Christmas on the farm

It's almost Christmas!

- When a teacher was reading a book about Jesus lying in hay, my son yelled 'STRAW!'  Why straw?  Because you bed down cattle with straw.  It's wheat ... it's soft, yellow, and common bedding material. 

Hay is another word for alfalfa or grass, which cattle eat.  I told my son that technically Jesus was lying in a manger, which is a feeder where the cattle eat, so it very well could have been hay.  He said, "No, in the picture it was YELLOW." 

- Kris - and everyone else here - of course work on the holidays.  The cows stop for no one!  I well remember waiting until my dad got home from the barn to open presents on Christmas morning.  We do the same thing now ... Kris gets up at 3:00 a.m. to get an early start ... but so far every year, so have the boys!  

- Milk prices are so bad this year, and they're projected to go even lower at the beginning of the year.  There's not one day that goes by that we don't think about this.  Dairy farming is a cyclical business, but we're getting half of what we were getting for milk last year.  So what to do?  Everyone, double your milk, butter, and cheese consumption!  Think eggnog at every party. 

- I had no book to read so I searched my shelves and found an old one.  I opened it up and was delighted to see ... my great grandpa Floyd Anderson had signed his name in it in 1896!  Age 14.  He was the third generation to farm here and lived in my house.  The book is a 'Brief History of the United States.'  I was so excited and told my whole family.  We're not sure why I have it or where it came from ... but then I decided the next day I should check all of my books. 

Lo and behold, I opened up another unfamiliar one and ... it was signed by my grandma's brother! Arnold Lamb!  He didn't date it but the book was published in 1911.  I don't know where it came from, I don't know how I ended up with it - it was a lovely Christmas surprise.  I'm going to check more books today.

- Everything on the farm is headed into the holidays.  We have special schedules, everyone's working different times, and mostly, everyone is working together to make sure that it all runs smoothly - but people don't miss out on anything important.  We're a family farm, for sure.

- Tomorrow we're moving the heifers to the barn closest to our house.  Everyone's coming home for the holidays!

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Pulling an all-nighter

This morning Kris' alarm went off at 4:30 a.m. It woke me up (it doesn't usually) and I was surprised to see ... Kris wasn't in bed.

We'd texted before I went to sleep - he said it was going to be a late night.  I didn't know he meant that late, though.

A little worried, I called him.  I was very relieved when he answered, saying, "What are you doing up so early?"

"Oh, just making sure you're still alive!"  I said.

This is what happened - the straw was finally raked, dry, and baled.  With the forecast of 100% chance of rain today, Kris didn't want the bales to get rained on.  They had to be taken out of the field and put into barns.  As a result, he and one of our team members (he didn't mind, he promised!) stayed up putting bales up all night!  By the time they were done, it was time for Kris to start feeding the cows.

Hours later, Kris got home and sat down to do payroll.  The boys were buzzing around him - so interested in the 'Dad staying up all night' story.

"Have you ever stayed up all night before, Dad?" Ty asked.

"Not ... the entire night," he said.  "I've definitely only had an hour of sleep or two, but not the whole night."

We looked outside.  The sun was shining brightly.  We hoped the forecast was right.

Just as he went to take a nap, the rain started, and it rained steadily for a few hours.

Later Kris said, "It's just Murphy's Law.  Or the Law of Farming.  If we didn't get the bales in, it would have rained early.  Just like - we got the irrigation system fixed yesterday, so now it's raining. If that hadn't gotten fixed, it never would have!"

(No wonder forecasters have such trouble figuring out what's going to happen.  They have to take every farmers' day into consideration when making their predictions.)

I once said I'd never have a business that depended on the weather.  Turns out it affects every single decision that goes on around here ... even when people sleep.  ...Sweet dreams!


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Bales

When I picture a bale, I never think of these.  I think about baling with small bales, when people would stand on a wagon, hauling them up into a pile.  Then moving them off those wagons to a haymow.  Then tossing them down and using them to bed down cattle.

We have to bed down a lot of calves, so we need a lot of straw.  Bales come in bigger sizes now!  It's a lot more wrapped up in one package, and there's a lot less you have to move around.

Plus, you can't lift these.  (Well, I can't.  Maybe you can.)  But a skid steer can!  Kris has been buying these big straw bales to bed down the calves this winter.  This is Josh unloading the big square bales this weekend.

We got a Christmas tree today.  I held it up while Kris was putting it in the tree stand.  I apparently got picked by the needles and have red bumps covering my arm.  It's the same way my skin used to look when I got picked by straw.  So far, the skid steer is showing no ill effects.