First time

I got a call from Kris.

"We're putting the heifers out on pasture for the first time.  Could you stand in the back corner and try and keep them from running through the fence?"

Putting heifers out on pasture for the first time for the year is a little different than putting them out on pasture for the first time EVER.  First of all, they've never seen an electric fence.  Second, they've never had such a giant area in which to run.  Third, they run as fast as they can toward the fences.

Kris picked Max and me up.  In between calling me and getting me, Kris had discovered that a heifer had gotten excited and gotten out.  She wasn't one of the ones we were moving though - she was at the barn!  

Josh and Mike were taking heifers from the barn on trailers and letting them off into the field.  Kris opened a gate and I said I'd chase her into the pasture.  I started off running and Kris joked, "Put all that training to work!" 

I got behind her and she moved easily into the next pasture.

All I had to do was chase her straight up the fence into the next pasture.  Josh and Mike left, and Kris drove ahead to open the gate.  As soon as they left, she and I moved ahead and ... she got a running start and ran right through the fence again.

I moved her into the corner, hoping she wouldn't run into the road.  She didn't.  She turned around and stood and stared at me.  I stood and stared at her.  

We were at a standstill.  Alone, I couldn't open two gates next to the road to get her to where she was supposed to be.  I didn't want to chase her through a fence, since I didn't WANT her to run through fences.  

So we waited.  For ten minutes, she and I stared at each other.  I talked to her a little, telling her I was just trying to get her back with the herd.  I knew Kris or one of the guys would come back eventually.
  

They all came back at the same time and we moved her into the pasture again.  Then we repeated the freeing of the heifers, the nerve wracking feeling of watching them run toward the fence ... surrounded by open fields ... and hoping they stayed in.  The wayward heifer slowly blended in with the others.

I helped with a few loads until my boys were getting home from school.  We checked again right before dark ... they were all still there! 

I hope they're all still there in the morning ... or it'll be a different kind of training run.

                                         

***

Ryan Bright is a dairy farmer in Tennessee, where he milks about 90 cows.  They raise corn, hay, and wheat.  He is also an author!  He interviewed me about my books Every Other Twin Book is Wrong, Where the Filed Things Are, and Sawyer in the Woods on his blog, Farmer Bright.  

You can read it on his site here.


 

Want to know more about the farm?  Like the page on Facebook, on Twitter @carlashelley, or sign up to get the blog by email - the form is on the right side of the page.

Talking and working

This week...

- I was invited to Eureka Elementary and gave the students a virtual tour of our dairy farm.  We also shook cream to turn it into butter, which the kids thought was like magic.  One class asked to sample it and took big scoops out with their fingers.  (School is fun!)  The rest of the classes ate the cheese or yogurt, which were less messy.

Many of the classes asked the same question - why do the cows wear ear tags?  I was explaining how we keep records on all of them, and we use the numbered tags to tell them apart, and Dylan - a little boy whose family farms - said, "We name them with numbers instead of letters."  (Well put, second grader!)

                            


- I did a radio interview with the very nice Bill Baker about Mother's Day and the dairy business.  You can listen to the interview on DairyLine.

- I wrote an article for U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance celebrating moms, tradition, and food.  They wrote, "She reflects this Mother’s Day on the generations of mothers who have shaped their farm and their futures. To celebrate, she made tres leches (three milks) cake recipe with her three sons."  It is basically cake soaked in sugary milk - I love it.

You can read the article here:  Three milks, six generations, and three boys.

                              

On the farm ...

- Kris has been hauling manure like a madman.  He did it all day yesterday - from dawn until dark, and stopped today only to spend a few hours with our families until he went back out to do it some more.

It's going to be time to plant corn this week and he REALLY wants to get the field fertilized as best he can before then.  Everything is so time-sensitive.  You have to plant when the soil isn't too wet, but before it rains and you can't do it ... all farmers around here are planning as best as they can to get it all right!

                                       

We checked more fences and put the cattle out on more and different pastures!  We brought back all of the heifers and have them outside.  There are so many out there - I love seeing them.

The ones across from our house are all pregnant with their first calves.  Happy Mother's Day to them, too!

                                       

I hope you all had a great weekend full of family, friends, and possibly - wet cake.

Want to know more about the farm?  Like the page on Facebook, on Twitter @carlashelley, or sign up to get the blog by email - the form is on the right side of the page.

Spring into spring into spring

Everything is indeed ramping up for the spring!  Last night after Kris got home from a meeting at 10:00 p.m., he went down to the barn to take care of a cow.  He got home at midnight, then got up at 3:00 a.m. to help milk.  After that, he went to bring our heifers home - time for them to go out on our pasture!  I'm looking forward to seeing cattle on all sides of our house by the end of the day!  Kris will be looking forward to going to bed tonight.

My mom, pictured above, not only mows the barn lawns, plus our lawn, but she also plants a gorgeous flower bed.  So going into Mother's Day - happy Mother's Day to her!  It wouldn't be as much fun here without our families!  And ... there would be fewer people to help Captain America protect it all.

Want to know more about the farm?  Like the page on Facebook, on Twitter @carlashelley, or sign up to get the blog by email - the form is on the right side of the page.

One of my favorite sights

Ah ... for the first time this year, the cows are out in the pasture.  There are the 'dry' cows - meaning the cows that we aren't milking because they're two months or closer to having calves.

We planted alfalfa last Tuesday - and thanks to some lovely rain, it's already up!  (One week and one day, which seems amazing.)  My sister Tracy was telling me how excited she was that her grass she planted in her lawn poked up; this is the same excitement farmers feel EVERY YEAR when their crops emerge from the ground.

Can you see them?

We hauled a lot of manure.  We have a lagoon of manure and we need to use it to fertilize our fields. We also take manure samples and send it to a lab where they analyze the nutrients.  Then we can tell how much supplemental fertilizer we need to put on our fields.

This looks like a job for Captain America

Gloves seem like a good idea

Every day is take your kid to work day

I also did an event with CommonGround, the volunteer organization that communicates with people about farming.  (Check out their site if you have any questions - it's great.)  Tera Havard, Barbara Siemen and I talked to Michigan dietitians and nutritionists about farming and food.  People asked about GMOs, local issues, raw milk - but mostly how they get the real information to their patients and clients.  We also had a lot of tour requests from schools, so that was great!

                                     

Kris is headed to our co-op's advisory board meeting tomorrow, we have a community action group meeting for Farm Bureau ... and then we'll start planting corn next week.  The calving will begin, and we'll start the busy season all over again.

And the whole time we'll enjoy the beautiful view of our cows on pasture.  The boys are a nice addition, too.

Want to know more about the farm?  Like the page on Facebook, on Twitter @carlashelley, or sign up to get the blog by email - the form is on the right side of the page.

Back in the day ...

I love this picture of my grandma and grandpa. (Caroline & Dale Anderson.) They were the fourth generation to farm here and raised five children. My grandma also was a teacher. I was lucky enough to live down the road from them and see them every day. I don't know where they're going in this picture, but I know it's not the barn!

Smithsonian & romantic life on the farm

I was talking to my friend Beth recently and she said, "I used to think about farming as a really sort of romantic thing - you lived on a farm, you worked outside ... but then I met you and you really ruined it!  You talked about all the work and the things that go wrong!"

We all laughed, but it's true - like any other job, once you know more about it, you realize it has its ups and downs.  It IS sort of romantic at times ... and other times it's just real life!  Cattle get sick, things break, stuff doesn't work out, milk prices are low ... etc.  But like everyone else, you just deal with it and move on because it's your job, your life, and your livelihood.

So when I was asked questions by people at the Smithsonian American farmer exhibit, they asked really good questions, like ...

Does farming affect how you make decisions at the grocery store?
Where does your milk go?
Do you have favorite cows?
Who works on the farm?
Do you want your kids to farm?
What is your manure management program?
What are you breeding your cows to now?
Do your cows go out on the pasture at night?
How does the government pricing affect your milk?
Is it made into things other than milk?
What is your opinion on drinking raw milk?
How many acres do you farm?
How many cows do you milk?
What do you do with the male calves?

In the course of answering those questions, I also talked about cow comfort, how there are no antibiotics in any milk (conventional or organic), how there aren't added hormones in milk, about natural bull breeding, and manure as fertilizer.  The people laughed, it was a good discussion, and I think it's a great program!  What a nice way to connect people from all over to a farm.

Meanwhile, back on the farm in real life ... everything is happening.  It's the time of year where Kris is working and organizing and on the phone and super busy.  First of all, we're getting the fields ready to plant.  This means preparing them with fertilizer (manure) and lime, working them up, and planting them.  We contract with a guy to do a lot of the field work so we don't have to own all the equipment, but you're still the one organizing it with him.  Today Kris was also figuring out how we can rock pick the field before it gets planted.  He wanted to get the cattle out on the pasture soon, but said that someone had to check the fences.  I offered to do it, and he said that would be great, but someone would also have to go out there with a chainsaw to cut the dead trees off the fence that had fallen during the winter.

Turns out there were a lot!  I fixed all I could, but some were just too giant to move without a chainsaw

Also, the hoof trimmer was here yesterday, we had to finish up our tax stuff with our accountant, we're getting the machinery ready, we're continuing to dry up cows - and on top of that we needed to take in a car to get fixed and I needed Kris to watch the kids ... basically, Kris and the team are working really hard right now.

That's why historically farmers are not continually communicating about what they do.  They're too busy working.  Due to our partnership, we are able to do both.

It's sometimes romantic, it's sometimes the opposite of romantic, but what it is above all is what we've chosen!  We make our own decisions, our own mistakes ... the crops will grow, the calves will be born, Kris won't get enough sleep, and we'll take some serious satisfaction in a job well done.

And if I still get emotional at times like this?  I can't help it.  I'm a romantic at heart.

Want to know more about the farm?  Like the page on Facebook, on Twitter @carlashelley, or sign up to get the blog by email - the form is on the right side of the page.

Smithsonian video chat on April 15!

I'm so excited!

The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History is showcasing an Ask a Farmer program to encourage conversations between museum visitors and farmers about agriculture.  

Ask A Farmer "connects museum visitors to farmers nationwide for real-time conversations" via video chat.  I'm the farmer for this Friday, April 15!  

Basically, I'll be at home answering questions from the museum patrons.  They'll project my video call up at the museum's exhibition on American Enterprise.

I was lucky enough to visit this exhibition when I was in Washington DC this winter:

  

Like many farms, the exhibit had old equipment ...

It showcased barbed wire, which made me especially happy, because we used to live in DeKalb, IL, home to the patent owner Joseph Glidden.  We even lived on Annie Glidden Road.

They had a tractor simulator ...

A favorite quote about farming ...

And some real truisms:

We also communicate about farming!  My hope for this video chat is that there are great conversations, interested people, and please, please ... let my incredibly-rural internet connection work the entire time.  

For more information, you can go to the Smithsonian Ask A Farmer.