Wild weather ...

We were on the warm side of a weather front that brought blizzard conditions to the lake-effect areas of Michigan. So we only got an inch or two of snow but winds were howling.

At the restaurant I took trash out before closing up. The gusts roared through the tree tops and sounded like a freight train.

My in-laws noticed the big wooden doors on the bank barn flailing in the winds -- some gusts over 50 miles an hour -- and Grandpa backed one of the tractors up there to pin them down. He must have had a terrible time trying to walk against the wind.

They cautioned me about the doors while I was at the end of the lane with the truck, waiting to pick up the kids.

But, guess what ... someone pulled in and needed hay for their horses.

DS1 went up in the hay loft and threw bales down into the calf pens' alley way and we carried them out through the old milking parlor. But at least we got it done.

I was only out for a few minutes at time with the hay and doing chicken chores but my face is windburned and hands are chapped.

Winter is here. Happens every year about the same time but we are still taken aback by the first spell of really bad weather.

A family tradition continues ...

"Leaves three, leave it be. Berries red, never dread."

We found out the hard way that DS1 is sensitive to poison ivy. While helping Grandpa clear some brush they handled some vine-wrapped limbs and branches. The vines were not Virginia creeper as they had hoped.

I haven't seen someone blow up with poison ivy that bad since I was a kid. Poor guy.

Other than that, the kids had a rip-snortin', hog-rootin' good time at Grandma and Grandpa's, who let them stay up late, eat candy 24-7 and watch crime shows.

Wish I could trade places with the kids sometimes!

On behind ...

We thought we were behind -- well, we are. Indiana farmers have harvested about 60 percent of their corn acres. The five-year average for this date would be 74 percent.

But North Dakota is in really tough shape. Only 8 percent in.

We all need good weather.

A fall day ...

Looks good outside. Some of the fields are too wet to work. DH sold some seed wheat to a neighbor. So I asked (being greedy and all, ya know ...) "When will he pay you?"

"Oh, I dunno. When we get around him a bill."

Someone among us sounds Dutchy ;-)

Busted ...

The school nurse called and asked about DS1. "Just be sure we have not lost him, somehow."

"Uh ..." I can't lie to save my life. (Why would I want to?) "He's driving tractor for his dad."

"Oh."

That ended the call.

So DS1 took wagon loads of corn to the feed mill to put in grain bank for us, and to the elevator to sell for cash. At one of the two he said another farmer had a load so wet that juice was coming out the bottom of the gravity wagon. It tested 40 percent moisture. Ideal is about 15 percent.

The next day we wrote a note to his teacher (who grew up on a farm) DH was adamant that this was a one-time only deal. (Until spring, I am thinking) I was afraid DS1 would have to miss recess, stay in and write sentences or something like that.

When he got home we asked what happened. "Teacher said he would have done the same thing," DS1 said with a laugh.

Rolling, rolling, rolling

The neighbors are combining corn so DH, Grandpa and DS1 are running wagons to the feed mill and to the grain elevator where we sell our cash grain. DS1 is busted. The school nurse called and asked where he was.

Not a cloud in the sky. I think everyone in the Midwest is probably running corn today.

Nice thing about blogging ...

I went back through some older stuff and "lo and behold ya," as DH would say, last year we got snow on Oct. 27. This year we had a flurry in mid-October, which was depressing. Now we're in a mild spell.

Sunday on the farm ...

...Absolutely nothing going on except feeding the livestock. Tractors and wagons are parked where the guys left them Saturday night.

Mowing hay ...

... DH and Grandpa mowed hay all day yesterday. DH said this is the latest he has ever mowed. If we can get it in, in good shape, our horse-owning customers would probably like it. Very green and fine textured.

They are also going to try and plant wheat on the high side of the field where we just got beans off -- where it was so wet everything got stuck at least once.

So ... we have hay and wheat planting going on, and harvesting corn is up next.

It's the most wonderful time of the year :-)

Listen to the jingle, the rumble and the roar ...

Apologies to whoever wrote "Wabash Cannonball." The neighbors are here combining soybeans for us. Yasha and I turned off the lights in the house to watch their big International roll through the front field across the lane from us. Matfieh thought it was cool -- except that they drive an IH, not a John Deere. DD Yemilia is hoping that the bean check will be a big step towards her braces.

We turned out the lights to watch because we are under the full harvest moon. Cloud of dust flying.

Unfortunately, there's a ring around the moon. Matches the forecast. We are all up against it due to weather. Tomorrow it might even snow. On Friday we got 1.6 inches of rain. The ground is still awfully soft.

Motorola makes 'em tough ...

I had just talked to DH then he went out, jumped in the truck and drove over to the other farm. Phone rang -- he was calling on the cell phone.

He had dropped it, and the hay wagon ran over it.

But it still worked. Either Motorola makes them really tough, or the ground was really soft, or a little of both.

Just glad it's OK! Hard to believe how much we depend on that gadget now. Or, as we tell the kids, "When we were little, the telephone was fastened to the wall and you couldn't lose it!"

Rain, rain go away ...

October is supposed to be our driest month, but this year it rained every three days. Across the state only a fraction of the soybeans are in and even less of corn acres.

Soybeans aren't as weather-proof as corn.

However, we did get a good third cutting of hay on some of the fields. Got a portion of the wheat in. The salesman from the seed company says "All you have to do is get it in the ground." Hope so!

And, our broiler chicks are really grwoing. Yasha's chicks that he brought home from first grade grew up and we are keeping them as layers. They look like small turkeys but I do believe they are laying.

Not everything is a disaster, in other words.

Rain, rain go away ...

Reading list:

... Right now I am reading "Sojourner Truth's America" about the famous activist; cowboy poetry by Baxter Black; and "Women in Early America: Struggle, Survival and Freedom in a New World." That last is arranged alphabetically, almost like an encyclopedia.

Also started "Healing Grace" by writer friend Lisa Lickel. Set in Michigan. I like books set in places where I've been. So much easier to picture the setting.

Another beautiful day ...

... and a good day to recover from the weekend.

First thing Sunday morning, I saw we'd been TP'ed.

By midgets.

DD hosted a sleep-over with several friends. They rode their bikes up and down the hills in the farm lanes, played tag in the hayfield, played the Wii up at the house and had pizza and ice cream Sundaes. Then they TP'ed at Grandma's, next door, and here while I was asleep.

But, poor DD. During all the hilarity, she and a friend collided on their bikes. She fell off and skidded down the gravel driveway on her bare leg since she was wearing shorts. Next morning, the kitten got shut in her room by accident and while trapped, went potty on DD's bed. Finally, the class hamster, who came home with DD this weekend, escaped from his cage.

It all came right eventually.

Meanwhile, DH and the boys were camping with about 50 other father-son groups from church. They came back tired, sunburned and smelling like smoke.

And, DH admitted, no vegetable of any sort was seen at any of the meals.

We were ready for Monday morning to recover from the weekend!

Those calves ...

... by the red bull look pretty good. Like him they are thick and muscular, big boned and growthy. Too bad he's related to most of the herd now and must move on. He is a red Limousin x Angus cross. About half of his calves were red since we have so many black baldy cows.

The calves are a nice uniform bunch.

I have studied them in detail because they've gotten out every day this week.

September ...

... last of summer.

After a week of rain (more than 7 inches) we finally get a week of clear mild weather.

So the hay mower broke down.

*sigh*

My morning ...

... as a writer:

I launched the kids to school, watched the news, had breakfast with The Hubster, fixed coffee and opened the file for my work-in-progress. For some reason being on the edge of sleepy helps me to just sit down and write then revise it later.

Started the dishwasher. Fixed a pot of coffee.

A neighbor came to buy eggs. I hadn't seen her for weeks so we caught up on her kids going to a new school and her husband recovering from a broken leg.

Poured my coffee.

Phone rings: "You know all that bellerin' we heard last night? The cows got out in the corn."

There went the morning. I'm back now but I'm soaking wet from chasing cows out of eight-foot-tall corn rows. In some places just a few plants were a little crooked.

In other places, the cornfield looked like a bull-dozer had gone through it. No wonder the pioneers used oxen for so much. They sure cleared a path through there!

Alls well that ends well. And I can microwave my coffee.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch ...

DH is talking to his cousin and a wind-mill salesman about wind turbines. Our cow pasture might be a good place for such. Take a big chunk out of the electric bill.

We'll see what the man has to say.

And there were ... 135

...New baby chicks.

We ordered 75 broiler chicks to raise for meat. DH thought maybe we should have gone with 100, but in the mean time the cows got in the chicken pens in the barn and wrecked them. So we were going to use the smaller pen.

At the feed mill's chick day, Poultry Pullman boxes were stacked up all over the office.

The manager said that by the way, some people had not called for their chicks and they had a few extra.

We volunteered to take some ... 10 at first.

At the end of the day they came up with 100 extra.

We agreed to take 50 more. With those 50 and the first 10 extras, we now have 135.

Next project: Working on a bigger pen!

Rain coming ...

The forecast Sunday afternoon was a toss-up. Would we get heavy rain or not? The Cubs game was rain-delayed three hours, and they are upstream from us, weather-wise.

Even though it was a Sunday, and we don't work on Sunday, DH decided his ox was in the ditch and it was time to pull it out.

We had to put hay wagons away on two farms. I rode on the tractor fender back and forth while DH thundered along in road-gear. (He never drives the tractors that fast!) Kind of funny -- when you are out in the open, on a horse or bicycle or tractor, 10 to 15 miles an hour or so seems so fast it takes your breath away. In a car or truck it's maddening.

At the other farm we turned in with the last wagon and, what in the world. A truck was parked across the lane. DH went up to the house. THe renter's truck had died, so the renter, DH and DS1 had to push it out of the way.

The sky was overcast but not threatening when we got home. Had we done all that for no reason? There was a 50 percent chance of rain ...

Noah would have felt right at home though, by the end of Monday. According to our rain gauge, we got about 7 inches.

Rain coming ...

"We'll take care of it ..."

No sweeter words could have been spoken a couple of days ago. We had gone to the local minor-league baseball game and grudgingly forked over $3 to park in the stadium lot.

Then, while reading bumper stickers on the cars around us and wrangling kids and joining the rush of people into the stadium -- we locked the keys in the car. (Pronouns have been changed to protect the guilty ...)

DH started poking around the windows because a couple of his hay customers, oddly enough, were magicians at breaking into cars after locking keys inside. The missing ingredient though, was a wire coat hanger.

Visions of doom crossed my mind: We have only one set of keys; and we couldn't get a ride home with anyone b/c all the inlaws and outlaws went to Canada this week. We'd have to call a locksmith. I saw a bill board for one and called on the cell phone ... but his office hours were 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The police don't do lock-outs unless it's an emergency such as a baby locked in the car.

Bottom line was ... how much was this going to cost and how would we get home?

I prayed and felt led that we should go inside, find the stadium office and ask about a phone book. Our first stop was the Fan Assistance Center. I told the gal on duty what we'd done and asked if they had a phone book so I could call a locksmith.

Bless her heart, she said, "Let me call someone here." She did and told whoever about it. Then they asked if it were in their lot, license number and so on.

The guy who answered the page had sort of a dark-haired Italian "Wise guy" look to him. "We'll take care of it," he said.

DD and I went ahead to the game. Then we got paged to the fan center about "some valuables for you." Lo and behold there were the keys.

The wise guy must have spoken to his associates and there we were. No charge. How thankful we were! I think the $3 for parking was money well spent.

And we are going to get a second set of keys.

Show me the money ...

... just because we're getting a little worried. All but one load of wheat went to one elevator. Almost a month ago. We're looking at, oh, I don't know ... about a quarter of our income for the whole year.

No check has arrived. Praying ... praying ... praying ...

Property taxes are due Friday. The state legislators crow about tax relief for homeowners but shifted the burden to farmers and other property owners, since the money had to come from somewhere.

Our last year's taxes came in two installments -- December 2008 and January 2009.

*sigh*

Back to the fairgrounds ...

...to pick up the kids' projects. Brown paths lined the parking lots. The lanes among the barns, 4-H building and food booths were empty. So was the sky of the midway. No giant Ferris wheel, or Ring of Fire, or Freak-out. Just empty blue above the rock quarry and railroad line. The horses, cattle, sheep, goats, poultry and small animals are gone. Some of the farm animals were sold at auction and have already gone to their last round-up. Others, like our dairy cows and heifers, are back home on the farm.

We ended the fair with the open dairy cattle show, which brought in youth exhibitors from all over the northern part of the state. The kids bravely participated and gathered some last-place ribbons but kind words from the judge. The winning cows looked like box cars. Ours looked like ponies compared to some. The judge did comment about DD's cow that Verna was "correct and well balanced, just not enough of her to compete with some of these long tall cows out here."

We went to the rodeo and watched most of the bull riding with grit teeth. One mean bunch of Brahmas out there.

I took the boys to the tractor pull. We watched the super modified class that look more like rockets than tractors. We were there until one of them blew one its four jet engines. A long delay shaped up as officials set out to gather shrapnel from the track. The noise is indescribable -- a lot like being on the flight line with jets taking off -- the kind of sound you feel as well as hear.

Everyone surprised me by deciding after the 4-H show to keep the cows out there all week.

DS2, "Yasha," made the rounds of all the animal barns and displays. His favorite was the cow and calf barn. The dairy association lined up several close-up cows who freshened all week during the fair. Fairgoers could see the new borns, participate in hand milking, even saw managers pull a large calf.

It was fun and now we're done. Until next year ...

The fair ...

So far we survived. However, DD's beloved Verna, a 3-year-old Holstein, placed third in a tough class. We are staying ... all week ... for the open show. Means we have to go into the fairgrounds and milk the show cows twice a day there.

Off to the Fair

If I were wired differently, I could be posting from our remote site, the dairy barn of the county fair.

However, since we do everything old school, I am home at the desk top with laundry going.

We have two cows and two heifers at the fair this year. Because they are Holsteins with a lot of white on them, the kids have their laundry going at the wash rack at the dairy barn. (Or ... "worsh" rack if we want to pronounce it correctly :-)

Romance!

After I unloaded a hay wagon for DH, he put a hay bale down at the side door and gave me his hand to help me down.

How sweet is that!

All in one day ...

... The cell phone died; DD appeared to have a near-fatal sinus infection; Bible school started; DH had hay down on two farms with rain in the forecast; took the boys to VBS and helped wrangle kids; had to take DD to the doctor and be back in time for two Little League games; try and catch up on laundry; do chores for DD; run DH and DS1 back and forth between the two farms; spent half an hour with someone in India trying to get the cell phone working again; and tried to get a manuscript ready for a contest.

It all sounds do-able on paper in the spring.

Cowboy angels ...

DH called on the cell phone from the other farm. Never a good sign.

"Could you all come over here and give me a hand? The steers all got out. In the cow pasture. The bull's out there too. And one of the cows just had a calf."

Sounded like a rodeo to me. DS1 hopped on his bike and sped over there. I called Grandma and Grandpa and arranged to leave DS2 with Grandma and ride over there with Grandpa.

While we rode over there I was praying. The pastor talked about Peter and John healing the lame man at the Temple (you know, "Silver and gold have I none but such as I have I will give to thee ... in the name of Jesus rise and walk.") Pastor said they were going about their every day business, but prayed up and expected to receive an answer.

I was praying (an expecting) that the Lord would send cowboy angels to help us with separating the cattle and getting them all back in the right pen, and getting the new calf treated with no one getting hurt. The beef cows get pretty testy about anyone or anything messing with their calves.

I figured all the cowboys whoever lived must have had guardian angels so there must be some angels around that have worked cattle. If the Lord would send some of them along ...

When we got over to the other farm, DH and DS1 were just penning up the steers. The bull went into the other pasture and they locked him up, too. That left just the the cows and mama of the newborn calf to deal with. DH caught it and we tried to get the truck between the cow and calf. Grandpa banded it and gave it its shots quickly while the mama was standing by getting testy and snorty. I think she was within seconds of head-butting someone when they finished, but, you know, no harm, no foul. We just don't want anyone to get knocked down and stomped on.

DH said if he had known it was this easy he would not have called us. Wasn't easy, it was an answered prayer.

The wheat hay

... yielded about 44 big squares, or 44,000 pounds, or 22 tons off 33 acres.

That was a little light, but, there was no expense for seed, lime or fertilizer. Just paying the neighbors for custom baling.

Saturday the guys finished disking then seeded soybeans there.

Rustlers? Here?

This made us wonder. While DS1 and DH were choring at our cousins, a truck and trailer slowed down as though fixing to turn in at cousins' cow barn. When the guys went out of the barn to see who was there, the truck sped up and drove away.

They were puzzled and concerned because ... you don't just take a truck and gooseneck out for joy ride ... today is cattle day at the livestock auction ... half the county knows the cousins are on vacation ... lotta guys are out of work ...

On the other hand, if they were lost they might have been slowing down to read addresses.

On the other hand, DH and the boys sort of know everyone's rig around here and did not recognize this one.

On the other hand ... guess we'll just have to BOLO for anything odd over there.

While I was cooking ...

DH and MIL were moving hay wagons into the barn since it looked like rain; then he helped the neighbors with the 1,000-pound big square bales we got off the wheat field; sent DS1 out to disk so Grandpa could plant a hay field they had plowed up; and to top it off, two black heifers ... hereinafter known as Thing 1 and Thing 2 ... calved at the same time. Both had black bull calves.

I was just cooking burgers at the restaurant while all this was going on. Maybe having a job in town is a good thing ...

First cutting ...

... of wheat hay.

Hundred-pound bales.

The kids and I probably aren't going to be much help with those.

Mowing hay

Summer's here. We have hay down on two different farms. DH and Grandpa plan to plow up each of those fields later and plant a new crop.

That said ... I should have stayed at work today instead of coming home early. I got roped into helping change a tire on the hay rake; watched Grandpa tweak the ground-drive mechanism; and helped DH hitch up hay wagons and the rake.

With all the long grass growing up around them, the wagon tongues were not only heavy but tangled in long grass. DH had to help me with the elevator.

Spring colors are so bright they looked computer=generated: brilliant blue sky and clear spring green of the new leaves. By the end of summer everything looks tired, dusty and faded but now everything is new and all things are possible as far as having good crops and good prices.

The Cow Are Out ...

... In a good way. We finally got them out into the pasture. Three of the cows calved in the barn, not the best environment.

It's picture perfect breezy day, not a cloud in the sky. The wind in the long grass makes it look lives waves on Lake Michigan, alternating bright green with silver green.

Note to self ... Panda's two daughters have calved; the first had a bull; second had a heifer.

Button calved today with a big red bull calf. She's walking like she's three sheets to the wind, probably partly paralyzed from that big calf.

I hope this does not mean the heifers will have a hard time.

Fire!

Grandma called and asked if DH was around ... because they had set the cows' big round bales on fire and it was sort of blowing towards the barn. And did we have any garden hoses?

As I was putting my shoes on I remembered the big fire extinguisher we have here at the house. I got it for when we are brooding baby chicks. The combination of sawdust or straw plus heat lamps can be a fire hazard. I've never had to use it, though.

I rushed out to the barn and found the big round bales at the fence line feeder burning. So the smoke and embers blew into the concrete cow lot, not right into the barn.

Grandma and Grandpa wrestled with the garden hoses. I kept thinking the volunteer fire department could put this out in about 30 seconds. Did we need the fire department?

Smoke billowed all across the cow lot and out across the wheat fields. Some was white, some was black. A weather change is on the way so it rolled along the ground. Couldn't see through it. No wonder people talk about smoke screens.

The fire extinguisher was good for about one bale. I had to rush into the calf barn to get their water hoses out because I figured Grandma wouldn't have seen them in awhile and they were too heavy for Grandpa to carry.

Out I went with all the hoses I could find. Of course most had ends missing.

Piece by piece they put together enough hose to reach the length of the row of bales.

As I came staggering out with more hoses there was DH. He'd seen the smoke from the other farm and rushed home.

Finally we got all the hoses hooked up and flames extinguished, although the hay smoldered, flared up and smoked for hours.

For lunch I suggested hot dogs over the fire but DH wanted to come up to the house for a hot lunch. Pot pie to day. All I had to do was turn on the oven and pop them in.

But, no wonder my clothes don't last long, what with the mud and soot and everythign.

Peeps!

A flock of moms carrying cardboard boxes and leading toddlers headed to the first-grade pod in the elementary school.

DS2's first grade class hatched chicks in a Hova-Bator incubator with a fan. Out of 24 set, 19 hatched so his teacher had to use the wisdom of Solomon in giving out the chicks to the kids. Some parents didn't want chicks so about two-thirds of the kids were interested.

DS2 ended up with three. He named all three Chirpie, Charlie and Fluffy but can't tell them apart. We might be able to later.

We put them in a potato box from work, along with pine bedding, a lightbulb, feed and a little drinker. The feeder and waterer will fit any size Mason jar, so I attached them to jelly jars.

Plan is to make a chicken tractor for them and keep them in the garden vs. finishing them for meat. (I want DS2 to keep eating meat!)

Now I have to find out all I can about chicken tractors.

A novel idea could hatch from this -- a hippie eco-friendly type gal butts heads with a conventional "heavy iron" kind of farmer. Not that sounds like me in real life. No. Not at all ...

Taking three first-grade chicks is a lot more work than starting a bunch of 50 or 100!

Dropping calves

I never liked that term. Most of the time the cows lay down to calve. Yesterday one of our black-baldy cows had a bull calf -- first-born of many brethren. I think we need a few sistern in there, too, because the cows are getting older and we need replacements.

Here's where DH and I part way. He wants all Angus, the solid black ones, because of calving ease, mothering ability and rate of growth. I think you can get all that and better temper, too, out of colored breeds -- Shorthorn or Hereford.

Ideally we need both. If we sell cattle at auction, black cattle bring the best prices because buyers assume the animals have Angus background and will produce high-quality meat. If we sell them for freezer beef, color doesn't matter. I believe we can get as good growth from the other two British breeds.

I wish I had not started thinking about replacement heifers. We have favorite ones among the old cows and I hate to think culling them.

We've started!

Boots on the ground and all that. DH, Grandpa and DS1 got started plowing and disking today on the neighbor's farm with the sandiest soil. I had to run them back and forth from the field to supper and back, which meant I got to go four-wheeling in the truck.

It's still a little wet but we are behind. On the other hand, the cold wet spring will make for a big first cutting of hay (I hope) which is our biggest cash crop.

Before and after ...

This has nothing to do with farming.

We went on a family outing to a nearby indoor water park this weekend.

By the end of the day my purse contained:

Car keys
Cell phone
Two bill folds, one mine
Three pairs of glasses, none mine
A slinky
A whoopie cushion
Six plastic jumping frogs
Various wristbands
Crayons
A flyer about the water park

This in addition to the usual:
Car keys
Cell phone
One billfold
A first aid kit with bandaids, salve, Ibuprofen for adults and children
Crayons
Scrap paper
Six ink pens, none that work very well
Lip gloss
Library card

As the kids entrusted me with all their swag, I started to think about hiring a pack animal. But also, the Bible does tell us to bear one another's burdens. I guess that does include your 10-year-old's new Whoopie cushion.

It's big, it's loud, it's in the chicken barn

That's what DH told me a few nights ago. He came into our room at midnight, wearing his barn clothes, fumbling for his glasses and then told me those awful words, "Something's out in the barn."

He added it was flying around. Not a chicken. Maybe a bat? He and the dog went on out while I threw on coveralls and -- whoa, stuff is flying around. Do I want a rabies-carrying bat in my hair? -- And a parka with a hood. Grabbed a broom and I was armed and dangerous.

The hens were screeching with horror as I went out. I did see a big black shadow against the barn lights.

Way too big to be a bat.

Went inside and saw a great horned owl up in the rafters, alternately dazed by the lights and determined to get us before we got it.

I had never seen one up close, in the wild or in my barn. It flew up into the chicken wire between the rafters and roof and glared down at me. Its eyes were huge, its fluff covered talons were huge and its curved black beak looked wicked, too. As I recall it was either hissing or snapping. Maybe both. It looked big and fluffy in soft brown and gray, but it was mad.

We got it out by turning the barn lights off, then on, holding the dog back and shooing it out with a broom. Then we propped up the sagging wire as best we could.

As near as we could tell, it flew into the lit chicken barn through an open door but could not figure out how to get out. Although the hens were traumatized the owl did not attack any of them.

We talked about it all later. Although one day a year the owl might attack the chickens -- and might never be back since it had a horrible experience with the lights and all -- the rest of the time it's working for us, taking mice and pigeons that steal grain and spread diseases.

I feel privileged to see something so cool in the wild -- not a dusty stuffed specimen at a museum or a listless zoo resident. Just hope it stays out of the barn from now on!

Wheat and double-cropping ...

DH talked to an Extension forage specialist at Purdue about the wheat hay. They decided whether to let it grow and bale it will depend on the stand and how it develops over the next few weeks with warm weather and rain.

If it looks good, one plan would be to bale it in big squares then double crop soybeans after it.

It always seems like we could sell more hay if we had it. This might make more good hay available for sale over the winter.

Note to self ...

Wheat hay:

Pro: Volunteer wheat is already greening up on last year's wheat ground. If we made hay there for the beef cows ... 1. It could free up some of the better hay to sell. 2. Field work on those acres is already done, would save on time and fuel. 3. Would save on seed and fertilizer cost of planned crop.

Con: 1. Will it grow enough to mow and bale? 2. Will the cows eat it (they are not too awful picky ...) 3. What if there is some weird fungus or something that's dangerous for the the cows? 4. Input costs of mowing, raking and baling, twine and labor (We use the smaller tractors for hay, though)

What about wheat pasture ... h'mmm ...

Wait a minute, and it'll change

I last wrote about the joy of going outside with no coat or hat (or various other layers).

Had to get them back out. On Tuesday and Wednesday we had pouring down rain, gusts to 50 miles an hour and then snow again. *sigh*

The winter wheat sown last fall has all germinated and greened up. With the heavy rain and flooding, patches of it were damaged -- or as DH would say, "drowneded out." The price of wheat dropped quite a bit yesterday based on the USDA crop report but seems to have recovered now. We no longer forward-contract it, but still watch the markets and growing conditions in other areas pretty closely. I expect we will soon start reading harvest progress reports from Texas.

Despite all the uproarious weather, my daffodils' buds are plumping up. These are against the east foundation of the house, a sheltered spot with morning sun. Hope to see them soon and very soon.

Open the Windows

All I can say is wow. After a long winter of record cold and snowfall, today the sun is out, the sky is a hazy blue and it is 68 degrees outside. I went outside with no jacket or parka, no fur hat, no mittens, no down vest, no wool sweaters and no long johns. Only finding an actual dandelion or two would make it better.

Ah ...

A new book ...

Our friend Lisa in Wisconsin sent us a copy of her new book, The Gold Standard, one the Heartsong Presents mystery series. Heartsong is an imprint of Barbour Publishing.

Here's the set-up: "Just how high a price does buried treasure command?"

DH got to it first. Since he reads a few pages at a time, I waited and waited for him to finish it. I thought he'd like it since it was set on a farm in rural Wisconsin.

After he finished, I asked for his impressions.

"It was good and interesting until the very last. Then they arrested --"

"Don't tell me -- I haven't read it yet!"

"Well, then, the last part was all mushy stuff. It was pretty good until then."

So there you have it -- a man's perspective.

Lisa said in an e-mail that the book need to be have a certain percent of romance, just like cattle feed has to have a certain percent of protein. With that perspective, maybe DH will overlook ruining a good story.

Here's a little something about the book: "School teacher Judy Winters sets out to solve the mystery surrounding her Aunt Louise's murder back on the family farm. Amid her sleuthing, Judy encounters Hart Wingate, a young man who rented the adjoining farm and helped Aunt Louise with farm chores. When Judy learns that her boyfriend, Graham, has secretly been visiting Louise, she decides to move away from him for the summer and think over the situation.

"As Judy explores her aunt's house, she finds and follows clues in Louise's mother's diary to unearth buried treasure. But was the treasure behind Louise's murder?"

I'm reading it right now.

Lisa is one of my buds from ACFW, American Christian Fiction Writers. So ... I guess I'm out now as a writer. We became acquainted via the group's e-mail loop. I can't say enough about ACFW's emphasis on encouraging and building up writers at all stages of their career.

As soon as I figure out how, I'll have to add a link to ACFW to the blog.

The home place

Here is a picture of the home farm, where Grandma and Grandpa live. The house was built in the 1840s. Behind it (not shown) is the original log cabin. Most of the trees are locusts.

In the foreground are our some of our beef cows and calves. They are "black baldies," crossbred. They inherit their black color from their Angus side and white markings from their Hereford side.

Way in the back, by the fence, is our old boss cow. She is half Holstein, so she's long, tall and almost too bony when she's raising a calf, because of her high milk production. She also lets other calves bum extra milk off of her without a fuss. One of DH's hay customers said that cow was so ugly that we should sell her and buy some good ones. However, she's had the biggest, growthiest calves every year. Can't judge by appearances.

Obviously -- juding from the leaves and size of the calves -- this picture is several months old.

I blush to admit I just figured out how to upload pictures

Road trip! Road trip!

We road-tripped to my parents to deliver the freezer beef they ordered from us. The kids were wired and tired, excited to go to Grandma and Grandpa's house, tired from a long day at school and irritable as they are jammed into the back seat like peas on a pod.

(Our Buick LeSabre that seemed as roomy as a luxury yacht is now quite packed as the kids just keep growing bigger and taller.)

To reduce the mayhem, we started playing a counting game. First they planned to count horses and cows and "bury" them as we passed cemeteries. Then they decided to count cars and trucks and scrap them as we passed junk yards. They got into a disagreement about junkyards or cemeteries.

We settled on counting "strange lawn things" which we defined as any lawn ornament that made you go "Huh?" when you saw it. For instance, a vintage bull-dozer in a front yard, or an iron bedstead in the middle of a flower garden. Or a lard kettle. Or wagon wheels. Milk cans. All sorts of things.

The bull-dozer was our top prize.

Next was a cross section of a huge log, painted to look like a giant watermelon slice.

Next had to be a lawn "glow ball" (I think the garden catalog calls it a 'gazing globe') that looked homemade. As a matter of fact, it looked like a bowling ball coated with plaster embedded with glass pieces. Sort of a stained glass, mosaic effect.

I'm sure we'll notice more as the weather improves and people start working in their yards.

Farm accident (not here)

A young farmer in the next county was killed Monday when he became entangled with the power-take-off of his tractor.

We don't know yet who it was, but have seen enough and been through enough to have hearts heavy with sympathy.

The PTO spins at thousands of time per minute to operate equipment such as feed grinders, hay mowers or balers, or pumps of various sorts. There are many applications. At this time of year he was probably grinding feed for cattle or perhaps pumping manure out of a lagoon or slurry-store. Clothing entangled in the PTO will whip you to the ground or perhaps into the machinery.

New machinery put guards, like sleeves, over the PTO and various shafts. But farmers get tired and get in a hurry and sometimes take the shields off, sometimes step over when they could walk around.

I've always been thankful that DH and Grandpa are cautious in such situations. DS1 seemed a little too reckless until he saw safety films including accident-scene videos in the 4-H tractor-driving project. That settled his hash more than scolding from us.

But as for the family who lost their husband and father we have a great deal of sympathy. When DH was in a minor accident a few years ago it seemed like the end of the world.

It's a warning for all of us. For me to keep clothing mended and remind the kids and all not to wear loose floppy clothes. All-cotton clothes will tear but synthetics will make a rope that hauls the victim in. For the men to stay alert and not be in such an all-fired hurry that someone's in an accident. For all of us -- to keep praying for the family who lost their loved one.

Visting today ... D.D.

Hey today it is 22 F heat wave !!!!!

Whiter than snow ...

Since we've got a lot of it around here, I thought about making some notes to myself about snow. "Whiter than snow" is a Christian (um ... simile ...no, wait ... metaphor ... um ...) figure of speech for Jesus taking away our sins.

For instance, the old hymn "Jesus Paid It All" includes the lines,

Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.

Snow is rare in Israel and called refreshing. We traveled there in 1994 and our tour guide marveled that we could see Mount Hermon several mornings in a row from Tiberias. Usually the mountain is hidden by clouds, he said. Melting snow from Mount Hermon feeds the Jordan river. Against the hazy horizon, the white mountain top was beautiful and evoked another thrill that we were actually in Israel.

Here, snow is more mundane. But it does serve some wonderful purposes.

It covers up all the debris in the yard that I won't have to see for weeks. Dog-chewed tennis shoes, perhaps a misplaced Frisbee, weeds, brown grass, etc.

The snowpack makes a sunny winter day dazzling. Even the shadows are blue instead of dark.

Snow covers and protects crops that lie dormant over the winter including next summer's hay and wheat. When it melts, it recharges the soil moisture (this is a really good thing for crops) and adds to the Great Lakes, from whence much of our weather cometh.

When the wind sculpts in along the fence rows, it's easy to forget fish-tailing down the road and dodging potholes. It delights small, medium, large and overgrown children who are glad to have a day off school. Finally, how can we go sledding without snow?

One surprise is that the snow brightens dark winter nights, throwing a soft glow back into the black sky.

I'm reaching for a spiritual application here and ... wonder if snow can be a metaphor for purity and salvation. Sins covered like the kids' trail of debris in the yard; spirits refreshed and recharged; darkness brightened. I think I'll have to work on that last bit, but, for Jesus to make us whiter than snow is pretty amazing.

Deep freeze

It's so cold that the hens' eggs freeze in the nests if we don't pick them up soon enough. If we pick them up with a bare hand they crack immediately.

From inside the house, it's a dazzling day. First thing this morning all the trees and shrubs, around the house and in the woods across the mile, looked like they were flocked or painted white like Christmas trees can be. Up close even the weeds looked pretty, like they were made of cotton balls or Q-tips. Some of the clouds look like quilt batting.

Wind chills are pretty darn cold. Once it gets to about 10 below, a few degrees either way make no difference. Still cold.

Our favorite website is National Weather Service and we discovered a new thing: the hourly graphical forecast, which includes temperature, humidity, wind, cloud cover and precipitation charted out by the hour. It's interesting for winter but looks like it might be a real find for us next summer when debating whether and when to mow hay.

Here is (hopefully) a link. To find another location, I think you have to go to the home location and put in a zip code or something.

I think it's cool: http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?site=iwx&map.x=137&map.y=95&FcstType=graphical

Wish list

'Tis past the season but as we were calculating some bills for freezer beef I started to wonder about a scale.

We don't have one for the beef cattle. When DH and customers and the butcher work out a date, he and Grandpa (me, too, sometimes) pick out the heaviest ones. With the last two, Grandpa guessed they would both dress out at 800 pounds, hanging weight, or about 1,330 to 1,335 pounds. One steer's sides weighed 378 and the other's weighed 438. So the sides averaged about 400 to 410.

I wonder if we had a scale we could sell in a more timely fashion and tighten up on the feed costs.

I'd put a scale on my wish list.

Also ... a new roof on Grandpa and Grandma's barn. It's a several-thousand dollar job. I don't know, though. If we talked to a few guys looking for work these days, maybe we could get a deal. I leave horse-trading like that to DH.

Would be nice to remodel our poultry facility. Now, doesn't that sound high class? In real life it was a three-sided tramp shed for cattle. It's long, tall and drafty, which would suit cattle fine. It needs to be snug but well-ventilated for the chickens. Right now, it's not. However, it gets too hot in the summer. Some re-engineering might be called for.

A few years ago we did get our wish for a newer tractor with a cab. It's made such a wonderful difference in the winter to have a heated cab. When we were milking cows through a super cold winter I added up all the calories DH consumed. At 4,000 calories a day he was losing weight. He leveled off at 6,000. I was baking something every day -- now I know why God created pie. Think of how many calories you can slug into a guy in a simple slice of pie. It's a beautiful thing.

I would love to have the kinds of flowers in summer that our Amish and Mennonite neighbors have. However, I think they go to the produce auction and buy a pallet-load at a time or something. They surround their houses and trees with impatiens and other annuals. I've often thought of doing all white annuals around the house but we end up with bright pink or red geraniums from the 4-H club. They are pretty, too, so no complaints here.

And the wish list goes on. This time of year I enjoy catalogs from poultry suppliers and seed catalogs. Each one makes spring seem a little closer

Weather or not ...

More ice is predicted for tonight although the latest forecast calls for warmer air and rain instead of ice. A strong east wind is unfortunate because our cow barn and the neighbors are open to the east, and a cold draft is no fun at this time of year!

Our neighbors called about returning home from their trip. They are delayed so we might chore over there one more time.

I guess the most tiresome part was carrying water. We broke the hydrant in the duck house and had to turn that water line off. The larger group of layers was farthest from the house. I could have used cold water from the cow barn but had to walk up and over a very steep barn hill. Matter of fact the day before yesterday I slipped on the ice and went down the barn hill like a human toboggan. Not only was I embarrassed but was afraid I sprained my wrist. But, no, it's OK.

Odds are -- given that the biggest tractor is fuelled up and the generator is in good repair -- we most likely won't get the bad weather that's forecast.