Wow--was this a glimpse of Summer?

It was GORGEOUS outside today!!!  Jacob brought the patio-door screen up from the basement and we opened that door all of the way, plus had several windows open too (even the ones without screens, as there aren't many bugs outside yet.  Awwwwwww

I even saw a couple of gophers running around outside!  Yeehaw!   It's time for some serious target practice.  :)

We now have 2 bottle calves.  The most recent one is the calf who was stuck in the mud a couple of mornings ago.   His mama never reclaimed him (we don't even know who the mother is, as she wasn't by him when he was in the mud).  SO, my dad and I finally brought him in the barn with the other bottle calf this evening so feeding him is easier.  It's such a blessing to have a milk cow at times like these!

Andrew still is down and out sick on the couch.  Thankfully, the rest of us are well and are able to do his chores (outside of his grain cleaning work).  He did come out and help us sort off a yearling bull who had broke in with the main herd overnight...  

My dad finished his grain cleaning job by Mandan today and got home right at supper time.  My mom left mid-afternoon for Fargo to attend a Kangen water conference with her dear friend, Anna.  (My mom and Anna grew up together in Eureka, SD).  I wonder if they'll get any sleep tonight or if they're talking, talking, talking?  ;)

We continue to have several new calves every day.  Yesterday, I found a dead one when I went out checking, but nobody was near it.  Later, at 3:00am, I saw it was one of my heifers that had it.  I don't know what was wrong either as it appeared to be licked off; the head wasn't swollen; it wasn't stuck in a hole so it couldn't get up; the weather was pleasant; it had gone to the bathroom;...?  I guess we'll never know some things.

Jacob was a great help to me today in cleaning and reorganizing the house, somewhat.  It is so warm out that we are no longer able to use the entry-way as a refrigerator, so that required some rearranging in the fridges.  We also went through our huge stack of newspapers and got rid of a ton of them (not quite that many, but they were pretty heavy).  Jacob scraped the algae off my aquarium while I made them some brownies.   I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed the floor and it actually looks pretty mud free right now!

It was a good day!