We officially finished harvesting on the 14th. C worked on picking up the last weedy stuff that they had swathed and J finished it up. They had helped a couple of neighbors finish in between working on our last few acres. It's a good feeling to be done. M had been throwing around the idea of seeding some winter wheat especially after we got a 1/4" of rain but ultimately decided it wasn't a good idea and he wanted to be done farming for the year. We do have a few acres to spray still.
We were very happy to switch gears and do some cow stuff. First up was pregnancy testing our heifers. We like to have them ultrasounded to determine their approximate due date and to do that accurately they have to be done in the first 90 days of pregnancy, and ours were right at that point. We (or the vet) picked a beautiful day to be out working cows with a day that wasn't too cold or too hot or too windy. A rare day in our world.
Our nephew and his friend from Rapid City were here for a week so they got in on the fun. The first order of business was getting the heifers moved home. It can sometimes be an adventure to get them out of their pasture as there is a coulee that can only be crossed on foot, and they are generally on the wrong side of it. M took a bale on the pickup to try to lure them across if that was the case. Lucky for us they were on the right side of the coulee and didn't even try to hide in the tree grove as they sometimes do. So the move home was uneventful.
We had several hours to kill until the vet was scheduled to arrive so we mowed and cleaned up around the barn. The 4-foot weeds in front of the barn door were unsightly and in the way. We then headed to our house for lunch. When we got back to the barn after lunch there were heifers everywhere. We had left the gate between the holding pen and the corrals open so they could make their way in, but we had also left the barn doors open. Ordinarily the gate in the barn would be closed, but the last one through it didn't close it (blame it on the rookies from the city) so the heifers, who are curious things, found their way into the corral then into the barn and then out the other barn door and into the yard. Not much of a problem, however, since they were used to being fed in the corral all winter and ran right in as soon as someone opened the right gate.
The preg testing went pretty smoothly and we were pretty happy with the results of our artificial inseminating. We've got some nice looking heifers. It's hard to judge their size until we get them in the chute, and then we realized they are considerably bigger than last year's crop. We pulled the bulls out and took them to the bull pasture and then trailed the heifers back to their pasture. We plan to test the rest of the herd later in the month.
A few days ago our neighbor was ready to move his cows from CRP up to graze his hailed out pea and lentil fields so we helped with that. It was a bit of a chilly morning so I dug out my hat with ear-flaps. I was not taking a chance on being cold out there! The first cold snap takes a little getting used to. Again, we didn't have much wind so it was actually a pretty nice morning to be out on the prairie.
I finally had time to go to my mom's place to mow. Thankfully, the grass wasn't too high so it wasn't a bad job, but it sure looked nice when I got it done. As I was mowing an airplane buzzed me a couple of times. It was my brother who flew in for the weekend. An airplane overhead always takes me back to my childhood when my dad flew all the time. It was great to have a visit with my brother. He's such a great guy, and I don't see him nearly often enough.
We've had a couple of deaths in our elderly extended family in the past couple of weeks so have had some time with M's side of the family, and last night we attended a wedding for one of R's childhood friends so we've been out and about a lot more than is normal for us. I guess it's good connect once in a while. We forget that sometimes.
No comments:
Post a Comment