Vet

Today is definitely a holiday Kris works. It's 10:30pm and he's just getting home.

Kris and my dad chased a cow in the barn to pull her calf and saw it was both upside down and backward. This is pretty rare, so Kris called our vet, Russ.

Russ used a tool he said usually didn't work, but the alternative was a c-section, which we've never done since we've been here.

It was a bar with two loops on the end. They looped one end over the calf's legs and twisted with a bar, trying to get the calf to flip over. It worked! They still had to pull it out backward, but both the cow and the heifer calf were fine.

Not really a holiday for our vet, either. Good thing we're friends with him, so it could be considered partially a social call. Except for the bill!

Memorial Day

As long as I can remember, my mom has planted flowers on our relatives' graves for Memorial Day. I used to go with her, and since I've had kids, we all go with her.

We have a lot of relatives buried in our little church cemetery, including my grandparents, my great-grandparents, and my great-great grandparents.

Just last week an article caught my eye in one of our many farm magazines - 'Living the Country Life.' Brent Olson wrote about how Americans are so mobile now that their ancestors are buried everywhere, but his family's lived in the same place for 130 years, so he's planting flowers at five different cemeteries.

My mom planted some lilly of the valley on my grandma's grave and told us grandma always had them by her back door. I told the boys about the time I was a teenager and planted some flowers for grandma at her house - and wore my bathing suit to do it. She thought it was so funny she took my picture. (A rarity! Those days we had FILM!)

I never wanted to live where I grew up. Now I can't quite remember why.

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Two calves born today. We had friends over. Their daughter really wanted to a see a calf being born - we saw one in the pasture right after it was born, and that was good enough for her. Kris later pulled one, but he didn't call us because it came backward and he was afraid it wasn't going to have a positive ending. But it was alive!

My friend's husband told his wife, "I don't know what women are complaining about. She was in a barn, having a backward calf, with Kris pulling on it, and she didn't even make a sound!"

Ah, the human/cow comparisons never get less funny ...

Happy Memorial Day!



Anna with her calf and pigtails

Out

Kris got a call today from our neighbor. Our cow was out along our road. Apparently, one of our fences had shorted out because ... it was underwater! Yes, that's how much rain we've had.

Our neighbors (who are dairy farmers also) waited for Kris and talked as they herded her through a gate back into the pasture.

It's so nice knowing your neighbors are watching out for you. No farmer would drive by, see a cow out, and just keep on going. What if it caused an accident?! It would be horrible for everyone - the driver, cow, farmer, and person who didn't call!

When my parents were farming a little calf got out, ran into the road, and was hit by a car. Who was driving? Just by chance ... my mom's boss! He and the car weren't hurt, but it did break the calf's leg. My dad had the vet put a cast on it. (I took a picture and used Snagit to write the boss' name on the cast. He liked it.)

That's the only time we've had one hit, thankfully - but that's in part because of our neighbors helping out. And all of our ever-present cell phones. Hooray!

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Want to learn some more farm terms?

Dry cows - Cows that are about to have a calf. They're in the period where you stop milking them before they calve.

Example: "We moved the dry cows to a new pasture today. Since it's so wet, they just trample the long grass and get it all muddy and won't eat it."

Fresh cows - A cow that has just had a calf.

For instance, Kris just told me, "So far 76 heifers have freshened."

(Try to work that into your next conversation! See how many listeners you lose!)

Smell test

At lunchtime, Kris was playing with our baby and smelled him to see if he needed a diaper change.

"Does he need one?" I asked.

"I don't know ..." Kris said, handing him over to me to test.

"He definitely needs one," I said. "How can you not know he needs one - you normally have such a good sense of smell! Of course, you smell manure all day long. Not human."

"Yeah," Kris said. "I was pulling a calf this morning, and I slipped on the wet grass and landed with my hand right in the middle of a cow patty. I thought, well, at least I didn't fall on my butt."

"No wonder you can't smell his diaper," I said.

"I might be immune," he agreed.

150 calves born ... 150 more to go!

Tools

When I met Kris, I noted the incredible cleanliness of his car.

My car wasn't quite as clean ... not only did it have a lot of pop cans rolling around in the back, but it certainly wasn't vacuumed or dusted. In fact, I think I could count on one hand the times I washed the outside of it. (Besides parking it outdoors when it rained.)

So when we moved to the farm, Kris got a farm truck. Every farmer has one, as far as I know. My dad always had - and it was always the same. Fly specked, dirty, but also super useful, since it had a toolbox on the back with any tool you could need. It was powerful enough to pull anything. He helped me move numerous times, and the truck bed was always big enough for all my possessions.

Not to say Kris and I didn't have a truck before we moved to the farm - we did. (This should have been a clue to me that there was a farmer in Kris all along.) I didn't know how people got along without trucks. What if you needed to get mulch? Take home furniture you bought? Chop down a Christmas tree?

Regardless, we got a farm truck. This truck has been through a lot, so far. The other day, a cow in the pasture snapped off the mirror. Last year when the cows were out and he was using his truck to herd them back, he ripped off his bumper when he was turning around quickly. During calving season, Kris puts a homemade rack on the back of it so he can transport the calves to the barn. There's no mistaking it's a farm truck.

I was riding with my dad in the pasture today and he said, "Once someone asked Dave (our employee) why my truck always looked beat up. And Dave said, 'Because Jack uses his truck as a tool, not a vehicle.' And Kris does too!"

Of course, when you put it that way, my car's a tool too - a recycling bin for pop cans.

New

I went out to the pasture with my dad and Kris. They picked up this newborn calf - one of 8 born today.



What is there to know about calves?

- They're really wet when they're born. Their mothers have to lick them off to stimulate them and get the fluid off of them. If they don't, another more-experienced cow does it, or Kris towels them off.

- They can walk within an hour of birth.

- Once they're in the barn, Kris treats their bellybuttons with iodine to help prevent infection.

- Iodine is used to make meth, so it's not as readily available as it used to be. (So I hear.)

Entertainment

Kris worked from 6:00am to 9:00pm today. And when I say worked ... he really was working all the time, except for the few minutes where I forced encouraged him to apply sunscreen.

Calves galore - 11 today! Picking them up in the truck. Chasing in the mothers. Feeding the calves. Loading up some feed we're selling. Repeat. My dad worked most of the day too ... and he's twice Kris' age. Will Kris be able to do this physical of work when he's my dad's age? Let's hope! (Of course, we are raising all these boys. One of them better be able to lift a calf onto a truck bed at some point. Next year? Maybe with intense training and a serious growth spurt.)

I did my part as dairy communicator hosting a friend, her husband, and her two-year- old son Jack. (It's tough work, but Kris can't do the physical labor AND show people around the farm.) Jack loves tractors. He loved sitting in them. All of them. We were pretty sure he'd never tire of it. As they left, his dad said, "I don't think Disney World would be any better." We laughed. Then as they were getting in the car - minutes after he exited a tractor - Jack said, "When can we go to the farm?" Ha! It may not be a theme park, but it's cheaper ... and closer.

And check out these rides! It's hard to beat sitting on an early 90s parked tractor! Take that, tea cups.