New bottle calves

We've been busy with springtime activities around here. One nice thing about the snow is that it covered up all the junk we still have around here. So we've been doing some cleanup outside. The upside is we've taken a couple of loads of metal to the scrap yard, and they actually pay us money for it! We've got a long way to go, but there has been improvement.

Tim fell through the front deck the other day and scraped up his leg, so Sheryll thinks it's time to do something about that. That led to moving the fence by the driveway, since the only way to get up onto the deck and to the front door was to come inside the chain link fence. Laddie's a pretty big dog, so most folks would rather not do that. So we're moving the fence so that the deck will no longer be in the fenced in area, and you'll be able to walk from the driveway up onto the deck and to the front door.

We're moving the manure from the corral to the gardens so that we can start planting soon. We're already behind on potatoes and peas, but at least we're still ahead of last year. :-)

I've been wanting to get some bottle calves in order to to use some of our excess milk, but the first time we went to the auction they went for quite a bit more money than I expected. So I wanted to try again, but ended up working for UPS the day of the auction. So I came home on break and picked up Trevor, and we headed to the auction. I dropped him off with instructions on what we wanted and how much he could bid up to, and he ended up getting us two bottle calves! The lady at the front desk told him they were heifers, (they don't make that clear when they auction them off) but when we went to pick them up they were both bull calves. Trevor said, "She told me they were heifers!" The guy lifted their tails and said, "Well she may have said that, but she was wrong!" Oh well, we'll keep looking for our future moms for the herd. It was funny when we went to pick them up, because I was still in my UPS uniform. The guy said, "Are you here to deliver something?" I said, "No, I'm here to pick up a couple of bottle calves." He said, "You're kidding...in your truck?" and looks outside for the UPS truck. I said, "No, we're putting them in that back of that 15 passenger van."

Tanner wants me to blog about the leaves he raked up. When I moved the fence there were lots of last fall's leaves that had blown up against it. It was a big job to rake them all up and get them to the compost pile. The younger boys wanted to help, and they all started strong, but only Tanner stayed with the job until he got it all done. I was very proud of his diligence.

It was truly a pleasure yesterday when I watched Tyler and Trevor moving manure with the tractor bucket (they filled it with a pitchfork and shovel since the pile was too close to the feeder to pick it up with the bucket) while I repaired the electric fence paddock to get the cows to more grass today. It's such a blessing to have their help!

We have been meeting Sunday mornings with two other families for home church, and are really enjoying it. We still meet with the original larger group Saturday nights, but most of them are plugged into other churches on Sunday. So those of us that weren't attending a church are meeting together.

Tucker and I leave this Thursday for Minneapolis for the regional Junior Bible Quiz meet. That should be fun. We'll return either late Saturday night or Sunday afternoon.

Until next time...

Moose!

I let the kids sleep in this morning and headed out to do the chores alone. (More later on why that is now an option) It was a clear/still morning with the temp just above freezing. As I headed back to the house with the milk, it was not fully daylight and I saw movement in the trees about a hundred yards away. It took me a bit to figure out what it was, and then I quickly headed into the house for the camera. It was a moose and her calf walking right through our back yard just behind the fence. First time I'd ever seen moose around here, so it was an event for me!

The floor in the dining room and the entry way is now complete.

Since our last post, we sold Star. We started letting the cows outside during the day, and the second day we did that Sheryll said, "Uh, there's a cow in the front yard!" Not what you want to hear as you're climbing into the shower. By the time I got dressed and outside, she had herded Star out of the ditch by the highway and back into the yard. We got some grain and got her back in the barn. Granted, it was a weak/low spot in the fence that she jumped, but true to form she was the only one to jump the fence. We decided to advertise her for sale, and on the second day the ad ran, we sold her. We kept her calf and put it in with Daisy and her calf, and Daisy was kind enough to adopt her. So now we're not even milking Daisy, because the calves take all the milk! So we're back to just milking Bell, which really lowers the stress level at chore time.

Tucker and I just returned from the state JBQ competition yesterday, where his team took third place out of 11 teams. Courtney was too old to compete at state, and Tanner was in the "B" league and they don't compete at state. So just Tucker and I went. Now they have qualified for regionals in Minneapolis the end of this month. We're not sure how that is going to play out, yet.

Going to bed now!