Winter Walk

We had a skiff of snow when we went to bed last night and woke to about 8 inches on the ground this morning. It snowed some more all day but didn't accumulate much more. The temperature is hovering in the teens. The mail had not passed when J had to go out this afternoon so I decided to take a walk to the mailbox this evening.

It is about a mile round trip. I have always enjoyed this section of the driveway. It stays cool in the summer, and in the winter with the snow it is so quiet.




When I got to the mailbox no mail. I'm pretty sure they didn't even try. I enjoyed the walk so the trip was not wasted.

Surgery Update

The puppies came home Monday and were right back out the the goats Tuesday morning. It has been a week since their surgery and both are doing fine.

Since there is another snow storm on the way, J wanted to move the bred heifers from his dad's house to here. With the snow he's not able to get in very well to feed over there.
We got the 16 heifers into the lot and had to make 2 trips with the trailer.
Emma always likes to inspect new arrivals. It does make for difficult unloadings sometimes.
The problem with having a new trailer is that you want to keep it new looking.
After hauling 16 heifers it takes a lot of buckets of water to wash it out.

Two Year Anniversary

Today is the 2 year anniversary of our first blog post! Pretty amazing that I have kept up with it this well. I sort of look at it as a diary. It has been very interesting for me to go back and see previous posts.

Our new problem however, is with the outdoor wood stove. It seems something keeps shorting out and tripping the breaker.

Normally, it works fine as long as J keeps wood in it.
But this has been the scene too many times over the last few days. He now thinks that the pump is leaking causing the short. Hopefully the new pump will come in tomorrow.

E had another game tonight (which I couldn't go to). She played most of the 4th quarter and scored another point on a foul shot. She now has passed V's 7th grade record of 1 point.

Basketball

E scored her first point yesterday. She got to play about 2 minutes in the 4th quarter, was fouled and made one of the foul shots. I didn't get to go to that game.

I did get to go to the game tonight. This was all I got to see her do in this game.

Linsey-Woolsey

I think I started this project about 16 years ago. Grandma gave me a quilt that she had stored in the chicken house. Let me just say, this is not the best place to store a textile if you are wanting to preserve it. Anyway, there wasn't much of the quilt left. She said Grandpa's mother or grandmother made it (I don't remember which). The fabric is linsey-woolsey. It is made from flax and may have even been hand made. Grandpa said he remembered having to wear clothes made from it and they were very uncomfortable. The fabric is very rough and itchy.

I disassembled the original quilt and salvaged as much of the fabric as I could. I had enough for a small 18x22 inch quilt.
I hand pieced everything and started hand quilting it with embroidery thread which was what the original quilt appeared to have been quilted in. It was 80% finished when I quit working on it.
I pulled it out this week and finished it. I did cheat and use the sewing machine to sew on the binding. It's a cute little quilt with no purpose other than the preserve the memory of past generations.

Firewood

We had a new section of fence put in last spring.

It is 3 strand high tensile electric next to the hay field in the bottom.
Several wild cherry trees had to be cut down in the process.
J has been cutting these trees up for firewood to burn in the outdoor wood stove. We might have to have a bonfire with the leftover branches.

Ice and Mud

Yesterday we woke to a quarter inch of ice covering everything. Everywhere you looked was a beautiful picture.

Unfortunately, when the ice melted it just added to the mud problem.
J has really been struggling with these adverse conditions. The show steers have access to the barn but we feed them in the lot. It looks like their trough was caught in a mud slide. It took both of us to unstick it and move it to more solid ground.
The weaned calves have destroyed the ground around the feeder and water trough. J couldn't even get in the field anymore with the tractor without tearing up hugh ruts in the ground.
J moved them to a new field yesterday. Hopefully it will be easier to get in to feed here.
Of course one was left behind and had to run to catch up. We are dreading tomorrow, the forecast is for more rain.

Spay Day

I decided to take the puppies in on my day off for their surgery instead of trying to work them into the regular schedule. They are 5 1/2 months old now.

I miss calculated how big of a carrier I needed. It was a struggle to get them stuffed into too small a crate. Bumble weighs 65 pounds and Bea 53 pounds. They didn't look that big out in the field. We kept them in the barn last night so they would be dry and easy to catch.
Fortunately, they are very calm and pretty much freeze up when they don't know what is going on. Bumble still doesn't walk on a leash very well. And neither one wanted to walk on the clinic floor.
They made it trough surgery fine and woke up calmly. I gave them some post operative pain medicine so they will be more comfortable tonight.
I'm leaving them at the clinic until Monday at least. It is suppose to rain all weekend with heavy rain on Sunday. The ground is already saturated with water standing on the surface.

Wet Weather

It has finally warmed up the last few days, the ground is thawing, the snow melted and it rained an inch. Now we have an abundance of mud.

We weaned 63 calves this weekend and put them in the field behind the barn. Calves that are being weaned have a tendency to walk around bawling a lot. The fact that the ground is so wet in combination with the walking has really torn the sod up.
The brown behind the trees is another part of the field they are in. You can really see the difference in the damage they have done. We are suppose to get another inch of rain Thursday.

E's basketball coach was mad at the starters so her group got to start tonight. She played for 4 minutes which has been the most all season. She played well and got two rebounds.

Magic Rocks

E got a set of Magic Rocks for Christmas last year and finally grew them this weekend. I don't know where Santa got the idea.

I always loved when Jean would let me have these when we went to Richmond.
I don't really remember these first steps.


But this part definitely looks familiar.

Organizing

I got a new saddle rack for Christmas. Currently I am using several plastic saw horses. Some saddles are stacked on top of each other which always means some shuffling if more than one person is riding or if the saddle you want is the one covered up.

This new rack stacks the saddles in a more convenient fashion. I still have some on top of each other but these are rarely if ever used. Now all I need is a tack room to put it all in so things would stay cleaner. The barn is sooo dusty.
After a 6 week ordeal my new sofa finally arrived. It was suppose to be "in stock" but apparently the furniture store didn't know that the fabric had been on back order for quite sometime. After several calls and a little yelling I got free delivery and an additional 10% off.
I haven't taken the tags off yet. I have 30 days to decide if I want to keep it. It is taking some getting use to because it is defiantly larger than the Duncan Phyfe sofa that was there. Everyone agrees that it is more comfortable. E wants to move it into the den because she wants to lay on it to watch tv.

Sorting

We didn't wean all of the calves when we sent some to the feedlot last month so we finished the process with the cows here today. J had planned to wean them last month as soon as we shipped the others out but that's when the weather turned bad so it just didn't work out.

First we had to get them all in the lot.
Next came the sorting.
J also wanted to deworm the cows and calves.
We have found that if J stands at the gate that the cows like to go out he can shoot them with the dewormer as they run the gauntlet. The calves work better inside the barn.

Tomorrow we will try to get the last calves sorted out at our farm down the road and hauled back here.

Frozen Waterers

J rents 20 acres from his father. We usually graze bred heifers there from summer until the first snow. The problem this year was the first snow was so big and hasn't left yet so we can't get in there to haul them back.

This year his father participated in a conservation program and had the creek fenced off, a well drilled and "freeze proof" waterers put in.
The only problem is the freeze proof part didn't work, and now there is no water.
J had to open up the fence and let them back to the creek until it warms up enough to thaw things out.