March-- The Month of Prepping

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.

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

A.J. spoiling Annabel and Little Pineapple