Dairy Show Time!

For the past three days now we've been at the barn where the kids are leasing their dairy heifers and trying to get ready for the state dairy show, ugh! I say ugh, but really it's a wonderful learning experience for all of us. First off, none of us can get over how fast these girls have grown! WOW! So much so that when we walked into the barn we didn't recognise them at first, we had to check the ear tags to make sure, we couldn't believe our eyes. Then, the second day they needed to wash them. I don't know how many of you have ever washed a cow; much less a young heifer; but it was about as easy as nailing jello to a tree! I sincerely hope it gets easier as they get older, but at this point I'm thinking it'll be more like trying to wrangle an octopus! That being said, we had a nice time and the heifers were as patient as I could expect them to be given the lack of experience on all counts.

Andrew heads in first to spray them down.

Faith has just realized how much poop can be stuck to one heifer... and I don't think she was impressed...

Oddly enough Andrew's heifer was reasonably clean, ironic since he is a living, breathing Pigpen, (from the Charlie Brown comic strip!!! Literally!) but he's happy and I'll bet he gives his immune system a run for it's money! Oi vey!

Nope, not impressed. We had no carding comb, so it was picking off the dingle berries with our fingernails and/or scrubbing them off with the brush. We found a combination of both worked nicely, it just took a long time. I asked her if she wanted to do this again next year, fully thinking she'd say no, as this really was more Andrew's 'cup of tea' and his idea. Her response shocked me, she said "Yes!" but with that preteen attitude that had just a hint if 'Duh Mom' in it.

Soaking the switch (the proper name for the fluffy part of the tail) really seemed to help loosen the dingle berries, too bad we couldn't soak the entire cow!

As I mentioned above, Andrews heifer was markedly clean compared to Faiths, so he had a bit more time to walk her around and practice as if he were in the show ring. I was glad to get this picture of him, I think it's pretty much the essence if Andrew: working with his cow, on a farm, covered from head to toe, grinning from ear to ear.

I think he was 'setting her up', but in all likelihood he was probably "heifer whispering."

Finally! We get to the rinse down and not a dingle berry in sight. Let me tell you that took a particular mindset and a whole lot of determination!

It's late in the day but Faith was able to get in a bit of practice, it didn't go as well as Andrew's did, but this heifer was tired and had had ENOUGH! Faith is not as confident as Andrew and gets frustrated easier, but was able to take a breath and get relaxed enough to get a bit of 'good practice' in and ended on a good note. This heifer is also a few months older, a great deal larger and pushier. I'm sure once Faith gets to practice without her having just been maxed out things will go as smooth as they had previously. It's a nice confidence builder for her that's certain.

The show is Monday morning and it's the state show, not a 4-H show. I missed the deadline for that, and I was very upset with myself, but it just hadn't made it to the top of my priority list at that time. This show will have more competition than a 4-H show but the kids are so excited anyway and it doesn't matter to them how many people there will be, they are just happy to be able to try it. We'll be at the fairgrounds most of Sunday and Monday with the barn that owns the cows helping them do what all they need us to help with, I'm assuming we'll be on poop scooping duty again and possibly washing, brushing, grooming, feeding, etc. So it will be interesting for sure.

Oh! I forgot to mention that today the kids got to learn how to clip the heifers! I'm not kidding when I say that after washing for three hours the previous day and clipping for about an hour and a half today these kids are dedicated! I took pictures, but because if the lighting in the barn and the movement of the heifer and all they didn't come out well so I opted not to post them. I know I learned a lot about this whole process (and it's not even my project!), so I'm sure the kids did too. Now I'm off to iron the 'dairy whites' that they need to wear in the show. I'm not sure who's bright idea it was to choose a white shirt and pants to wear while having anything to do with a cow, but it is what it is, right? Talk about about crazy, don't they know cow poop splatters!

Hay Day #2

I spent the day doing hay with my kids; of course; and my nephew, another 150 bales in and not a complaint among them! It was very windy here today which was nice because it kept us cool, but was a bit of a pain because it blew the loose hay around us like we were inside a snow globe. At one point Andrew put his swimming goggles on to keep it out of his eyes, they didn't last long due to the fact he steamed them up almost instantly. Haying is hard but oh so rewarding work. Too cool off before dinner I took them to the lake, I'm surprised they had the energy to swim!We also dug potatoes and picked cucumbers to go with dinner tonight. After dinner cleaned up the pasted butts on the newest chicks. Out of 50 I think there were 6 that needed attention. Who but Twistie could make that fun?! After the butts were cleaned up they needed to be held to dry off, it was hard to find children willing to hold adorable baby fuzz balls, but I managed. ;-) So now as I write this the kids are getting ready for bed, we've got another early day tomorrow and it'll start with a taking the second batch of chicks; which are now beasts, to be harvested. I'm too exhausted to transfer and posts the pictures tonight, in fact I think I might even skip Army Wives tonight and head straight to bed! Thankfully the DVR is set to record it in the event that that is what I decide.

I am so thankful for these kids today, they worked as hard as I did and we had such fun. Not many kids; I know of a few, would be willing to work that hard or do work that hard and do it with a joyful heart. The best part of it all for me is that I never even had to ask for their help. I fully expect to do all the hay myself; I'm the farmer, and it is so nice that the kids help without being asked. I'm so proud of all of them.

100 bales in several more to go!

What to do for a birthday for a kid that has nearly everything, like so many American kids do?? Hummm...... Ding! (that's the sound of my brain coming up with a great idea!) I'll invite him down for a day on the farm! My nephew; whom you may have read about here, is like so many American kids that have more than everything they want and are nearly impossible to do anything for on special occasions, like birthdays. Well they don't call me Twistie for nothing! I printed up a flyer inviting him down in the summer for a day on the farm; the flyer said it entitled him to do farm things, like poop scoop, feed the animals, collect the eggs, lug water, stack hay, you know things the kids and I do everyday! You should have seen his face it was like I'd given him the moon! I had sort of planned to have him down at this time of year to really give him a whack at farm/country life by having him help with the hay. I've recently heard of "haycations" but thought I'd test the waters to see if it actually worked! ha ha! The hay was to arrive yesterday and I could use all the help I could get, as Garlic smashed my foot when I was picking out his feet the other night, due to his lack of balance, and I've got a pretty good idea I've got a broken bone or two in there. When the hay needs to be done it waits for no one, smashed foot or not. We had a dicey afternoon weather wise yesterday and it did not arrive, but was taken undercover, rain and hay do not mix well when you're looking at long term storage.... So the hay guy called and said it would be delivered in the morning. I was not about to let these kids be bored, so I came up with a new plan on the fly.

We pulled the garlic... Andrew lugged it to the porch...

We hung it up to dry...

We threw down the rest of last years hay to make room for this years hay...

They jumped into the hay which was stacked nearly to the top of the ladder... and did the evening barn chores. This was from 4 pm on. Three very tired children went to bed and slept as well as you can with the heat and a wiggly and notoriously gassy dog that they wanted to sleep with them not to mention the excitement of company! I'd have taken a picture but left the camera in the barn and was not about to limp back to the barn to get it. Though it was a great photo op!

Breakfast - fresh fruit and cereal! Isn't the fruit pretty?

The hay arrives and the heat does too, it's over 90 degrees and I've got 100 bales of hay to stack. Note, I do not have an elevator, yet, so each bale is lifted off and thrown overhead into the loft then stacked. It's hot, sweaty, scratchy, hard work but it smells SO good, not as good as second crop, which will come on another sweltering day in August but hay smells good and what a good job to have done. I'm so impressed with these kids, words cannot accurately describe how proud I am of them for their willingness to pitch in and help and only one or two complaints, and justified at that, it WAS hot!

That's a lot of hay, yet not even half of what I need for the year.

*My nephew thought this would make a good family picture so I let him take it. A hard working family!

Water break...

The hay is all unloaded and stacked in the barn in just shy of two hours!! We kicked butt and took names! I think that was the fastest unload in my history, I couldn't have done it without the help of my kids and my nephew. This is the From the Country Farm Hay Crew 2010 gulping down an ice cold root beer after a hard days work had been completed.

They told me it was the best root beer they'd ever tasted!

Seeing as how the hay essentially flew off the wagon and it was over 90 degrees and part of the overnight trip to the farm deal I took the kids to the lake to cool off. I was impressed, nobody drown from exhaustion! I was not however impressed with the language of the people around us or the couple having a fight at the picnic table not 15 feet from us. Talk about a way to ruin a trip to the beach! Needless to say, we didn't stay long.

One night ended up turning into two nights because of the hay and tomorrows plans, which is no big deal, he's having a good time as are Faith and Andrew and when I drop him off tomorrow and his mom tucks him in bed it'll be like "Good Night Son, see you next Tuesday!"
So what did I give my nephew for his birthday? Hopefully a lifetime of fond memories. (and maybe a good night's sleep.)

like money in the bank...

I've been at the wood pile for a while now splitting and stacking and this is the result as it stands currently. Having purchased a new chain for the chain saw helped speed up the process immensely! Lola, (my axe) worked wonders, took a bit of getting used to but works wonders just the same. I love the feeling I get when I split a foot+ diameter chunk of wood in half with one swing of the axe! It's powerful! I've still got a bit more to do but I don't mind, it's kind of therapeutic! While reading this past summer I came across a saying, I do not recall exactly how it went but I remember thinking I completely understood the sentiment. It went something like this..... '.....having extra hay in the barn, wood in the shed and ____________ is like money in the bank......'

The above picture is just part of the loft full of this years hay, what a long hard couple days of work it is, but what a sense of peace that comes along once it's done.

Guess what I did today.....

.... I stopped into the local feed store (since I was in town) to pick up a pitchfork to make cleaning out the goat's pen easier, something that was needing attention as she was high enough with her deep bedding to get her head stuck in the gate. There's something to be said for having the right tool for the job, what had previously taken an hour (with the wrong tool) took only minutes this afternoon. Hopefully since we moved the bedding to the back she won't get stuck again. Then the kids and I hauled wood out of the front part of our property with my truck. Andrew calls it "redneck truck pulling"when we do this. He loves it though. Then spent the rest of the daylight hours splitting firewood, with a hatchet. Again, there is something to be said for having the right tool for the job, clearly a hatchet is not the right tool for splitting firewood. Faith gave it her best try and found out it's not for her, Andrew on the other hand loved it! The hatchet worked well for him, more his size than mine. All the wood in the picture was cut from our property and will keep us warm next winter. It's still way too wet to burn this year, but it still needs to be split and stacked just the same, to be ready for next year. So since I spent the afternoon cleaning goat pens and sweating more than well, quite frankly a race horse I'm going to go soak these aching muscles in a hot bath, enjoy a cup of hot cocoa and probably be asleep before my head hits the pillow. So much for a day of rest. Good night.