Wacky Wednesday

Today the farm was a bustle of activity ... Kris commented on how Wednesday is always the busiest day, because it's the day everyone in the world is working.  Mondays and Fridays - not so much!

Nutritionist
The nutritionist came for his regular visit to take feed samples and talk about corn silage fermentation.  Kris loves talking nutrition with him.  (They're also friends.)  They also go through the barns to look at the cow's manure to see how firm it is, and see how much corn they can see in it.  OH, THE GLAMOUR!  But yes, very important.  Sort of like ... how moms monitor their babies' diapers.

Note: Our nutritionist has a PhD in animal nutrition.

Workman's Comp Auditor
Every so often the insurance auditor comes to check our books and make sure we're compliant with workman's comp.  Our meeting was today.  We're legit.  Though we'd prefer no one ever gets hurt.

Note: She has been doing audits for 27 years.

Tire company
The tire company came to put duals on our tractor.  We tried out a new disc (which is a field implement), and we thought that if we had dual tires it wouldn't slip when pulling it.  It still sort of does, so we might have to just not buy the disc. But we'll keep the big tires.  Better traction and stability never hurts.

Note: This is the first time we've used this company.  It's amazing how many tire choices there are.

Trucking company
We moved some of our heifers over to our heifer raisers' farm.  Our heifers have been outside since spring in the pasture.  We don't have a barn for all of them for the winter, so we pay a heifer raiser to keep them at his place until the spring, when we put them back out on pasture.

Note:  One of our long-time employees now works with his dad at his dad's trucking company. Always nice to see them - they do all of our cattle trucking.  Our heifer raisers have been taking care of some of our cattle in the winter for two years now, and they also have ... twins!

(Why is Max in shorts and Kris in a winter hat?  Because one of them is not still pretending it's summer.)

When you think about a farm ... all these people and all these businesses are involved.  There are businesses whose entire purpose is to fix milking equipment!  (They're hugely in demand.)  It's not just us, alone, on a farm.  There's no chance to be lonely.  We even have a driveway alarm to alert us when people are here - you never know when someone will stop by, looking for us!  There's us, our employees, their families ... then all these businesses and their families ... we're all in it together.  The farm is more than just a family farm.  It's a community effort!

No matter what day of the week we're all working.

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Covering the pile

It seems like every time the guys cover the pile, it's 90 degrees. Except today, when it was 92! But there was a breeze ...

So, in six days, the first cutting of the alfalfa is done. Cut, raked, chopped. 97 times, they dumped a wagonload on the cement pad.

So, if you remember the first load:



In between loads, they drive a tractor over it to compress and shape the pile.



Then, they cover it with plastic and carry tires up it to hold the plastic down.

Voila - the first cutting!



Our employee Josh said to a new employee, "It's the hardest the first time. After that, you know what to expect."

He said this as he was carrying tires two at a time to the very top of the pile and making it look easy.

In another month, it'll start all over again. Then one or two more times this summer. It's like a season-long workout program. Easily offset by the pizza at the end.

Sights and scenes

Man walks on moon! Wait, no. Farmer walks on feed pile. But both have that otherworldly effect, don't they?

It's March Madness! Which means we'd like to spend every hour watching exciting NCAA basketball games ... but that's not possible. No! We take breaks to eat (me) and work (Kris.)

He is currently outside abusing a sample section of what the panels in between the calves in the new barn might be. He's beaten it with a hammer, beaten it with the claw of the hammer, and is now about to smear manure on it and see later how easy it is to clean off. Definitely more fun than watching that MSU game last night.

Enjoy the games!