Calves are born like this: front hooves out, head following. But some calves come out backward.
They almost always have to be pulled when they're backward, because like a breech birth, it's just not supposed to happen that way.
After Kris got home after his 16 hour day, he was telling me about the calf. I said, "Didn't you have a backward calf yesterday, or did I already talk to you today?"
He said, "My days are all running together."
If farming were like this every day, people wouldn't be able to farm for their whole lives. Thankfully we have the winter to forget about how busy it is when it's calving season and harvest all at the same time.
After Kris sat down last night, it started to storm. He joked, "Maybe it's heat lightning." We had 60 acres of hay cut (ready to be chopped, but you have to let it dry), and the pile of feed was uncovered. No one wants that rained on.
I told him he should get back out there and cover the pile (haha). It's a really physically demanding job, it takes many people, and there was no way he was going to go do it at 10 p.m. Not if he planned on getting up in the morning again, anyway.
Current stats: 39 heifer calves. 72 calves total. (We sell the bull calves.) 39 of the heifers have had calves, which is good, because they usually get pregnant faster than the cows. On the flip side, they have more trouble birthing, since it's their first.
Here's to a good Wednesday, which will be much like Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday!
No complaints here though - when Kris worked for Caterpillar he never wanted to talk about work. He'd come home and he'd say, "I just talked about work all day. Let's talk about something else." I was always interested, but he wanted to focus on non-work topics when he wasn't there.
But when your work is your own business, of course you talk about it. It's our work and life. As for work-life balance? It's all the same. Though he is getting plenty of exercise. It takes a lot of strength to pull a calf.
