Walking home last night under a full moon and bright stars. Nice. Waking up at 2 a.m. for a bathroom stop and camera check and finding a calf has arrived. Waking Bruce up to handle it...Hmmm Seeing a bald eagle go right over while I was feeding calves this morning. Awesome! I guess 2 out of 3 isn't bad!
Just when the fields are coming out and the barns are thawing they have a storm in the forecast. Not just a basic storm, this one has ice and then potentially a foot of snow. The barns thawing this time of year mean cattle are breaking through so getting around in there for them is like us wading in crotch deep snow. Bruce had to use the skid steer and cut a hole through an 8 ft snow bank, plowed up by the county, to get to our fields. Manure gets spread on 2nd year and after corn ground. Corn uses a lot of nitrogen to grow. The first year this nitrogen is provided in the rotting and break down of the previous crop which is generally alfalfa. After that it needs to be provided with some form of fertilizer. A byproduct of having cattle is manure so other than weather issues the two enterprises compliment each other well. Ed came over and hauled loads and spread while Bruce used the skid steer to clean out the barn and chisel the yards loose. This makes the job go much faster since Bruce can have a load already piled and waiting to load when the empty spreader gets back . By the time they were done they had hauled 23 loads! Bruce also got a few stacks home and bedded the barn again. Days like this, when we make huge progress, especially with a storm coming is our Home Run Day!! With the storm warnings posted we decided to keep the newest 2 calves in the barn. The plan was to set the last 2 hutches but now it will be less to clean around if we wait. I went and got the storm panels for the last 7 hutches and tied them on so we will be ready for the clean up. I hadn't put coats on the last 2 calves because it was so nice out but I put them on today. They will appreciate them with this weather change. This morning we took 4 milk samples for drugs and all 4 cows passed. A couple of them are too early to milk into the tank because they just had their calves but we have the information we need when the time is right. Bruce says this is good because it will give him more time to plow snow. Here we go again.....
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