Chopping, calving, running

We've had quite a month ...

Here's Kris with our 116th heifer calf this season.  About halfway done, now.  The calving has been going pretty well.



I got to see this calf being born.  It's not always a sure thing, because the cows don't like to be watched, and sometimes when I'm hovering nearby with a camera, it makes them nervous and they walk away and stop pushing.  Then I feel like I'm making the entire birth process more difficult ... and take longer ... and possibly harm the calf ... you get the idea.



I never get tired of seeing this.  This is my backyard!



I spoke at an event put on by Ionia County Farm Bureau.  They hosted a tour that took consumers to see a dairy, a beef farm, an ethanol plant, and to lunch at Denny Farms Farm Market & Bakery, where I spoke to them about food safety.  Kudos to the organizers for their educational efforts and the people who want to learn!



I finally flew with my dad.  He got his pilot's license eight years ago.  It gave me a great view of the farm!  The circles are the path of the irrigation wheels, and you can see exactly where the water stops.



We chopped some of the corn, but not all, because the rest of it was much wetter.  (We farm on different types of soil, and one of our fields is irrigated - the one above.)  The boys love, love, love to ride with Kris.  They take turns, because Kris can only fit one of them in there with him now! We used to squeeze in more when they weren't so huge!



Speaking of huge, isn't corn an amazing plant?!  As I read somewhere, people don't write country songs about soybeans.



And speaking of irrigation ... we had a floorless tent up in our yard for an event for 22 hours.  During that time it rained about 1/2 inch.  Imagine the state of our crops if we didn't get that rain.  None of it drained over to under the tent?!  Incredible.  Thank goodness we got that tiny shower when we did - it really made a difference.



This is an insurance row.  The insurance adjuster can't always get to the field before we do it, so we leave these rows so they can come and test it.  We come back later to chop it.



My mom has been doing calf chores in the mornings!  Why?  Because she's great and we didn't have anyone to do them.  What a gem!



As part of Team Chocolate Milk, I ran the Capital City Half Marathon in Lansing!  It was such a blast.  We all chugged some chocolate milk afterward.  We took a regular picture just holding our milk, and my dad said, "Why aren't you drinking it?  I want a picture of that!"  I like how, just by chance, we all have our eyes closed.  Bright ... and bliss!



It's been a hectic summer, and we're looking forward to a slower fall.  Cheers!

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Fall

It's September ...

- After a tough harvest, we got the alfalfa done!  Now onto corn harvest - starting this week!  We have to change the head on the chopper, get it inspected, and get everyone lined up to drive.  Corn harvest is easier than alfalfa.  There's no waiting on it to dry and hoping it doesn't rain ... you just go for it - start and don't stop until you're done!

- Yesterday the hydraulics didn't work on the wheel loader and the skid steer got a flat.  Two machines in one day!  They're both fixed now.

- Something happened here that was a first since we've been here.  A cow had a healthy heifer calf.  The next day, she delivered ANOTHER healthy heifer calf!  Twins aren't uncommon ... but twins one day apart? 

- Since the high schoolers and college students are back in school, the boys and I have been regulars helping Kris with calf chores.  It's amazing how much faster it is to do it when it's five of us instead of one.  It's also fun that when we're all doing it together it doesn't seem like 'chores.'  

- This isn't a romantic picture of farming, but it does show what it's really like sometimes.  Our cows usually give birth unassisted, but this calf was backward.  It's 10:30 p.m. right now and Kris is at the barn assisting in a cow that's having trouble post-birth.  Not every birth is perfect, as much as we want it to be.

- Kris and I are the fourth grade farmers at Gateway Elementary again!  They just sent me letters with their questions, and here are a few ... for the first, I liked the 'job-life':

Like this student's favorite part of a farm is horses,(which we don't have), many people who come really like the cats! (We aim to please.)

And a poet, who would be sad when she ate our field corn instead of sweet corn, but it doesn't matter for artistry's sake:

Bravo!  Here's to corn and harvest this week!

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Whether weather

My goodness - we got RAIN!  Tons of rain.  Rain upon rain.

After an amazingly dry summer, we got about 6 inches of rain this week.

The AgroExpo (put on by AgroLiquid in St Johns) even had to cancel the last day because while the first two days went really well ... it was hard to fight against that much rain.  Everyone joked that they should've held it in July when we were desperate.  We were happy we got to go the first two days, aynThe picture below is from the AgroExpo Facebook page:

                                        

CEO of U.S. Farmers & Rancher Alliance Randy Krotz and USFRA staff Katie Foster were coming to it, and also came to tour the farm!  It was great to be able to talk with them and show them around.

                                      

                                      

We welcomed heifer #171.  The weaned ones (above picture) are outside on pasture.

        

       



And, we talk a lot about technology and how things have changed.  Here's a change that delights us. We have a weather station on our property and you can CHECK IT BY PHONE!  For instance, today we were gone, and I asked Kris if it was raining at home.  He checked his little phone app and it told us everything at home - how much it had rained in the last 12 hours, the last 24 hours, the rainfall rate in the last month and year ... Oh, the joy this phone app brings!  The science, the technology, the knowledge of it all!



There were also puddles when we got home.  So that was a pretty good clue, too.

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Hello August

Well, it's summer!  Around here that means calving, harvesting, and hoping for rain.  The heat has been tough on the cows and we're doing our best to always keep them cool and comfortable.  Kris' latest thing is that he hooked up a soaker hose above them to mist them before they come into the parlor.  The fans blow on their wetted backs to give them an additional way to cool off.  We're hot too - we know how they feel!

For us and for all the farmers in our area, we had a different routine this year.  Usually, you harvest your alfalfa (hay) every three weeks.  But for the second cutting ... there was nothing to cut.  It didn't rain that whole time and nothing really grew back.  So we waited an additional week (like lots of people), and it did rain almost an inch during that time.  So Kris started the hay this week and ... there's something there.  Not a lot, but as we keep saying ... better than nothing!

Summer for us also means we get lots of visitors.  Our family comes, friends come from all over, and we get our annual visit from the Northwest A&F University of China.  This year 28 of the 30 students were female, and I absolutely loved their reaction to seeing the kittens, hearing my boys were twins, seeing a calf suck on my son's finger, and meeting Kris.  Each time it was, "Awww!"  It was delightful.

                                                              

                                                      

A strange thing happened yesterday - a cow in the parlor ran into the wall on her way out - and the wall got damaged!  We had the builder and mason out to look at it today, but I told Kris that I'd much rather they put in a huge observation window.  It'd make it so much easier for all of these friends we have coming!  (I realize this is not the point of the parlor, but it would be nice.)

So, hello August!  I hope these can be used for rain soon.

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Dry

It's dry, dry, dry.  It rained a little last week, but we only got .10 of an inch.  The corn is curling on the edges.  The grass is brown and crunchy under our bare feet.  It looks unbelievable that the alfalfa will recover from the latest cutting.  The creek is little more than a stream.  

We've been really lucky with rain for a lot of years.  I remember summers like this one - when the rain just misses you and you just have to deal with it.

It'll rain again someday ... it always does.  In the meantime, we're just hoping and frequently checking the 10-day forecast!

***

On Thursday last week we began the day by giving a tour to my friend Graham Filler and the St Johns Kiwanis Club.  The club was in part founded by my great uncle Stuart Openlander, and it's always nice to talk to people who knew him.

Graham even took a turn in the parlor -

                                         

I ended the day by speaking at the Future Farmers of America State Leadership Conference!  My favorite part that was afterward, many of the students came up to talk to me about farming.  They were all so outgoing, well-spoken, and impressive.  They all shook my hand and looked me in the eye, and I couldn't help but notice they had callused palms.  I felt that our industry is literally in good hands!

                                                
***

We're up to 135 heifers and we're starting to wean the first 20 that were born.  The weaned ones will soon move out to the pasture.  The days already seem a tad less hectic.  I mean, there were only three born today!

***

Aside from the whole farm scene, I'm teaching swimming lessons this month like I have almost every summer since I was 18.  It is so incredibly satisfying to teach a person how to swim.  So that's another side of things ... the heat and lack of rain is terrible for the crops, but WOW, is it great for teaching kids to swim!

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First-time visitors, long-time friends, cow giving birth to a calf on video!

Before I went to college, I never thought one thing about being from a dairy farm.  There were farms and farmers everywhere.

Once I was in college, I realized that people thought it was interesting I was from a farm, and they even wanted to visit.

One of my first farm visitors was my college friend Jodie.  She'd never been to a farm, she was from the city, and she loved seeing it.  She learned about silos, she met a big bull, and we perched up on a tractor.

So yesterday, things really came full circle, because Jodie brought her husband and kids to visit! (They had been once before, but only one was born and he was a baby.)

It was so fun showing them the farm, seeing our kids together, and seeing it through someone else's eyes. (Or nose.  Her son didn't like the smell of the manure lagoon, which quite honestly you get used to.  I used to live by an airport and never noticed the airplanes after the first day I lived there.  Then kids would come over, a plane would take off, and the kid would point it out.  Only then would I hear it.  The smell of manure is kind of like that.  I notice it only when it's pointed out!)

A cow even had her calf right in front of them.


This video isn't edited!  We walked up and she had the calf!  This is rare for me.  Usually they want to be off by themselves and are bothered by my proximity.  It's not so easy to get a close video.

So, from college home trip to RV trip across the states - I'm glad that the farm is still the destination that provides some education and entertainment ... for generations!

As for the smell, I'll see what I can do about that for next time.

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The last school ...

The Milk Means More Jump with Jill Live Tour!

St Johns has five elementary schools, and this is the last one to get the show.

Jill and Nick sang all about healthy food and drinks, and especially did some dairy education.  We all loved it!

Meanwhile back at home ...

70 out of our first 108 calves are heifers!  These are surprising statistics.  Kris just left to help deliver and feed the 13th and 14th calves born today.  So while we're singing the praises of dairy ... we're bringing more into the world.

Some of us can't forget about dairy, ever!  My son spilled raw milk under our car floor mat and forgot to tell us.  If you're gagging, you're imagining the smell correctly.


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More twins, more calves - all heifers!

A six-heifer day!  But with all these births ... it's still really hard to see a calf being born.  Seeing them moments after birth is easy.  But watching a birth is difficult.

We watched a cow who was in labor for awhile, but she didn't seem very close.  We walked away, and a few minutes later she had twin heifers.  Hooray!

A cow was very close to the road, so the boys and I went to try to see her give birth.

She was not happy.  She did NOT like us being there.  Plus, since the cows are always very curious, this is mostly what I could see.  A crowd was blocking her.

When I say curious, I mean super curious.  Even though they see me all the time, they still like to taste and smell me.  There's a lot of protecting my camera from this:

She got mad at the commotion we were causing and stomped off far away across the pasture.  I felt like I was badgering her, so I let her go.  She obviously wanted her privacy (most cows do - they like to go off alone from other cows, even) and I didn't want to distract her.

After awhile, in between feeding calves, Kris and I were watching her and he went closer.  He said she didn't look like she was pushing with enough energy, so he helped her by pulling out the calf.  I felt like this was my fault, because she was distracted and had to use her energy to walk away from me.  (Note - be sneakier.  Perhaps don't bring along three small boys to surreptitiously watch a skittish cow give birth.)  Here he is pulling out the calf:

As he left her to lick off her calf, her friends quickly closed in to watch:

The boys got to help for the first time this year with calf chores.  It is honestly one of their greatest joys.  The bedding down with straw:

The umbilical cord in Kris' hand:

The iodine he uses to clean the belly button area:

The boys marking the calves after they're fed colostrum:

And feeding! Three methods here.  The standing up when you're bigger than the calf, the helping when you're smaller, and the trying-to-coax-to-drink when the calf is very young.

My son asked if they could come every night to help with calf chores, and we assured them we'd come as often as we could and someday they can do them ALL BY THEMSELVES.

Maybe they'll even get good at pulling calves.  They'll have to ... with the sheer volume of our group, we're never going to be able to sneak up on them.  


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