Rain, Snow and Sleet

The weather has taken a turn for the worse.  That means Joe's attitude has too. 

But who can blame him.  The rain, snow and sleet has turned our previously nice dry ground into mud.  

He has two groups of weaned calves that have turned the area around the feed troughs into mud lakes.  And this time of year, when it gets wet, it stays wet. 

It is a depressing sight to see. 

And Joe has to trapes through it carrying 50 pound sacks of feed.  

At least it is not muddy everywhere, and goats were pretty excited to see the tractor heading toward the bale lot.  

Bringing Home

Today we brought home some bred heifers that were out on pasture at Joe s dad’s house.

Joe wanted to get an early start so we could get in and out while the ground was still frozen.
 

I don’t think we had to hurry.  It was pretty cold.  But the frost was beautiful.

And the heifers behaved magnificently.

They loaded the best I have ever seen, like they were trained for it.

When we got the the house with them, Joe just pulled into the field to turn them out.

It was a very easy transfer.

And I had a good time taking pictures of the frost.

Couponing #85

I haven’t shared a couponing deal in awhile.  This one was too good to pass up and since it was a glitch I did not want to wait until Saturday for fear of it being fixed. 

The General Mills cereal was on sale, $6 for three boxes, but it was supposed to be the small boxes.  The glitch was that the deal was working on the family size boxes too. Plus, there was a digital $1 off when you by 2 and I found a peelie for $1 off one and the tooth brush was giving $1 in overage.  That meant $3 for 3 large boxes that are normally $5.25 each.  I did the deal twice Tuesday with just Honey Nut Cheerios, then I did this deal for Virginia yesterday.  And it was a good thing.  Because today the glitch has been fixed. 
 

Another Unusual Nativity

As I was putting up all of the Christmas stuff, I thought I might share one more unusual nativity.

Emily brought this one  back for me from Panama. 

It is very cute and tiny.  She thought it would be easy to travel with for 8 months.

There is a cow and sheep.

Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus.  I don’t think I  have seen a nativity with Jesus in this position.

 But my favorite is the little donkey.

My finial ornament count on the tree was 977 more or less.  

Happy 2024, New Year, Same Work

Joe and I celebrated the New Year by getting the cattle up and weaning the calves. 

 The, getting the cattle up, was the hard part.  They were very uncooperative.  They started out following the tractor, but turned and went back into the bottom where Joe had fed them for the last few days.

Joe’s face says it all.  We started over again but it still involved a lot of running around to get them out of the bottom and headed to the next field.  

And the next field wasn’t any better.  Joe had been saving some grass there for the calves after weaning and the cows didn’t want to leave it.  It took us about 45 minutes to finally get them all out and into the barn lot.  

We sorted out the cow and dewormed them, 

And then the calves.

The calves went back out the the field with the grass.

And the cows headed out to an adjoining field for fence line weaning. 

A small problem was that the horses were in the way of the open gate and they took the opportunity to run through it.  I had Hugo shut in the barn lot so they just ran down to see him which was pretty much out of the way.

The cows behaved from here and we got them where we were wanting.

The goats have been split up for a few days and the ones that were in the horse field also got out.  So I had to get the horses back where they belonged and the goats on over to where the other ones were.  My phone says I walked/ran 4.2 miles and did 34 flights of stairs.   I think I got all my steps in today.  

De decorating

It’s time to take down the Christmas tree.  It usually comes down faster than it goes up.

The biggest problem is fitting everything back in the closet.  I haven’t finished the ornament count yet, but it is over 700 so far.  

Now I have to do a final inspection once it is outside before it heads to the goats.  I don’t want to leave any hooks behind. 
 

Look Who Is Three!

 That's right, the not quite 3 year old turned Three today. 

Sadie's third year was ushered in with balloons, pizza, 

presents,

more presents, 

and cup cakes. 

Allie had her eye on those cup cakes. 

But she got to enjoy the balloons too.  A fun day was had by all.  Happy Birthday Sadie.