Sunday, December 28, 2008

4 Wheeling

Over Christmas we visited my sister L, down on my grandparents old farm.She got the traditional prickly cedar tree (very cute).
Her husband T had gotten himself a 4 wheeler (not for Christmas), and was letting everyone take it for a spin.
V could not keep from grinning for some time after. I think we're in for trouble when she's old enough to drive.


Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Decorating

Well, I've quit hanging ornaments on the tree. I was a little more selective this year due to the fact the tree I got seems to have weak branches. Therefore, I limited the number of heavy things.
I usually put out these glass balls from my grandmother in a special spot so they don't get lost among everything else.
This is my favorite nativity. I got it a few years ago at an auction. E likes to arrange the scene in a circle.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Show Calves

We started halter breaking the show calves yesterday.J started with V's heifer.
She put up a little fight but by the end of the session V was able to lead her some.
E's steer was next.
He was a little more stubborn than V's. He would just brace himself where J couldn't pull him.
He did stand tied for E to brush and feed.

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Fog

The weather has been very cold since the first of November. It has however, warmed up this week. A couple of days ago we had a beautiful foggy morning.

Sorry for the sporadic posts, like everyone else, we're busy getting ready for Christmas.


Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Band

E had a band concert Sunday. They played Rolling Along (otherwise known as Mary had a Little Lamb), Jingle Bells, Jolly Old St. Nick, and Winter Medley.They played surprisingly well. Yes, all the children in this picture are in 6th grade. E is in the 2nd row peeking over the stand.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Feedlot

83 calves left here yesterday for Nebraska.This is the convoy of trailers leaving our farm for a neighbor's who has scales and a place to load a tractor trailer.
This may have been a bad weekend to send them. There were blizzard warnings and the temperature was below zero in Nebraska.

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Happy Birthday

E's birthday is today. She had a cake on Sunday with family and will have another one Friday with friends. She was still disappointed however that I didn't make her a 3rd one for today.
Happy 12th Birthday E!

Friday, December 5, 2008

Water

Still no rain to speak of, so we are still hauling water. It takes about an hour to fill the tank at the house.
Then about 30 minutes to run the water into the tire trough.Then J has to try and empty it completely so there will be nothing to freeze.

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Grandpa's Farm

Over Thanksgiving C, M, J and I went to the valley to drive around Grandpa's farm.

These pictures are from "over the hill." You can't see this from the road so it feels very isolated. It's also where most of our Christmas trees in years past came from.


Friday, November 28, 2008

Black Friday

J had plans for black Friday other than shopping. We had to work the calves that will be sent out west to the feedlot next month.This involved getting 100 calves up, through the chute one at a time, giving 2 vaccinations, and tagging with an EID (electronic identification) tag. I had to keep up with the EID tags, record the number and the corresponding calf ear tag.
This is all for the age and source verification program so we get a premium at slaughter.




Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Basketball

V's JV basketball season started today with a scrimmage.

It's a good thing the score board doesn't show up here well enough to read. Suffice it to say, it's a good thing we even made it into double digits.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Drought

Our area has been in a drought for some time now. J is estimating 2 years. The spring that feeds this trough that the horses use and another one at the barn the show calves drink from, has pretty much dried up for now.J has borrowed a 250 gallon water tank that fits in the back of the pick-up truck to start hauling water to fill the 500+ gallon tire troughs up.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Working Cattle

We had to work cattle today. We kept waiting for a good day that corresponded with one of my days off but it never worked out so we did it today in 20 degree weather.We vaccinated and dewormed the cows,
vaccinated,
implanted,
and castrated the calves.
With V and E's help, we worked 46 cows/heifers, and 35 calves in 3 hours.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Snow Day 2

Today's automated call cancelling school came at 6:10 am. I don't think the weather station was even calling for snow until after it started snowing last night.
At least the girls, plus friend J, were able to enjoy the sleds they got for Christmas last year and never got to use.


The wind is supposed to pick up to >20 mph. I'm glad J has gotten a lot of wood.
I guess it's time to do away with the pumpkins and start on Christmas.



Thursday, November 20, 2008

Career Day

Our local Elementary School had a career day today. I took Emma as a visual aid. Despite to day being poorly run (4 min. each for groups of 2-6 from 9am to 12 pm), Emma did wonderful.I forgot to take her in yesterday for a bath so I sprayed her with doggy cologne, brushed her well and took hand sanitiser for any of the kids that petted her to use. Of course all 100+ students petted, hugged, and rolled on the floor with her. The nurse sharing the same room requested she not be in with the dog next year because her plastic baby doll wasn't getting the same attention.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Snow Day

The day started out with a 6 am call from the new school alert system to tell us that school would be 2 hours late. Nothing like waking up early to be told you don't have to get up early.

By 8:30 they decided to cancel school. Of coarse this was the time that it stopped snowing.


Saturday, November 15, 2008

Show Calves

We've got the girls' show calves now.
We bought V's from a neighbor and picked him up today. He weighs 700 pounds.J picked E's out of our herd. He has been feeding him separate from the ones going out west.
They each have a Hereford heifer to show also. The 5th one at the feed trough is a heifer we are feeding for a beef. As you can see we had a little rain. It had been extremely dry lately so we're not complaining about the mud.



Friday, November 14, 2008

Pergola part 2

More progress on the pergola! I finished the structure today.

Now I need to finish the pathway. I'm thinking about some type of stepping stone path with pea gravel filling in, retained by the plastic landscape edging.


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