Impressive!

Wow, you might never go home again!

Wowza!!!

I've been putting some pictures of the cows up on Facebook, so I thought I'd share a few here. One week from today, and they are gone.
this is the oldest cow in the barn

She's a beauty! And she looks highly productive. How old is she?

she's almost 8. This is probably the youngest herd that we've had since we started.

Being young they will probably bring a good price. Any decisions on what the future use of the farm land and buildings will be?

Our weather continues to be unseasonably warm and dry. Some of the trees are showing signs of waking up, and some people are already burning weeds in ditches and along fence rows. One guy has begun building fence along the road to town, just over the hill from us. The property adjoins ours. He's got a quarter mile of the old fence removed and is building new. The old has been patched together and the patches patched as well. We can see another fence marching over the hill toward our place that was torn out and rebuilt a couple of weeks ago. I hope he replaces the fence line between our places as well. We'd be glad to share the cost with him. T posts and barbed wire don't come cheap.

Did you dock all your cows' tails? I did the ones that were despicable re: dragging them in the gutter and then swatting all over. Messy old besoms.

Big changes for you, Kathleen. I hope you take lots of pictures!

I remember when my son first got the goats and his dad put up fencing. Then more goats and more fencing. Then a bigger goat house and pasture made into more paddocks. I don't know if that is the right term, but dividing the field to keep them in different areas. And maybe this year extending the fencing around the garden/field to keep the deer out because they ate all the sweet potatoes and cow peas last year.

Some of posts are the round, wood posts and they got them on Craigs list for a good price. But otherwise, T posts and cattle fencing. The garden area is electric (solar) fencing.

My son (Matt) travels a lot for his job so his dad (Ira) pretty much takes care of the farm while he's gone. It has worked out for both though because it his dad feels needed (he is!) and Matt can do the work when he is home and give his dad a break. Ira built all the out buildings with some help from Matt too. There's a chicken coop, the goat house and a large garden shed and some smaller goat shelters for when the goats have their kids.

Sounds like a lot!

On a farm there are always things that need to be built or rebuilt.

So true! This morning I rebuilt a corner brace for the fence on one of the small pastures. Someday soon I need to replace the top strand of hot wire for that pasture - unless something else breaks first.

oh, cwap...........it was -11 this morning, and only about 4 above right now. Good thing that there isn't hardly any wind. No clouds either, so our sunroom is warm and the solar collectors that the SU made and put alongside the house are working great.

We have a milking job tonight and then tomorrow morning start an 8 day stint for the guy we milked for in January. The job tonight is for someone else.

Anna, Stan crops them all. There's nothing like a tail that's been marinating all night in the gutter to wake you up first thing. He'd had it with them. He bands the heifers when they freshen.

Life here is full on crazy. Stan's mom is in the hospital after a stroke last week. Our phone is not working, but I have dsl - who knows how that works! We've missed some calls, had some guys just show up to look at the cows, one guy coming Saturday to look at the hay. I think Stan is thinking he needs a clone!

Wow, what a mess! Good luck!

Kathleen said:Anna, Stan crops them all. There's nothing like a tail that's been marinating all night in the gutter to wake you up first thing. He'd had it with them. He bands the heifers when they freshen.

Life here is full on crazy. Stan's mom is in the hospital after a stroke last week. Our phone is not working, but I have dsl - who knows how that works! We've missed some calls, had some guys just show up to look at the cows, one guy coming Saturday to look at the hay. I think Stan is thinking he needs a clone!

I've seen guys that dock them and they don't have a decent fly program...............personally I find it barbaric to dock them as heifers and before they are in the milking string where you SHOULD have some fly control.

I always said that there were 3 degrees of swatting in my barn.............the first was "mildly annoying" and I could live with that. The second was PITA, and tho it was borderline, I could mostly live with that too. The 3rd was "downright vicious" and that's when they got docked. I told the SU if he didn't like it, HE could milk them. We did find that those with docked tails acquired the nasty habit of slinging their silage over their backs at the bunk. Did yours?

When is the sale? Soon, if I remember correctly. Will you have an auction on the farm or take them to an auction barn? Doing anything special to "pretty them up?" We had a guy come in a week before and clip, then the day before to wash them all. It was the best $1500.00 we spent in sale prep. It paid for itself several times over. We just did that to the milking cows, not to any of the young stock and bred heifers. They were all pretty clean. Our sale was Oct. 1st, 2010.

We have a tie stall barn and Stan is good about fly control. It's all up close and personal with the tails. Not too much trouble with throwing feed.

Has it been that long? Yikes. Ours is Feb. 25. They come on Monday to tag them and Tuesday morning to haul them to the auction barn. We've had 5 guys come and look at the cows and they all said they plan on buying some. Somebody called the auctioneer looking for a dry Red and White, which we happen to have.

The state just went up by with the old Oshkosh snowblower. It is a huge truck with a HUGE snowblower on the front. It's from the early '60s. They are up blowing back the banks on the hill. Must be expecting more snow. Haven't even seen that for a couple of years. It's that kind of year - high of 3F today, upper teens tomorrow with snow.

Our county has an old Oshkosh too, but they have a big-a@@ plow with the side wing on it. They had it out about a week ago.