Doing the Best I Can

If I was a busy person a year ago I can honestly say that I feel busier these days but with less to show for it, except this little guy counts for 99% of my time.

          *Ace is wearing a sweet beanie knitted by my good friend Martha. It's made from angora yarn she spun from her bunnies.*

I had honestly forgotten how much time babies consume, and this guy is no different. Warm weather is on its way though and Baby Bear loves to be outside. The last 2 weeks have been busy here as we start the post winter, clean the crap from the yard and get ready for baby animals process.

We sent the remaining of our pigs to process and then started the much needed clean up of fencing. These pigs challenged fencing every single day. We had a mess of barbed wire and pallets. 

Once the pigs left we spent a day pulling up electric wire fencing from the woods and pulling up pallets. We plan to clean it all up and allow it to recover. We will not run pigs again until fall so that will give it time to recover and us time to run new electric wire.

We did have sad news when we discovered a heifer, who was due in April, had miscarried her calf.

Of course these things always happen in the dark, so finding her dead baby was nearly impossible. We discovered the heifer, Chance, with membranes dangling when we took hay out for the cows. 

Because I feared she might have a calf inside we called the vet, only the vet was on vacation. I was able to call another vet out and he confirmed she had miscarried. 

We gave her a shot of lutalyse to try and get the membranes expelled.

I was disappointed that we did not get a live calf but happy Chance was okay.

The next day we did find her dead fetus in the 20 acre field we rent. On the upside, she is milking well.

Her membranes finally expelled after 5 very smelly days.

The day after Chance lost her calf I woke up and decided to move Molly closer to the house. Molly was due any day and I was worried she might suffer same fate as Chance. 

I was happy to walk out and find Molly had calved during the early morning hours. She had a healthy bull calf, a wagyu cross, at her side.

We did move them both closer to the house, but Molly has been a great mama cow and her calf is doing great.

This is the first official start to my beef herd.

Between these happenings we had two birthdays to celebrate!

Quinn turned 19 years old! 

Indiana turned 17 years old!

We celebrated with a huge family dinner/party.

This week I am finally catching up and taking a deep breath. I am getting our lives back on a routine, no thanks to the daylight savings time change, and I actually went grocery shopping yesterday.

I cleaned out my fridge and was feeling good about my day yesterday. Have you ever just really felt like you had it all together as a mom? That was me yesterday......until this happened.

That is Zeb wearing overalls that are about 3 sizes too small. He refused to take them off too. 

When my girls were all little I was really good about keeping their clothes folded and tucked neatly in their drawers, and I was always good about switching out clothes seasonally and taking out clothes they had outgrown.

I don't know what happened when I had the boys. I honestly try not to enter their rooms for fear I will see something that needs purging or cleaning. Apparently I am past due needing to remove clothes they have outgrown.

Mom fail.

I redeemed myself by ordering both boys a new pair of overalls though.

Thank you Amazon Prime.

                                                     *Valentine soaking up some sun*

                                                   

It has been freezing cold here the last few days, but I am confident spring warmth will return soon, hopefully, because we are very low on hay. 

The cows are starting to shed their winter coats and the grass is really trying to grow.

Just a few more good days working outside and I think the yard will look decent again :-)

Now to spend the remainder of my day tending to this guy.

Happy Thursday Ya'll!!

Sami