Moms

First set of twins born today! Two heifers. Plus five heifers and one bull. Happy Mother's Day!

Kris fed, calved, spent three hours celebrating with our families and me, then was back out for more calving ... and started planting corn!

Our wonderful, fantastic, hard-working employees were great this weekend. Kris asked some of them if they'd be willing to work, and they were! It really made a difference in the planting time. (And stress level.)

He's now doing payroll, and is about ready to fall into bed and start all-day planting tomorrow, along with the regular work. I should mention that my dad also is a great help during this season, since he helps Kris every day. (Unfortunately, this means he's not available to drive my kids to school. I GUESS Kris needs the help more than I do, but my kids are learning far fewer new songs than they did riding with my dad.)

I went with my (fantastic) mom today to see some new mothers ... our neighbors' lambs! Again, my experience is with dairy. I don't know a ton about other kinds of farms, but I'm learning. And what did I learn today? Lambs are adorable.



Also ... my parents made steak for lunch today. While eating it, my son said, "Is this one of our cows, or someone else's?"

Kris said, "It's someone else's cow." (My dad bought a steer from a 4-H member.)

My son looked closely at his meat and said with confidence, "I thought so. It looks brown. Ours would look black and white."

Timing

When you think about farmers planting crops, what do you picture?

It's a studied process. There's the technology of the seeds, the equipment, the fertilizer. But what hasn't changed? Dependence on the weather.

Last year was perfect, weather-wise, since we had all of our corn planted before calving started.

This year was a lot wetter, which seems more normal to me, and a lot more stressful for Kris. It just got dry enough to get into the fields. What does that mean? Before you plant you often have to work up the ground. (There are a variety of tools you pull behind a tractor that do different things to it. The basic goal is to turn the dirt over to get it best-prepared to grow seeds.)

So now that it's dry enough Kris and the employees have to prepare the ground (once or twice over) and plant. All while doing the regular feeding, plus calving and taking care of calves.

It always seems like a race. The weather is only dry enough for a certain amount of days. You have a specific amount of acres to plant. You have limited time. Every farmer in the community is in the fields as much as the moisture and the daylight allows (longer for the ones that have lights on their planters.)

So far 17 heifers and 17 bulls have been born, including nine yesterday. So it's action-packed around here! I'd say it's fun, but I'll wait until every field is planted until Kris breathes a sigh of relief. After that, it's the race to cut, rake, and chop the alfalfa ...

Farming has depended on the weather since the beginning of time! There aren't any more hours in the day, no matter the technology. But it is nice to have tractors with air conditioning.

Red

Our barn has a color! They also put on a wall, forms for the cement curb, and a window.

I went out to the pasture again tonight. A heifer was trying to have a calf. Kris brought her in the barn and pulled it, but the calf was dead. He said it was just a really huge calf. It's always a disappointing way to end a night, even after a generally good day.

On a positive note, three healthy calves were born today - with no assistance. Soon they'll have a new home in a big, red barn!

Background

I sent this picture out to some friends last weekend, and it got a lot of comments - not about the boys, but about how it looks like the cattle checking them out. They don't just seem like they are - they ARE very interested. Our cattle love looking at people that are different, and anytime these darting, small creatures come around, they have their undivided attention. (They also like Kris a lot, because he means food.)

This evening at 8:30pm I was going running and Kris asked if I would run through the pasture to check one more time for calves. I was running along the fence line, in with the cattle, and they were SO EXCITED. They all ran alongside me, getting as close as they possibly could before kicking away, then running back again to catch up. I got splattered with a lot of mud. I spotted a calf, with about five cows hovering over it. I couldn't tell who the mother was.

When I got back and told Kris, he said, "Was it a bull or a heifer? Did a heifer or a cow have it?" Hmm. He said, "I'll send you with more specific instructions next time."

Even though it was 9:00pm, he'd already showered and changed, he put his work clothes on and went back out to take care of the calf. He said if a heifer had it, the chances of it feeding her calf weren't great, because first-time mothers don't know what to do. Or if they do know what to do, the bossy cows crowd all around the calf, trying to take care of it. (I will draw no comparisons between humans and cows in this paragraph.)

When he went out to get it, he saw another cow trying to have a calf. So he warmed up colostrum, brought the calf back to the barn, and made sure the second calf was born with no trouble. Showered again, and collapsed into bed before starting it all over again in 7 hours!

Even though it's tiring, Kris loves this exciting time of year because due to his extreme physical activity, he can eat whatever he wants. Some of us have to go running year round. But we're both doing our part, right? He's taking care of the cattle's every need, I'm bringing the evening entertainment.

Pasture

Some people like to look out on the ocean. Some people prefer a mountain view. While I think those are beautiful landscapes, I also enjoy mine - cattle grazing in the field! Today we put the cattle out on pasture!

They're standing in knee deep grass, eating to their heart's content.

This also makes less work for Kris, since he doesn't have to feed all of them the chopped up food from the feed pile. (He's still feeding the milk cows a supplemental feed, and feeding the one-year-old calves, and feeding the new baby calves - but still, a little less!)

Have you ever seen cattle go out on pasture? They're always so excited. They frolic. They kick up their heels. They check out the fence line to see how far they can go. They eat and eat. When it's quiet, you can hear them tearing off the plants and chewing. It's not a setting on any sound machine I know of, but it's just as peaceful as hearing waves crash on the sand.

Refresher

As I was heading to the barn, Kris told me a cow was having a calf where I'd easily be able to see it give birth - near the edge of the pasture.

I watched for awhile (I LOVE watching calves being born) but my kids got hungry and wanted to leave. My mom said, "Don't you think you should call Kris? There's only one hoof out."

Later he refreshed me on 'reasons a cow needs help calving.' One hoof - bad. One hoof and head - bad. Back feet - bad. Two front hooves - good. He and the employees chased the one-hoof-coming-out-cow into a barn freestall, where he could help her without chasing her all over the pasture. (Cows having calves tend to run away. As you can imagine, this doesn't help the birth progress.)

Then he had to push the calf's hoof back inside her and maneuver it until both of the hooves were coming out with the head following. Then he was able to pull the calf out. Both cow and calf were fine.

He also showed the boys and me a little two-inch scratch on his arm. No, calves can't bite, but when you're pushing and pulling - the calf's teeth had scraped some of his skin off. Welcome to the world, little calf! I guess my kids weren't the only ones who were hungry.

Drinking

After Kris stops giving calves a bottle, he has to teach them to drink from a bucket. Some of them catch on easily, some of them take longer. They all get it eventually.

He sticks his two fingers into the calf's mouth to get her to suck. Then he draws her head down into the bucket. Her natural inclination is to drink with her head up, not down, so when she gets milk into her mouth, she often butts her head upward. However, since she's drinking from a bucket ... she doesn't get any milk this way. So he draws her head back down again until she understands that she has to keep her head down.

Kris already has a worn-away spot on his skin where the calves have been rubbing. They only have bottom teeth, so they can't bite him. By the end of calving season, he develops a callus.

Today was sunny and 75 degrees! We're in the season where I don't really count on Kris being anywhere on time. This morning after I parked at church, I texted him about something I forgot. He later told me he got that text while he was still in the field - and had just pulled a calf. Yet he still made it to church on time - and was showered and dressed! I'm not really sure how he did it.

Also, our neighbors have the most wonderful tradition. Every May 1, they hang a bouquet of flowers and candy on our doorknob with a note wishing us 'Happy May Day!' There is no better start to my favorite month! So - Happy May Day to all of you! I hope your month is full of good weather, flowers, and calluses where you need them!