Sunday, August 31, 2008

Yesterday

Yesterday was a long, frustrating day with the cows. It was almost as bad as the day that the heifer got out, we got the truck stuck in the neighbor's pasture and then screwed up my car on the way to walmart at 11PM to get a log chain, but lets not go there! I said ALMOST as bad.
Friday we had our first calf of the fall calving '08 season so we set out yesterday morning to tag it. Also, during Thursday's storm, all our cows got mixed up with the heifers/steers we're backgrounding and we have two steers with bad eyes, so we had to get everything up to the corral to sort. That part went fine. We treated the calves although we broke two needles and the spray gun on the fly spray tank broke. Next we went to find the new calf since #612 (her mama) was up with all the other cows and didn't seem a bit concerned with her calf. When we found it, the little thing took off as fast as any calf can run and we lost sight of it over the hill. We decided to come back to that later.
During this time, we noticed #534 (who Luke preg checked as "open" in June) was starting to have a calf. She didn't seem to care much though as she was just hanging out with the rest of the herd.
A couple hours later we went back to check on her and she had no progress whatsoever. We got her up in our make-shift alley and Luke felt the calf and could tell that it wasn't in there backwards, it just wasn't coming out yet. So, we gave her another hour. No progress. This time we decided we better do something. Let's just say it was kind of a fiasco. We don't have a head catch or chute of any kind so Luke roped her and tied her to a post. We had a really hard time pulling the calf and #534 didn't help at all. She maybe pushed 4 times. After probably an hour a little 50 lb heifer calf was born and was alive! We could not believe it was such a hard pull for such a small calf. The cow's body just didn't react to labor at all, it was weird.
Then of course, the cow wouldn't acknowledge the calf. We had to clean her off and then the cow would just walk all over her. Good thing the calf was so determined, she was finally able to suck a little right before dark.
Back to the other calf (#612's). We finally found her and again she took off running as fast as she could the minute she saw us. After running through 3 barbed wire fences and under two metal gates, she finally ended up in the same pasture as her mama (who still was completely unconcerned). We figured they would pair up. They didn't. As of the time I'm writing this, we can't find the calf and the cow is mooing her head off staring at #534's calf!

So frustrating. Hopefully time will sort this mess out and our calving season will straighten out. It's been a rough start and if every calf is like this, it's going to be a long season!

Friday, August 29, 2008

Thursday's Storm

Yesterday was REALLY humid all day! We went to a farm auction and bought some electric fence posts (you just cant have too many) and Luke talked with customers. That afternoon when we got home you could hear the thunder but nothing was happening. We hurried up and did chores (fed the calves, Tryan, put the chickens in, moved the cars inside) and just as we finished and made it inside the wind picked up and it started to storm. The storm probably lasted only 30 mins but we got almost 2" of rain and winds were said to be almost 70 mph. My poor peach tree was completely bent over, random stuff had blown everywhere and we lost power. Luckily we had two oil lamps from Kyle & Erica's wedding and one that Luke's mom had given us, so we lit those and played monopoly all evening. I called the power company and told them where we lived and he told me "it could be awhile". Apparently the whole area was out of power. Without the AC working, we slept with the windows open (plus the oil lamps were giving off some fumes that were making us feel a little weird) and could hear the crews working all night long. Finally, at about 7 AM all the lights flashed on and the power was back. I checked the freezor & fridge and I think all the food is okay. When we left the house this morning there were backhoes, dumptrucks and lots of workers trying to get the roads cleared out. There were several trees over the road and huge branches everywhere.

What a mess. After losing it for 13 hours, it was obvious we take power for granted; I'm so happy to have it back :)

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

The Miller Frog

Yes, you've heard of the Budweiser frogs, but I'm pretty sure this little guys is a Miller fan.

Friday, August 22, 2008

Melons!

I was mildly disappointed in my garden until a few weeks ago when the melons really started growing! Last week I had 3 cantaloupes that were ripe so I've been having cantaloupe for breakfast every morning. I gave one away to the neighbor and there are several green ones still in the garden. It's really easy to tell when they are ripe. They smell REALLY good and the aroma is really strong througout the entire garden and they actually break away from the vine on their own. This one here is getting close....
Although I haven't had any ripe watermelon yet, I am also very proud of them.


Here is the biggest one that has taken cover under some weeds & grass. I have a feeling we are going to have more watermelon than we know what to do with!

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Bathroom Make-Over

Here is what "Luke's" bathroom looked like until a few days ago....
It wasn't too manly, or really attractive in any way so I re-painted it:


And decorated it with a fishing/pond theme:



What do you think?

Monday, August 18, 2008

Putting Up Hay

Yesterday, Luke, Matt & I continued the work of putting up our hay. The tractor, baler, rake & mower are finally all working at the same time and we are starting to make progress (now that its the end of August!). The only problem we had was when the hay wagon was stacked high and the axel broke as we were pulling it to the barn. Its always something! Luke & Matt did a great job bucking bales and stacking them higher than I could ever throw a bale. Luke & I finished baling the alfalfa today and stacked that hay also. All in all, we now have about 550 small bales and 9 round bales. We still have almost 20 acres to cut & bale but hopefully we can get someone with a round baler to finish it for us. Square bales are a heck of a lot of work!


Thursday, August 14, 2008

The NEMO Dog

One of the first things that I did when I started my job at the feedmill was make promotional posters to hang in our store & in our dealerships. Since I work from home and generally get bored when working on the computer all day, I enjoy taking breaks to walk around outside and take pictures. These pictures generally become the images I use for all of our mailers, posters, signs, etc. With the help of photoshop, one picture that I took last fall became Kelly's modeling debut. This is how I knew:

We had some neighbors over the other day and the one guy commented that Kelly "sure looked like the NEMO dog".

"The NEMO dog?" I asked.

"Yeah, you know the dog that is on the poster in the feedmill."

That is because she IS the NEMO dog! Yes, Kelly has become famous. We're still waiting for that to somehow generate some income though....

Here's the poster:

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Closest Thing to Waylon

For those of you who do not know, I have a confession to make. I love Shooter. I think its his voice and the sheer fact that no matter what, he's the closest thing to Waylon you're ever going to get to see in concert. I also love that he can be totally grunged out with an electric guitar and still have a leather, tooled, concho strap. It looks like its Montana Silversmiths! When you can pull that mix off, you know you're cool. If you do not own a Shooter Jennings CD, buy one. If you are lucky enough that Shooter is coming to a town near you, go see him!



This is Shooter Jennings himself at the Missouri State Fair last week.


This is Shooter playing at the Blue Note 2 years ago.

This is me being a hardcore fan. I love Shooter...did I mention that? Dont worry, my husband doesn't mind.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Red Hot Chili Peppers



It's Luke & my rookie year gardening, but we grew one heck of a chili pepper plant! Due to the late frost we had, only one plant survived. This maybe was a good thing though because all these peppers came from this one plant (and its still full of green ones!).

Does anyone have any ideas what to use them for? Luke wants to use them for chili this winter but we're not sure how to store them. I have a food dehydrator, should I dry them? Any advice would be great. Thanks!

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

365 days later...

Flashback to August 4, 2008:

365 days later.....We have been married for a full year! To celebrate, we stayed at the Carriage House Bed & Breakfast in Hermann, Missouri. I've never stayed at a bed & breakfast before, but this one was great and I would highly recommend it to anyone staying in Hermann. Here is the website if you want to check it out: http://www.cadyfolkart.com/





Hermann, Missouri is a really neat town, full of history and wineries. Unfortunately, the heat index was 106, so we only toured two wineries before we got too hot. But, they were really pretty and we had some delicious wine!





Here is Luke at the Hermannhof Winery where we enjoyed a basket lunch with our "vignoles" wine.



We took the "self-guided" tour of the Hermannhof Winery which included the underground cellars where the wine is stored. It was kind of like a dungeon.


This is at the Oak Glen Winery which boasts that it is the most scenic winery in Hermann. There was a neat view of the grape vines and the Missouri River. We would recommend the "River Walk" wine from here. It was blackberries and cinnamon and we loved it!

Back at the Bed & Breakfast Luke found a top hat which was for decoration and decided he wanted to wear it. Isn't the room cool? It was decorated in a cozy country style.



Only 49 years until our 50th Anniversary!