked out the window and saw this…

A beautiful red tailed hawk was sitting on a yard fence post.

I see it in the driveway almost daily, but this was the first time I caught it this close to the house. 

Then this morning when I looked out there was the most spectacular sunrise. 

The sky was amazing.

Lastly, one more glance out of the window to check the sunrise and I had to grab the binoculars to make sure this wasn’t a coyote.  No coyote, just a big red fox.

 

Weather Move

Joe had planned to move the bred heifers from some rented land 20 minutes away, back to the house Friday. But some unexpected weather brought in some snow which thwarted his plans. Next plan was to move them Monday. But another weather system was on its way. If we didn’t get them out then Joe was going to have to start feeding them there.  That would be an undesirable situation. 

So this morning we headed over to bring them home.  Joe had been feeding them a little grain for a few days to get them use to coming in the lot. He didn’t have any trouble today. I hid in the truck and when he was done he came and got me. 

Next was moving some panels to make a loading area. 

Joe has this part down pat. The heifers were also pretty tame and there wasn’t too much yelling to get them on the trailer. 

Back at the house we just stopped in the road to let them out

and then herded them through the gate. 

They headed on around the hill while we went back for a second load. We finished just in time. It wasn’t long after we got back that it snowed another 3-4 inches. 

 

A Fancy Day

Today Sadie wanted to do a craft.  So we went upstairs to see what caught our eye.  At first she wanted to make a Christmas ornament.  But when I said Valentines Day was next she decided on a heart.  She picked  out the color felt and I cut out the heart.  Then she thought the ribbon of sequins would be pretty.  I showed her how to do it and with some help we got that sewn on.

 Then she wanted more sequins on the inside.  She already knew how to do that from a Christmas tree we had done before.  

I still had to help but she has a lot of patience for a just turned 4 year old.

I think it turned out spectacular.  

When it was snack time Sadie said we should have a real tea party.  There is a book series she likes called Fancy Nancy.  So I tried to make it fancy.  We had pretty glass plates, fancy glasses and I even played fancy music, Greatest Hits of the 1720’s.

It was a special and fancy day.

New Game

Allie has gone back to day care but Sadie is out of school until Monday so I was going to keep her this afternoon.  But then Sadie wanted to spend the night, yay!  It was pretty cold outside so I invented a new indoor game.

Bad Balloon or Ballon Minton.  Sadie preferred bad balloon.  Hence, there was a lot of ballon spanking. 

I thought it was really good for hand eye coordination.  We managed to not even break anything.

And Joe even got involved. 

Sadie is always concerned about Kit Kat’s happiness.  She is definitely an animal lover.

For supper she wanted a salad and pizza.  But after eating a large salad she said she was too full for the pizza.  We watched a couple of episodes of The Unicorn Academy, took a bath and read a few more chapters of Charlotte’s Web before bedtime.  Now I need to figure out what to do tomorrow. 

 

New Year, Same Job

We celebrated the New Year by weaning the calves at our farm up the road.  

Mike was wonderful to come help.  I pretty much just documented the process and was there as backup.

But Joe and Mike had everything under control.  Mike sorted out the cows and Joe shot the dewormer on them as they went though the gate.

Then the cows were turned out and counted.  Joe said we had the right number.

Then the calves were loaded up and brought back to the house.  My one “job” was to keep the calves from trying to go between the gate and trailer.  It didn’t take much, just putting my stick there.  Since Mike was doing such a good job replacing me, I stayed at the house after the first load and let Joe and Mike finish up the next two loads.