Step right up

Our friends Julie and Brent Koopmann - dairy farmers in Iowa - came to visit!  We know them through National Milk Producers Federation so we actually met in Florida, got to know each other in Arizona, visited them in Iowa ... and now put them to work in Michigan!  

I'm kidding, of course.  Brent just stepped right in to help because ... it's what he does too.  (I swear we are better hosts than that.)

Since the summer employees are back in school, Kris has been doing a lot of calf chores.  Above, they're feeding bottles, and below they're using our calf cart.  We have a golf cart with a tank on the back.  We fill it with the milk from our cows and feed it to the calves in their buckets via a hose.  

We love our license plate.  (The answer is yes.)

We also have finished chopping the corn - but we still aren't done.  We have no more space for silage, so we rented an adapter and a combine head.  That way, we can mount them on the chopper and get snaplage to put into bags.  Snaplage is what it's called when you grind up the cobs of corn into easily digestible food for the cattle.

And, we have a new red and white Holstein!  We had a red and white Holstein bull a few years ago, and every now and then one makes an appearance.  My kids might not be covering this in school yet, but at home they get little genetics lessons all the time!

If you want to know more, you can like my farm page on Facebook, follow @carlashelley on twitter, or get the posts sent to your email by filling out the form on the right. If you have any questions, please email carla.wardin@gmail.com!

Candy corn

 



Kris picked a few ears of corn out of the field today to check them out.  He plans on starting to chop corn tomorrow.

After my youngest gnawed on them despite me telling him field corn is different than sweet corn, we took the ears down to feed to the cattle. 

We were picking kernels off the cobs.  My son Cole held one in his hand and said, "This looks just like candy corn!"

It did - three colors and all.  It was easy to see where candy makers got the idea. 

I did just google 'candy corn' and see that in the candy, the orange and white have switched places.  But I wouldn't have known that without looking.  Instead I told Cole he was exactly right, took a picture, and told other people about it.  I'm going to chalk it up to the 1880s confectioner not being able to exactly recall the color scheme back on the farm.

Kris told me that the white line was called the milk line - that when he picked it there was more white in the kernel, but after it dried out more of the white turned to yellow.

So, of course, we all tried a little.  Field corn doesn't taste like candy corn, either.

Chain

It rained most of the morning, changing plans, so ...

Calves - There are nine more dry cows in the pasture, and nine more to dry up. Still 18 more chances for me to see a calf being born this year!

Bills - Kris spends a lot of time doing office type work. Records, bills, computer work. I well remember my dad spending a lot of time on this when I was young. It's much easier to do when it's not nice outside! I think the same about cleaning and organizing. Spring cleaning? Why would I want to do that when it's nice out? Fall cleaning ... fine. I'm in here, I might as well do it. Same with bills!

Chains - Kris left rows in the cornfields for the insurance adjuster to appraise. He went back today to chop the rest of it. The weeds and corn got lodged in the head of the chopper and messed up one of the chains. He and Mike took the row of the head apart and moved the chain. He got home pretty late, but it's ready to go tomorrow.

Kris plans on chopping all day again. I plan on missing several calf births by just a few minutes. Let's meet those goals!

Good and bad

The good news - We fixed the leak in the pipe yesterday.
The bad news - Mike just called to say his well wasn't working. This means the heifers' waterers are affected, too. This obviously needs fixing as soon as possible.

The good news - Kris succesfully chopped corn all day.
The bad news - A cow went down.

So far, we're even. Let's hope the scales tip in the favor of good this week!



Shot Kris took while chopping corn. You can see the windshield wipers on the right.