Extra Help

I started the day by over sleeping.  Once I was coherent I realized that Joe was here to help this morning so I let Bruce and Joe milk and I did other things.  Having a choice of what to do is kind of unusual since my mornings are normally pretty much scheduled.  There was no problem finding things to do and it was nice to get the chance to get extra stuff done.  Joe always eats breakfast here when he comes and when he was done Bruce took him out to the "40" and showed him the flags that had marked the new strips.  Joe took the 4 wheeler out to drive around the strips and pull the flags.  Somehow in the process he ended up on the new seeding strip that had been recently dug and got stuck in the mud and then wasn't able to get the 4 wheeler started.  He continued pulling flags, traveling around the fields on foot and when he got done he ran (he does track and cross country) the 1/2 mile to our house.  Bruce went out and managed to get the 4 wheeler started and out.  We also had Joe start mowing lawns, although he ran out of time to do all of them.  Since we had a funeral to go to he went home early.  He is soon to be 15 so we like to be around when he is working for us.

The funeral today was for a former farmer/neighbor/relative who was 86 years old.  When I first came here there were 17 dairy farms within a 2 mile radius.  Now there are only 6. We are seeing the passing of another generation in our neighborhood, but one that leaves many memories that make us smile. 

Tonight the cows are as far away from the barn as they get so I decided to do a time study.  From the time Bruce & Mike leave the barn with the 4 wheeler to get cows to when the first milker is put on a cow is 32 minutes.  When he is out there he resets the fence so the cows have a new paddock of grass when they go out.  Milking, first milker on to last milker off takes 1 hr 23 min.  From the last milker off until Bruce and Mike take the cows out and they return is another 23 min.  I can't say we were moving at our most efficient pace tonight but that's the basic time breakdown.  Tonight after chores Bruce took the heifers at Ed's another round bale.  They need to go on pasture tomorrow!