Sunday, July 29, 2018

And the gang's all here

This is just a little snapshot of a few of the million things that went on this month ...

We finished our third cutting, and this time we used trucks and a bagger.

                     

It's fun to watch.  The chopper blows the tiny pieces of chopped up alfalfa into these trucks we rented.  The trucks drive to the baggers, and they tip into the bagger as it moves forward.  Ahhh...nice, full, big bags of feed for the winter!

               


We had preemies. Not twins, but two tiny girls at the same time.  They were half the size of a normal calf - and so small they looked like goats!  They were healthy, though!  Our team member took them to her grandparents' house to raise them.  Before they left, she put little pink collars on them, which was a definite first for calves around here!  So cute.

                                     

One evening my neighbor Ashley called me and said, "I can see three of your cows in your corn."  Oh no!  I raced out of the house.  My neighbors and I easily got them back in.  Kris rode up on the quad and I said, "We got the cows back in."  Kris said, "Those aren't cows.  Those are heifers."  This meant that they didn't come right from where I could see them ... they had come from across the corn field!

We weren't dealing with three cows ... we were dealing with 50 heifers.  My parents, my neighbors, my kids, the three guys milking, Kris and I started searching in the 12-foot high corn for lost heifers.  We walked through, calling them, and they were so happy to find us and followed us out.  Meanwhile, we were trying to fix the fence, but we couldn't repair it until all of them were out.  It took about three hours for us to find all the heifers, and Kris was able to fix the fence before dark.  Whew!

                       

We had a lot of visitors, including my family.  One night all of her nine grandchildren helped her with calf chores!

                                                 

It's here!  I'm so happy with Sawyer in the Sky, my second book in the Sawyer in the Woods series.  So excited.  My boys loved it, and I hope your kids love it too! Available on Amazon.

                             

Something else new ... I'm going to be hosting the Michigan GROWN, Michigan GREAT podcast!  I start recording in August, and I'll be sure to post the link to the podcast here.  I'll be interviewing farmers and agriculturalists from around the state about what's happening on their farms!  I'm really looking forward to it, and I hope you enjoy listening.

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