Bring on the Babies

Once again, I am WAY behind on my blogging.  Not sure where my time goes.  Well, I know where some of it went.  We spent two weeks in Daytona--more on that later.  Then a couple of days after we got back I came down with the flu so didn't move far from my couch for four days.  I had it all-- fever, chills, cough, sore throat, headache, nausea.  We've had so much sickness in the county, and I was pretty proud of myself for not catching anything.  At least I made it through my vacation before succumbing.  I prayed that M wouldn't catch it , but sadly, he has.

We knew that time was of the essence once we got back to get geared up for calving.  We weren't, however, prepared quite soon enough.  We were waiting for the first nice day so we could brand the replacement heifers and get them hauled over to the nighbor's so they'd be out of the way while we're calving.  Finally, on Wednesday, even though it was still below zero, we sorted out about 20 to take to the sale barn.  Then on Thursday we branded and re tagged the rest to haul over.  It was a beautiful day for working cattle.

The trip through the fields to the neighbor's was a bit interesting.  M had a load in one trailer and I had a smaller load in the other.  The first obstacle was the lane out of our yard which was snowy and icy.  M suggested getting a run at it.  I waited until he got up the hill before I went for it.  No problem there.  Then we got to a gate and the snow had blown in.  I was prepared to turn around but M dove in.  I thought he was crazy.  It took a lot of jockeying back and forth for him to get through, but he finally made it.  I made him drive my pickup through, but he made it easily and I could have done it.  I was not taking a chance on getting stuck!  We each had to take another load and accomplished that with no problems.

The next order of business was to bring in all the cows and sort off the pregnant heifers to be kept confined while calving.  That was planned for Friday.  M had a co-op meeting first thing that morning so they didn't get started until the afternoon.  In the meantime, R found two new calves.  It took some time after M got back to find the mothers and get them to the barn and then get all the heifers sorted out.  Those calves arrived a couple of weeks earlier than anticipated.  So, now we are officially in calving mode.

I didn't get in on the sorting because I was having a day with Sawyer.  I had some time with Kade the night before and was so happy to get some cuddles and hugs from the little people who hold such a huge piece of my heart.

Spring is in the air at the farm!