Baby, Oh Baby

I seem to have a harder time remembering things these days so before calving started I had this great plan to write down calving notes daily so I could remember the stories of which cow lost a calf and had another one grafted on or any other freak thing.  Well, I couldn't even remember to write stuff down!  Calving time seemed to fly by and when we're having 15 calves a day it gets a bit hectic.  We did, of course, have some freak things happen.  I remember one day R asked if I thought other people had the weird stuff happen that we seem to.  Of course, I don't remember which freak thing had happened that day.  We had three calves develop navel infections which we've never had before.  We lost one, but saved two.  We had some gale force winds that seemed to go one for days forcing all the cows down into the windbreaks.  On one of those days we had about four cows calve right next to each other and none seemed to know which calf was theirs.  It always seems like two cows will try to claim one calf and no one will want the other one.  We had to use our best guess and put the pairs in separate pens until they bonded.  We had a couple of really big calves that apparently didn't have an easy birth, and we weren't able to save them.  That's especially disheartening.  We had one born with twisted legs.

When M's dad passed away we had three of our AI'd heifers left to calve.  M's sister became obsessed with checking the cow cams, and we watched one calve over supper.  The cow wasn't getting up and taking care of the new calf which concerned us a little bit until we realized she was having another.  R was at home and ran out to check on it and the second calf had a leg back so he got it into the maternity pen and got it taken care of.  Then later that night the other two heifers calved....one with another set of twins.  Their timing was perfect as we knew we'd have a break before the next cycle of heifers started calving and R was able to have some freedom to spend time with family without worrying about his heifers.

Now calving is over and most of the pairs are moved to pasture and the open cows sold so it's a bit quiet around the barn.  Won't be long, though, before we'll have to test bulls and start the AI process on our heifers.

Seeding is over, also and went pretty well and pretty quickly.  The guys had about 6 hours left when it started raining and we got 3-4" of rain.  Maybe we'll actually have a hay crop this year--yay!  M and I made a quick trip to Billings during the rain.  He is setting up a solar pump system on our new stock well so had to pick up all the stuff for that.  We have also decided to build a barn/machine shed and had to finalize some plans on that.  And, we met my brother who delivered our my mom to us so we could bring her home for the summer.  It is always so nice to see my brother.  We have so much to talk about!

Sawyer turned 3 and for the first time had her birthday party on time--early, in fact, as we had her party the night before her birthday.  We also found out that J and K are having a boy this time, in early October.  Grandpa was pretty excited about that.  I would have been perfectly happy to have another girl to spoil, but I do have a soft spot for boys.  She got more Barbie stuff so I can't wait for our Barbie play date on Monday! 

Speaking of which, M's cousin's son, Jared, who has spent many summers working with us graduated from high school yesterday.  We feel like he's our baby so we celebrated with him.  The graduates have a tradition of giving flowers or candy to people have been important in their lives, and he gave L and I roses.  He's even given me flowers on Mother's Day a few times.  It makes me feel good to think I have had a positive influence on his life.  I always tease him that he was such a scrawny little thing that I never thought he'd grow up to be anything.  He's about 6'2" and 200 pounds so I guess he grew up.  His goal in life is to farm with J so I don't anticipate that he'll go too far afield although he is planning to go to a tech school this fall.


M and R have been busy fencing and R had a plan to plant a bunch of trees near where the new barn is going to go so we got that done this weekend.  M was really undecided on the barn because of the cost, but now that he pulled the trigger is glad that he did.  The other day he mentioned that there haven't  been any real improvements to the infrastructure of the farm other than fences and windbreaks so it was time to do it.  Just hope the cattle and grain markets improve so we can pay for it!

We have a lot to accomplish in a few months so bring on summer!