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

Summer of Birthdays

It was a summer of birthdays.

Willow celebrated her 14th birthday in June. She loves to celebrate at the lake, so a lake gathering is what we do.
Willow loves having her best friends and siblings at the lake. We always pull out the jet skis, and all of my kids LOVE jet skis!

My ever loving bug boy always seems to find a new critter to hold and examine.

Fletcher loves playing in the wet clay/mud.....so common here in the South.

We also had a new calf born near the end of June.

We came home from a family dinner to find that Penny had calved while we were gone. She had a healthy bull calf that is half Jersey and half Swedish Red.

I usually band my boys into steers and raise them for beef, but I decided to raise this guy for a bull. I will need a bull next year to breed many girls.  Indiana has named him Kai. Here's to a new farm adventure.

Finally, while we were in Florida, we celebrated Zeb's 7th birthday. Actually we celebrated his birthday and a friend's birthday, who came to the beach with us.

Of course Zeb got more items for his constant bug collecting.

We bought a couple of ice cream cakes from a local grocery and ordered pizza for dinner.

The next day Zeb bought a hermit crab with his birthday money. I am happy to announce that his little crab, named Happy, made the trip home and is living happily in an aquarium habitat.
Zeb likes that he now owns two pets. He got a leopard gecko for his 5th birthday and that little guy is still doing great.

It has been a summer of birthdays. It has been a summer of family gatherings and friends hanging out.

We still have a few weeks of summer left, no school here until after Labor Day.

This weekend I plan to work on some sewing projects and finish getting some school stuff organized. I will update next week on my new curriculum.

Happy Friday Ya'll!!

Calf Wrestling

We have a nice two day stretch of nice weather before the freezing temps roll back in town.
There have been some calf chores that should have been done a couple of weeks ago, but we finally found the time to get them done.

First, the bull calves needed to be banded. Actually, the oldest bull calf has already been banded and we just needed to band the younger one. Banding them is an easy way for a family farmer to keep from raising a bull and to raise a steer instead.

This little tool is not expensive and I use it to band my young lambs as well. You put this band on it first.

Then you stretch it out and place the scrotum through it and release it slowly.

The important key is to make sure that BOTH balls are through. They can slide back if you are not cautious and not actually get into the band.

The procedure will feel a little tingly for the calf the first day. The band will cut off circulation to the scrotum and after about 2-3 weeks, the sac will fall off.

 

The next chore we had was to burn off the horn buds. Even if you raise a very docile cow, horns can be dangerous. It is best to "nip it in the bud" early. There are several ways to rid a cow of its horns but we have found dehorning paste works great on young calves.

 



 

It is best to apply this paste when you first feel the horn buds. First you need to trim the hair around the buds with some scissors. Apply the paste with a wooden tongue depressor or popsicle stick. The paste is very caustic so make sure it doesn't get on your skin or anywhere else on the calf.

It doesn't take very much and we like to lock the calves up by them selves overnight so they do not get the paste on another calf by rubbing heads. That is it!

All I had to do next was change clothes and start a load of laundry. It seems that when I wrestle a calf down I always roll down into a pile of cow muck! As a friend pointed out though, it's just grass, right?



Athena also got a nice work out since the sun was out and the temps were mild. Indiana walked her for a good while around the front pasture. We are looking forward to another nice day today.

Since the calves are growing and doing well, we will be getting another one tomorrow. A two week old bull calf. It should be fun!

Happy Monday Ya'll!