calves

Cows for the revenge

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Sunday became the day the Gingerman and I would tag and band calves. I went out and started picking our tame blackberries. They are getting picked about every four days now and we just had a hot spell which they loved. Gingerman came out and helped me finish up, we picked two half flats full of blackberries. I have a running total of how many blackberries we have collected to date, when the season is over I will add it all up, it’s a lot!

The Gingerman had brought his four wheeler over and I took the tractor out to herd the cows into the barn lot. We locked the horse up with some food in the lamb shed so she would be content. If we keep her out she wants to help and in reality she is no help at all. We got the cows pushed down fairly easily. I did notice that the spring in field #3 is dried up. There is no water coming out of the ground in the middle of the field. There is a small spring in the corner that is still running but that one has always ran since we have been here. I did notice that the golden plum tree actually has plums! I checked them today and they have about another week before they are ready. We will give some seeds to the Gingerman and hopefully he can propagate some new trees from seed. The plum tree is probably at least 80 years old. The plums are quite sweet when they are ripe. Our Italian Plum tree has antoher 1-2 weeks before they are ready and there is at least another week on the nectarines. Those are the last of our fruit trees that will need to be harvested. We are quickly running out of freezer space for the fruit. We have an entire standup freezer stuffed full of fruit and there may be just enough room for the nectarines. We will need to take out the tomatoes and process them to make that open space.

We got the cows all pushed into the corral and after sorting off two cows I latched the gate loosely and one of the brown cows pushed it open. Now we had contaminated our keeper group and were going to have to run everyone back through the chute and sort them again. Right after that happened I looked up and the Gingerman was standing fairly awkward. One of the brown cows had bum rushed him and ran into his knee directly or kicked his sorting board and that clubbed him into his right knee. He limped for the rest of the cow fiasco and is currently laying down on the couch with his extremity elevated and an ice pack applied.

We ear tagged the girl first, it went fairly smoothly. The next one was the smaller boy calf. He did not cooperate. We managed to get him banded (both testicles were verified present) and tagged without getting any cow poop on us. I consider this a significant win. Unfortunately, we saved the largest calf for last.

On our way to the ground we both managed to get covered in cow poop. It went downhill from there. The calf had virtually no scrotum. There was only room for one testicle. So we had to just keep trying to get the band on and both testicles pushed through. It took about ten minutes to get both testicles contained.

I mowed weeds with the Kubota because the parts for the John Deere bucket have not arrived. I mowed until the tractor heated up then came back to the shop and cleaned out the dust and weed debris. I also killed all of the puncture vine that was growing in the driveway. I had already sprayed and killed one wave. All in all it was productive despite the weather.

Predators 1/ Farm 1

Steve Hardin1 Comment

Well it is that time of year again when the predators decide to come out and play. We had a lamb killed up in field four by the old hand dug well. The lambs are 2-3 months old at this point but still easy pickings for a coyote. We had someone come out with thermals but they only killed one coyote. I have yet to see a coyote in the last three months. Mr Rainman spotted one in field four but did not have a rifle. He sat out watching the area after he grabbed one but the coyote never reappeared.

The cheat grass is horrible this year so we are going to have to push all of the animals down by the schoolhouse. The grass is much better down there. We have had one cow give birth and it is a cute little black calf. Everyone was so tame that Mr Rainman carried the calf across the water and no one cared. After about day four he could not catch the calf, it was too fast! We have five black cows and one brown one. The brown one was the calmest of the bunch we sold off. Now that we only have calm cows we need to get rid of the brown one, it’s too crazy. It is amazing how much your tolerance drops once you have gotten rid of the crazy ones. Placid is perfect.

Needless to say with the coyotes making a reemergence we have started to carry a rifle around. Frank doesn’t seem to mind, he just wants to be fed his bottle. Unfortunately, we are weaning him so he only gets a bottle in the evening now. He is really not onboard with this plan. The lambs head butt the ewes udder to promote milk release. In other words when Frank is standing directly in front of you, pay attention or he will head butt you some place you don’t want and it will not feel good. He did still get his bottle so from his perspective it worked.

We pulled the bull off of the cows before we let them down by the schoolhouse. We still have seven teenagers running around down there and one of them is an unbred heifer. He does not like being separated and has been beating on the gates so we had to make a repair. I remembered why the gate had not been repaired before this, the gates were put on with the last of the hardware I had on hand. I used three different kinds of bolts/screws and they all have a different driver! It took us a half an hour to find all of the right tools and one of the anchor bolts had a custom pattern. We beat it out with a hammer and wrench. Hopefully, the old large bolts we installed will hold up better than the fancy new ones.

More babies

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It has been the season for babies. Our cows are now having calves and they are all coming fairly quickly. We have six calves on the ground now and I think there should be 1-3 more possibly. This means our bull did his job! Now only if the rams would learn from the bull, we have had the rams in with the sheep for almost two months now and Annmarie just saw them mounting a ewe the other day. We’re taking them out next week as we do not want to lamb for five months again. We will only have to lamb for two months this way. Which is a good thing as the rams are almost as wide as they are long. They are getting incredibly fat free ranging with the ewes. Everyone is fat and most of them have about half their winter coat rubbed off. The lucky few that have managed to clear their coat look great!

We did it again, and got another puppy. We have gotten used to having an ankle biter dog running around at the house. A dog with no job. We really liked the Brussel Griffin breed but the last two dogs have died young and had a lot of respiratory issues. Annmarie has been doing a lot of research and we like the terrier breed overall. We ended up getting a Border Terrier. He was over in Montana so we drove over and back in one day! Fourteen hours in the car is a little much. It has been a week now and Milo is finally settling in. He spends two days at each Grandmother’s house while we are at work. I have Fridays off so he is hanging out with me on Friday. The only real problem we are having is crate training him. We have been sleeping on the floor near the kennel in an attempt to get him used to the crate. It’s sorta working, we keep scooting the pile of blankets further away from the crate every couple of days. He does not appreciate the need for him to sleep alone. He is incredibly food driven. He can eat all of is food in about 15 seconds. So we have had to start figuring out how to slow him down. We were using a treat toy but we have to refill it three times for any meal. Our daughter told us about snuffle mats. I had no clue this was a real thing. Ours came a couple of days ago and it takes him about ten minutes to eat every meal now. This means he can actually breath while eating. Potty training is going well but going outside every hour is probably the real reason it is working.

Our lambs are doing well and we have been putting the sheep into the barn lot every night. So far, I do not think we have lost any lambs or ewes to the coyotes. I used the sheep to mow the front yard again. I am going to have to figure this out eventually after we redo the front lawn. The boom truck they are using to install the new siding is very heavy and we have large ruts in the ground now. The dogs had already been digging holes so the yard is a mess. We need to get the front rock wall completed and the short metal fence installed on top of it. On we get that done then we will kill the entire yard, regrade it, install underground sprinkler and then replant it. We want to go with some form of grass substitute that doesn’t need mowed or mowed 1-2 times a year. Once we do that the dogs will be kept out of the area around the house and can hang out on the front hillside. We are going to install the gazebo this year so the dogs can shelter out of the weather.

We want to install a drain in the center of the gazebo so that no rain or water can accumulate inside, it will also make it easier to clean out. I will put some lights and power inside but I will make sure the outlets are water proof so the gazebo can be washed down with a hose. I just need to order a couple of dump trucks of gravel to get this process started. We will be installing seven upright posts, installing the walls and then start pouring the concrete floor. We will concrete in the seven posts to provide stability and anchor the structure down to the ground.

A lot of little things

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Saturday was a full day for us and farm work was not going to happen. Mr Rainman came out and spent the day catching up a lot of little things. I had purchased 20 bags of sand, 15 stepping stones and 12 bags of pea gravel the day before for the projects. He started by working in 18 bags of sand into our future asparagus/strawberry elevated bed out in the lavender area. Our two year asparagus crowns had just arrived on Wednesday and they needed to be planted. He had two bags left over and I used those when I planted the 24 crowns that evening. We don’t get to do anything but hope they survive this year and maybe next year we will get to harvest some asparagus as it will be three years old by then. The Gingerman is bringing us some strawberry starts next month and we will put those right on top. The Lavender only gets watered twice a week so we are going to put the asparagus on the same circuit as them.

Annmarie has been wanting to be able to feed the cats barefoot but now that we have to walk across eight feet of rough gravel she has been requesting stepping stones. He got a channel dug and then the concrete steps set. Once he got the gravel around everything he watered it really well and then reapplied gravel. The extra gravel went outside the fence on the yard side. We are going to make a small gravel area by the gate so the extra gravel went there. It turned out very nice. The only thing left is to extend the cat rain roof so their food gets better protection when it rains. I need to extend the sides down and put a front on so the snow cannot blow in as easily.

The next project is purely a Mr Rainman idea. We had been talking about various ways to fill in the old flower beds in the mud room. He had suggested filling them up with pea gravel. This was a wonderful idea so I picked up 12 bags. The only real problem is even though it was bagged it was still pretty dirty. So he brought the cement mixer over and washed the pea gravel in it. When it was clean he dumped it out on the ground and scooped it up for the mud room. It looks great! I decided it needed a little help drying before we moved the cabinet and shoes back in place. So I started up a small electric heater and cracked open the window. It’s been 24 hours and I think it will take 3-4 days to get the pea gravel all dried out! Once it is then all of the stuff can be put back in place. Mouse is grumpy because his food area is cluttered and he does not like it.

The last thing he did for the day was gets all of the garden beds cleaned out and an old wooden barrel cleaned out and tossed onto the burn pile. It was too far gone and had a large hole in it. We are still holding off on planting the garden due to the freezing temperatures

The contractor came out and installed two of the three windows but they were not double hung. He had ordered double hung but was not given them. New ones are on order. Our new siding should be delivered May 13, 2024. They will start on the sides away from where the windows need replaced.

Our cows started having calves 2 days ago! We now have two calves on the ground and healthy. There are 7-9 to go, I am unclear on how many cows are pregnant.

Predators 5/ Farm 0

Steve HardinLeave a comment

It’s been a long week and when I start haying every evening and weekend I get behind on the blog. I am tired when I come inside after long day, eat and shower and I am too sleepy to do the blog. So now I make little paper notes to myself so when I do find the time to blog I can remember and keep everything accurate.

We have our first set of live, raised on the farm cow twins! Annmarie got a great picture of her and yes, she is skinny, she is feeding two calves and they are not very old so she has not had a chance to really recover from the birth process. The calves are doing great! So far this year we have five calves. I think there may be one more pending but I am not sure.

The predators killed another lamb, this is four for the year so far. We have definitely had an uptick in predator kills the last few years. We know there is a big coyote living somewhere near and we think we may have a bobcat living nearby. Their preferred snack seems to be an occasional lamb. The coyote has only been spotted once this year but we have them all around us every night. This week when I went outside at bed time to get the dogs there was a coyote on the top of the hill barking at the cows and sheep. I hollered but it did not stop. It was just dark enough I could not see the top of the hill. I ended up going inside and grabbing the 22 pistol and shooting three rounds into the dirt next to the yard to just scare it off with the noise. It did not stick around after that.

The predators got one of the chickens from the first batch I let loose in the coop, there are only 11 of 12 now. The 12 in chick Fort Knox are still alive. So 23 of 24 is pretty good, I usually have one of the chicks just up and die but not this year. It is still a couple of more months before the first batch will start laying eggs.

I have come to realize that predators are just part of living out here in the country and having animals. We do try to keep them down but they just keep coming,

We have six calves from last year for sale in the spring. They hang out all together but since it is a bunch of teenagers, they are crazy, hot headed and full of piss and vinegar.