The Benefits and Problems of Rain

Our cows and calves have all been hauled to our three pastures for the summer now.  The recent rains have made the grass grow which is always good.  The cows are so content to get turned out onto the green grass but by fall they will be equally content to be hauled back and turned out on the harvested corn and soybean fields for the winter.
My caption for the photo above is “Watch Your Step”.  This pasture has some washed out gullies but the cows seem to be aware of the drop off so stay clear of the edge.John took all of the above photos as he was checking the cattle after the heavy rains we had last two weeks.  (We had a total of around 9” so had lots and lots of water.)  He went especially to check on the dam in a neighboring pasture.  As you can see it is full, full, full.  Normally there is just a little water in the bottom but now it is to the top and backed up the valley so it was dug out a bit to lower the level to make it safer and room for more rain if it comes.  Thankfully we had a few days without rain so that some of the flooding could recede and drain away but we had 1.6” on Wed. so things are wet again but not to the levels they were a week ago.  A lot of the rivers, creeks and low areas have had flooding and problems in central and eastern Nebraska.  We don’t get flooding very often so this is new for many residents.  I got up early one morning after a heavy rain during the night and went out to get some  photos and captured the barn and the rain gauge (3.15” overnight – the day before we had 2.75” of rain.)  You can see the water backed up behind the barn but it was not more than a foot deep at the deepest part.  It took several days to all drain away since it all had to go through the one culvert under the highway and backs up whenever we get a heavy rain.  I always say we have “Lake Greer” when we get heavy rains.   This last photo is of our house taken at 6:30 am that day I was up early taking photos after the rain.  You can see the morning sun reflected in the windows and the yard looks so pretty, although you really can’t see all the flowers that are blooming. 

We don’t like to complain about rain but we really can use more dry days.  The corn and soybeans are really needing some sun and John will be needing to be cultivating to remove weeds before the crops get too tall.  I know we will be wishing for rain before long but that is the life of a farmer - too much rain, not enough rain and a few days of it being just the right amount of moisture.

Until Later,
Lynn 

Treadmill Distraction

I am not one of those people who love to walk on the treadmill, I need some type of distraction or I go nuts trying to make myself walk.  I constantly am checking to see how far I have I’ve walked and how much time has elapsed, counting down so I can stop for the day.  I discovered  a year or so ago that my laptop computer sits very well on the ledge behind the controls and I could walk and watch videos. It helped to distract me from the actual walking time/distance as I would get focused on the video not realize how long or how far I had walked.I decided to subscribe to The Quilt Show a few weeks ago and that is a wonderful distraction for me now.  I am not letting myself watch it unless I am on the treadmill.  How is that for incentive to walk?  I had resisted subscribing for a long time but since I don’t subscribe to any quilt magazines anymore I decided it wouldn’t be anymore expensive than a regular magazine subscription so went for it.  I have learned lots and have thoroughly enjoyed the programs and extras I have watched so far.Here is my view as I walk the miles away.  You see I have more than The Quilt Show to watch.  This photo was taken a few weeks ago when we still had snow on the ground and our cows were in the field across the highway.  Love watching them as they graze. They take a bite, chew, walk a step, take a bite, chew and walk another step....back and forth across the field.  Once in a while one gets behind the others a ways and runs to catch up as if they might just miss something.The shows have been very interesting and I am really glad I subscribed.  There is so much information to be gleaned from from this website I am glad I am a Quilt Show member and recommend it as a good buy and worth the price.

Until Later,
Lynn

Good News–Bad News

My Day started out good…..My husband is not home for a few days  so it is my job to do the outside chores.   Tuesday morning I went out to feed our barn cats and let our geriatric horse out of his stall to join the rest of the horses.  Lucky is 30 years old and gets put in a stall by himself each night and given his own old man horse food. It takes him a long time to eat as has trouble keeping his food in his mouth as it falls out of his cheeks as he chews.  We feed him in a large bunk so the feed that falls out goes back into the bunk and he gets it all gone eventually.  Here he is in the pasture after I turned him out.  As you can see, he really looks like an old horse as his back is saggy and his ribs are more prominent too. He was my father in laws horse and will live out his last years here on the farm.  The life span of horses is 25-30 years so you know he is very old for a horse.More good news….I next fed the cats – we have lots and some are tame and some are wild.  I even got to pet some of the semi-wild ones.  We feed them in the barn in the mornings so the food will be all eaten up by night as that is when raccoons and opossums come into the barn at times and they love cat food.  We don’t need to be feeding them as they will eat a lot and once they know the food is there they come in all the time and it makes it dangerous for the cats as raccoons will kill cats and especially kittens so we don’t want to attract them.  The photo below was taken in 2012 of John feeding them.  He always tries to pet the ones he can catch and feeding time is a good time to do that since they are a bit distracted by the food and has tamed down quite a few that way.Starting to get to the bad news….I next went out to check the water tank for the cows and horses and it had frozen and had about an inch of ice on top.  The cows were licking it trying to get to the water underneath.  Looking around I found a wooden fence post so decided to use it to pound holes in the ice for the animals to drink instead of wait for the fellow that is helping with the cattle chores to come and break the ice.  First hole done; this post is working great!  Well, if I got one hole punched through I might as well do more.  After about the 3rd hole I reached across the tank to make one on the other side, raised the fence post high over my head and slammed it down as hard as I could.  Whoops…here is where the bad news comes in…. As the post hit the ice on the far end, the near side where I was grasping it with both hands hit the edge of the cement tank.  Wow, that hurt!  Checked my ring finger on my left hand and the tip was tilted down.  Thinking it was my fingernail I just pushed it down, no problem as the finger was numb.  I wrapped it in some tape and iced it down and continued with my day figuring I would probably loose my fingernail in time.  Here is the old cement tank where I smashed my finger.More bad news….It was hurting some in the afternoon but not too bad. After thinking about it and talking to someone about it they suggested I better go to the Dr. and get it x-rayed.  So that is what I did yesterday and guess what?  I broke the bone in the last section starting below my fingernail and across to the other side.  I now have this lovely finger protector to wear until it is healed.  I asked the Dr. how long that would be and he said 3-6 weeks until tapping the end on a table doesn’t hurt but did suggest not to do any tapping with it for about 3 weeks.  As you can see from the photo below the finger protector thing I have to wear sticks out a ways.  It is hard to type and I have caught it a couple of times but have not hurt my finger so it is doing it’s job.Some good news…The Dr. did tell me that when I pushed the fingernail down I probably put the bone back in place.  He asked if that hurt and I said no, it was numb.  He chuckled and said it would have really hurt if he would have had to do it yesterday.  Everything is in line now to heal and hope I heal quickly. 


Some more bad news….I am left handed so some things are just a little difficult to do with this thing on my finger.  Typing is hard but not impossible as the other fingers can take over but I do make more mistakes.  Holding anything is very awkward too and I have trouble holding a knife and cutting anything.  It is a good thing that I am somewhat ambidextrous and can use my right hand a bit. 


Good news….no more making holes in ice in the tank as it warmed up a little and our neighbor who is helping me check the cows will do it if it needs to be done from now on.


No one will ever accuse me of being graceful and coordinated, klutzy and clumsy is my name!


Until Later,
Lynn

A Farmer And His Toys

A photo I just took yesterday on the 4th of July of my husband John and his newly restored 1957 Oliver Super 88 tractor and circa 1960s International plow all decorated up for the holiday and parked close to the highway for all travelers to admire.

Until Later,
Lynn

Spring Means Calving Time

I don’t think there is anything much cuter on our farm than when the cows start having their calves.  Our herd is nearly half done calving now so there are lots of little calves running around.  I went out the other day late afternoon with my camera and got these photos.  Enjoy!Notice the calf in the background on the photo below.  It is jumping and going to take off running with it’s mama close behind mooing.  I can just hear her yelling “stop, stop, you have to stay by me.”  After the calves are only a day or two old they love to run and chase each other but the cows don’t like that so much so follow them around the lot.  I seems like late afternoon is when they do more running around for some reason.



As you probably noticed on the photos so far the cows and calves are all pretty much looking right at the camera.  No fancy tricks used to accomplish this either.  They are really curious animals and watched me the entire time I was photographing.  I was standing outside the fence and they would gather close to figure out what I was doing I guess.  Some of the cows in the photos have had their calves and some have not and their bellies are huge.  I am sure they feel like a 9 month pregnant woman in that their legs and back ache and will be glad to get rid of that extra weight and greet their new baby!




Until Later,
Lynn

Snowy Day

This isn’t a recent photo but one I took in December when we just had a snow storm.  The cows, calves and bulls were still across the road as well.  I love the way the trees frame the grazing cattle and the look of the snow laying on the branches.

Until Later,
Lynn

View from Above…Explained

Our farm yard, now to show you what you are seeing.  We do not just call the building site "the farm" but consider a farm to be the buildings plus the land or in some cases just the land.  Can’t have a farm without land or it is just not a farm. We own some farm land adjacent to and across the road from our farm yard but rent most of the ground we farm.  OK, on to the detail photos; just keep reading and looking at the photos to find out what you are looking at.  If you click on the photos you can get a larger view of each one.Photo 1:  The green circles the cattle – cows, calves and bulls.  Some are in the lots but most of them are in the field west of our house.  The horses are circled in red.  One is in the pasture and I can see 3 in the lot.  We have 5 horses and one is either in the barn or farther out in the pasture outside the photo.Photo 2: Green circles the barn where there are a few stalls for the horses or we can put a few cattle inside if needed.  Red circles the open fronted shed for shelter of any animals in that north lot.  The blue circles the Morton building that normally has machinery housed in it but if we are having really nasty weather during calving season a temporary ally is built from the cow lot to it and machines moved outside so we can bed the entire cow herd inside if needed.   Freezing wet temperatures are not good for newborn calves.  The cows are OK outside but a wet newborn can die in a short amount of time if it is really cold and add some wind , which we get a lot of here in Nebraska, and it becomes really dangerous for the calf.  The cows get along fine if it is cold and wet and they will just have the calves outside if we don't lock them in so we have to put them in to protect the unborn calves.  Cold is not as big a problem as wetness is as a cow has very thick skin and a hair coat that will insulate unless it gets really wet.  It is funny to see cattle with a little snow on their backs after a storm and the snow hasn't melted.  That shows how insulated they are.Photo 3:  The red outlines the lots we use for the cows when they are calving.  There is a large lot clear on the south with an ally to a lot close to the barn where the water tank is located.  The green outlines the pen where the year old weaned calves are right now.  As you can see it is directly across the driveway from the house so we can keep a close eye on them.  Not bad now but the first few days when they were away from their mothers it was really noisy with all the bawling.  We also use this lot for the heifers we keep to become cows.  These are part of the crop from this years calves and they will be sorted off before the rest go to auction.  We can’t put them with the cows as they still remember their mothers and when that cow has a new calf all the milk needs to go to the new calf not the year old one that will push the small calf away.  Besides that the bulls are still with the cows and these young heifers would get bred now and we want them to grow another 6 months before they are bred so they can be older when they have their first calf....easier on her and easier on us too!  The blue circles the horse lot.Photo 4:  Red circles large round hay bales that get fed to the cattle or horses.  Some of the hay bales are alfalfa for cattle and some are grass hay for the horses.  Our grandkids love playing on these rows of hay bales.  The bales look like fat tubes and are around 5 feet tall and about 6” long so are pretty big.  The kids crawl up and run back and forth jumping between rows.  At Christmas they played out there for hours playing tag and other games.  Green circles the silage pile.  This corn silage was chopped last fall and hauled in and piled and packed for feed.  It will be fed to the cows when they are pulled off the stock fields the first of March and put in the lots during calving season.  Blue circles the bale feeders.  Some are individual feeders for one bale like the ones in the lots but others are trailers on wheels that hold several and can be pulled to which ever lot they are needed.Photo 5:  The green circles show where machinery is stored.  John tries to keep a lot in the large Morton building but as you can see there is other machinery lined up in other places.  We have tried to keep the old and worn out stuff cleaned up but it still looks like there might be more to cull.Photo 6:  The green circles show where my barn quilts are located.  Of course from this view to the north you can’t see them.  You can read about how I made them and see what they look like here.Photo 7:  A green circle encloses the grain storage bins we have on our farm.  Bin #1 is the largest and holds  30,000 bu.  Bin #2 is the drying bin that the grain goes through to be dried down to storing moisture content and it holds 8,000 bu.  You can see the augers leading from it to bin #3 and #1 and as the grain is dried it is moved into the other bins until they are full then this one gets used for storage too.  Bin #3 holds 24,000 bu.  Bins #4 and #5 are small and we don’t really use them anymore and John would like to get rid of them at some point.  We have the use of bins in a couple other places we farm too and any excess that can't be stored in one of these bins is hauled directly to the grain elevator at harvest.

Well that pretty much sums up the photo of our place.  It is a great place to live and work and entertain.   Now you can have a picture in your mind about where I live and if you happen to be driving by and recognize the place just stop in for a cup of tea.

Until Later,
Lynn

View from Above

November 13th a photo was taken of our farm yard from an airplane. They then came around a few weeks later to sell the prints.  It was a really clear photo so we paid their price but I knew I needed to do something to help this photo look more natural.  The photo above is the after version and the one below is the before.  I know they tried to tweak the photo and increase the saturation of a winter landscape but really is orange a natural color of harvested crops….NO.  I may have erred and made the photo too pale but we sure didn’t like the original color, especially on the print we bought. Come back for my next post and I will point out some of the things you are seeing in this photo.

Until Later,
Lynn

Biting the Dust

To bite the dust definition:  To crash, fail, or otherwise no longer be in contention.  Now I have your attention don't I?

Saturday was the day to move our cow herd from the field across the road from our house to another of our fields about 3 miles north.  They will be there a few weeks then move again.  That is the pattern from the time they come home from the summer pastures until just a few weeks before the cows are ready to have their next calf starting in March.  I was standing in our yard taking photos as they started out.Several guys that all have cows work together to move each others herds and sometimes they move several guys cattle, one group after another on the same day.  This time there were 5 of them on horseback to drive our 100 cows and 6 bulls, then to move one of the other guys cows after.  Last year’s calf crop have already been sorted off and are being fed in a pen across from our house and will be sold at an auction in a week or two.  We keep the bulls with the cows until we move the cows back closer to home right before they start calving.  The cows are all pregnant now, hopefully, so it is OK to keep them together for a while longer.  

The cows all started running as they always do at the beginning of a drive but after a bit they settle down to walk most of the way to the new grazing field.  The bulls get excited too and most of the time just follow the cows.  This time 2 and sometimes 3 of our bulls started fighting.  You know how boys can get to wrestling, well bulls too have to determine who is the best, strongest and lead bull.  By the way, while they are getting moved is not the best time for this conflict.   If you look closely in the photo below you can see a black bull and a red bull head to head and several of the cows watching the action.  This is happening only less than 1 minute from the time the guys got their horses in the field.Here is another photo taken a few seconds later.  You might think why is this head to head fighting to be even noticed but what you don’t see is the force behind each bull.  Our bulls probably average 1900 lbs. each and if they are pushing against each other that is a lot of power.  They sometimes go round and round, trying to push each other, oblivious to anything around them and sometimes they appear to be just touching foreheads but it is all serious business to them.  There are times when bulls fight they will actually knock down fencing, dent barn siding, etc just pushing each other around.  They are extremely strong beasts and rarely hurt each other but push and shove until one gives up.The green arrows show the fighting bulls and the red arrow is John on his horse Tracy.  John and the guys were hoping to keep driving the cows and the bulls would follow along and quit their fighting…..Wrong!The cows and the fighting bulls are stirring up a lot of dust as it is a clear day.  Here is a little more information about John’s horse.  Tracy is a young horse that has never helped drive cattle in stock fields before and was ridden only one other time this fall to help round up cattle so she is a newbee when it comes to cattle.  I guess she has to learn sometime if she is going to be on our farm and be a good cow horse.  Can you see where I might be going with this story now?  Keep reading for the conclusion to this gripping tale.

Now here is where I goofed up….I did not get a photo of what happened next.  John and the other guys said as they moved closer to the bulls, the bulls moved quickly and frightened Tracy.  She jumped sideways very quickly and sorry to say John didn’t stay in the saddle.  One of the guys said it looked like a cartoon fall with him in mid air for a bit before he crashed to the ground.  He says he didn’t get hurt as it happened so quickly and he didn’t have time to think but landed on his back.  It helped that he had several layers on with a sweatshirt, heavy coat, hat and gloves so that insulated his fall.  Anyway he was on the ground and Tracy took off back towards the house and away from the cattle as fast as she could gallop.  I didn’t want her to run through the electric fence on the edge of the field and get hurt so I stepped into the middle of our driveway and flapped my arms and yelled to get her attention and thankfully she turned, still running for all she was worth.  (That flapping arms business was probably worth a blackmail photo too.) The other guys were trying not to frighten her and worked to get around her to stop and catch her.They did get her stopped before she could run out of the gate and onto the highway, thank goodness.  After calming her down for a bit John got back on her and rode her to get the job done.  She needed to learn that she had a job to do and to get over her fear.And the bulls fought on, and on, and on.  Sometimes it was just these two and occasionally another would try to get in the middle of it and then back off.Here the guys are waiting for the John and the other 2 guys to get back and for a break in the fight to head them in the right direction.John and Tracy are the last of the three riders and will get the bulls moving up to where the cows were waiting to get on the road for their trip north.

See the 3rd bull just looking on as the action continues.  He really wanted to be in the fight but must be down farther on the pecking order hierarchy.  There is always one lead bull and the others challenge him for that position and sometimes they win and become the lead bull.

As you can see the bulls are separated in this photo and moving with the cattle.  I was almost 1/2 mile away from them at this point so this is as good as my zoom lens could get.  The guys told me later that the fighting bulls got together again and fought most of the way to the new field.  They said the cows walked 3 miles but with all the fighting the bulls probably walked 10.

When I brought lunch for the riders at the end field this fighting guy was pooped.  He stood by the tank of water, drinking and panting occasionally.  The other bulls and cows were spreading out in the new field to graze but this one just needed a break.  I wonder if he was the victor or the defeated one or if after all the fighting it  ended in a tie.

After a can of pop and a cookie or two the guys loaded up the horses and went to move one more bunch of cows that afternoon.  No more horse wrecks that day and John claims he isn't even sore after his escapade.

Until Later,
Lynn

New Farm Resident

John just bought a new horse this last week.   She is really pretty and trained well and goes by the name of Tracy.  She is a registered quarter horse and will get ridden a lot and so far is getting along with the other horses on our farm.  She joins our other horses – Jesse; another horse John currently rides, Lucky; retired except for visiting kids, Sally; pretty much retired too and Bart; at a horse dealer trying to find a new home.  Tracy had to first figure out who was the boss horse and now that they have that settled all is peaceful in the horse lot.  The cattle are all in the pastures now so John won’t have to work with them much this summer but the fall and winter the cattle get moved from one field to another every week or two.   The other neighbor “cow men” get together to help each other  when cattle need moved or worked so there are many opportunities for Tracy.  John has been going out each evening to ride her around one of the lots.  He needs to get to know her and she needs to get to know him…we have bonding on the farm!So far John is happy with Tracy and she seems happy with him so think she will fit into our farm just fine.

Lynn