Hello dear
reader friends—sorry it has been a while, seems life has gotten in the way.
Between being sick, busy at work, taking some me time from the Facebook,
blogging, social media stuff and writer’s block, I am happy to say I am back
and it is more than time to get back in the game.
It seems
today’s lovely high of 65 and the beautiful sun shining all day has brighten up
my day. Minus that time change this morning, which the cows and I agreed was
not cool. But while I didn’t like losing an hour of sleep I am done milking and
sitting here watching the sunset and enjoying the beautiful weather instead of
coming home to a dark house and it being too dark to see anything. I love it and
it reminded me of being thankful for everything this year.
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| Hello Beautiful Sun! |
Now, as
March has so graciously came from the middle of nowhere… hello spring! Spring
is one of the two busiest seasons for us. I like to call March the prepping
month because we aren’t the busiest but we are getting ready for it. We have
two big things to prep for: Planting and Working Cattle.
Ah, my
brother’s favorite time of the year, he is one of those who can get in the
tractor at 6 (sometimes even earlier) in the morning and stay in there until 10
or later at night lost in thought and enjoying every minute. He is even crazy
to skip meals, but no worries I am around for that job! J I am the go to lady—Pick them up,
bring lunch (and I know to make a lunch that is a snack and dinner too… I may
go a bit overboard when I feed them but they are working hard and so skinny!),
drop off seed, fill the planter boxes, help unload stuff, follow them to
fields, pretty much ready to jump to whatever they need when my phone rings… I
am there!
So what will
the next few weeks consist of?
Planting-
Prepping the planter and tractors, getting seed ready and picked up, making
sure we know all the fields that will need planted, checking the fields,
getting fertilizer and strip tilling done before planting or after depending on
the situation and many more smaller tasks. Also, my brother does plots for a
company and so we have to have the field worked and ready for the plot and
flagged off. Plots take a while to plant and harvest but it is worth every
minute to see the data and find out the statistics of that particular
variety/seed for the company, us and other farmers. (Another thing my brother
loves to do!)
Cattle- one
of my favorite times, the moment you really know that spring is here. As you
see the cute little calves off with their mommas to pasture, it is just a
precious scene! Anyway, we will be ordering vaccines, tags and various small
things to prep for the upcoming transition from pens to pasture for our beef
cattle. We will have to prep the horn cutters (unfortunately not all of our
cattle are polled) and the branding iron is prepped and ready for the day. Along
with working all the cattle to get them their yearly vaccinations and prepping
to keep them healthy for pastures we will be picking up a new Angus bull that
we purchased and getting him adjusted to our farm and ladies. This day is a
long working day but worth every minute too. While I am more a dairy girl, I
love helping work the beef cattle and seeing all the babies. Look forward to
many pictures of the little cuties when the day comes. Also, we will be working
our dairy heifers here in the next week or two giving them their vaccinations,
tagging and dehorning.
Of course,
during these weeks we will still have all of our other work to do. I will still
have to milk twice a day, clean the barn and pens, feed all the cattle, grind
feed, help deliver babies and take a few naps when I can sneak away. J
Happy almost
spring—I sure can’t wait for the warm weather to stay!
The Milkmaid
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| A.J. spoiling Annabel and Little Pineapple |
