Is it really spring?

Our area received about 1 1/2 feet of snow in that last storm. I think that's more snow than we had all winter. Thankfully, all the cows and calves pulled through the storm, outside of that one calf two nights ago. Hooray!

I spent a large portion of the day in the kitchen, cooking and baking. I did get a sled ride too when Andrew and I took a calf we'd had in the barn for a while (during the storm he was all alone) back out to it's mother. Andrew drove his ATV and I held the calf down in the calf-sled. :)

Andrew let me borrow his camera and I took some snow pictures this morning, but I'm not sure when they'll get posted here. In the meantime, here are a few photos from the last couple of weeks....

This was one of the calves we've had in our kitchen.  He's now enjoying life with his adopted mommy out in the fresh air and snow.

 

 What a happy moment it is when they can finally stand!

 My mom snapped these pictures while we were out ear-tagging about a week ago...

 We use a baseball bat as protection.  :)

 These are OLD pictures already (from last month)...   This day, Johanna and Tracy Jo's mama brought a yummy bunny cake over for us to enjoy.  :)

 Tracy, playing with the Jenga blocks...

 Amelia had fun playing dress up with my clothes as I was folding them (after washing/drying them)...

 This was one of the days we went over to my house for a farm-visit....

 That's all for now.  Good night everybody.~

S*N*O*W

There is SO much snow out there!  Sadly, the 4-wheel drive part of our usual cow-checking pickup went out today, so now we have to take the tractor out for the nightly (and daily) checks.   Here's what our schedule looks like tonight: 

Dad (aka Robert): 12:00am check---spread straw to both groups of cows
Jacob :  2:00am check--spread straw to large cow group
Cora :   4:00am check--spread straw to large cow group
Andrew: 6:00am check--spread straw to large cow group, then milk cow.....

My mom said that if there are any calves needing to get warmed up tonight, she'll stay up with them.  I stayed up from 3:00am on last night and then the calf died this morning.  :(   There were 5 new calves today and so far, they've been alright.  My dad and I moved some things around in the back of the one pole-barn and set up some panels so the smaller group of cows (the ones we bought last fall) could all get in the barn tonight and hopefully will have enough room so they step on any babies. 

It is still snowing and blowing.  My dad read tonight that at 7:00pm today, Bismarck had already passed it's record snowfall-in-one-day number and it was still snowing! 

I was glad that there was time for a nap this afternoon (my dad fell asleep in his chair too while reading a newspaper). 

Still praying for the blizzard to let up....

I can't imagine doing it alone!

Calving, that is.  We have enough people here to make it bearable (all the nightly checks) and to make tagging/cow chasing bearable and doable.  I just can't imagine how some people do it by themselves.    We tagged a lot of calves this afternoon and had quite the rodeo with some that were a couple days old already!  Our total # of cows that have calved now is right at 70 and, as of now, the death toll (not counting an early miscarriage) is 3.   That's a blessing, considering all of the extra troubles we've had this Spring so far....   Now another storm is blowing in.  It's cold and very windy and miserable out there if you're a newborn (and even if you're a full grown animal).   We're praying for no new babies tonight.  We had to get one cow and her several-days old calf in the calving pen this afternoon as the baby just looked droopy and we're not sure it's been getting enough milk.  The cow's udder was very full, so Andrew milked off about 6 cups worth and I tube-fed the calf the milk to get it going again.  It didn't seem interested in nursing on it's mommy.  Not sure what's going on there?

SO, please rest well dear people reading this.   I hope we'll be able to join you all for a peaceful nights rest.

Lydia is well!

Thank you to those of you who said a prayer(s) for Lydia!  Her family reports this evening that the surgery went very well and Lydia woke up hungry.  :)  PTL!

It quit snowing for a while today.  Some of the calves were so happy that they were flying full-speed around the pasture, tails raised high.  They're all SO cute!

I helped with house-cleaning/cooking this morning, then went and babysat for most of the rest of the day.  The girls are growing and changing so much every time I see them.   Tracy Jo is now how old Johanna was when I first met her.  Johanna is quite the little talker and comes up with some interesting ideas.  They were having loads of fun with the back-massager today...oh, and the furniture duster (you know, that multi-colored poofy thing that works well for getting rid of spider webs).

Life goes on...

Please pray for Lydia and the Drs. tomorrow!

Lydia is the sister of Hannah K. @ the "Glory and Grace" blog: http://www.gloryandgrace-hannah.blogspot.com/.  She will be having brain surgery tomorrow morning (around 8am) to remove a tumor.  Please join us in praying for the whole K. family!!!!

Please pray too for all of the ranchers who are calving in this snowy, blustery weather.  My dad just came in from checking again and said there were 2 new calves since the last check.  He'll be going out again in about an hour to recheck on them before heading for bed.    I think there were 3 or 4 new calves earlier today too.  So far, none have needed to come in the house (we just had to get one pair in the barn).  Andrew started singing a very appropriate song for this day while we were in the barn (he was milking and I was feeding my cute little bottle-calf).  It is a song that my dear friend, Dorena's older sister wrote years ago and the two of them sang it on their CD.  Part of it goes like this:

"There's a cold North/West wind blowing at my back.  My sittin' bones are weary on the saddle where I've sat.  The herd is movin' slow...  Newborns at their side.  We've gotta get the (beasts, I think is the word here?) in, there's a blizzard on the rise....

(chorus)  It's April Fools in Dakota...  This morning who'd have known, with all the prairie singin' 'cause the meadowlark was home.  That sunny song of Spring can turn to snowflakes on the run.  Now the clouds are rollin' in.  Windchill's minus 1.

I heard a robin yesterday.  I wonder where he's gone?  I hope he'll find some shelter while the Winter has it's fun.  6 weeks ago was balmy.  Valentine's day was clear.  If Springtime's a prairie's lover, I wish he weren't so insincere....

Only 40 fence posts left 'til I reach that sheltered draw.  I can smell the wood-smoke burnin'.  Mama keep it fired up hot!  There's 10 endangered species on the ends of my two feet.  It's cold and I ain't funnin'.  No, I guess the fool is me!....



My dad and Andrew went over to a friend's place in Ellendale and loaded up the truck they'd bought from the friend's neighbor while Andrew was down there cleaning grain.  They had to take it easy coming home because the roads were not very pleasant.  My mom went to Bismarck to see clients all day and she also had a long drive home, due to not-so-nice driving conditions.  Jacob and I stayed home.  I made yogurt again; did a bunch of dishes that needed doing; restarted the water and milk kefir; baked chocolate chip cookies; made lunch and supper.....   Jacob did most of the cow checking.

Oh, I do have something I'm very glad to report tonight!  My cow finally decided to adopt the spiker calf, so we no longer need to get the cow in the head-gate in order to feed the calf!  Praise the Lord and alleluia!!!  :)



   

The kitchen is vacant tonight!

I just arrived home from babysitting a few minutes ago and was relieved to see the kitchen empty of bovine occupants!  It's actually quite nice out this evening and feels a little like Spring.  :)

I brought Amelia, James and Michael over here for a while this afternoon and they enjoyed seeing our calves and other animals again, then playing on the swings and teeter-totter.  We noticed some green grass coming up in the lawn!  Hooray!

The children informed me, after we got back, that they'd wanted to see my clean fish aquarium because the last time they were here, it was all a mossy mess....  They were content to wait for the next time to see it though, as it was supper time by then and their tummies were hungry.  We popped some popcorn and had movie night tonight.  ....And my brothers say:  "You get paid for that?"  ;)

Good night everybody.  God bless~

Babies--and 'sitting...

Thankfully, there haven't been tons of cows calving in this cold, snowy spell!  Last night we had 2 calves in the kitchen, but they're doing well now.  

Yesterday I babysat Johanna and Tracy Jo until suppertime, then helped get cows/calves in the barn.  It's a blessing to have a couple of barns with different sections in each....  We ate a late supper last night!  This morning, we had to get the kitchen calves back with their mamas and made sure they nursed.  We now have a bottle calf too (or a spiker calf if needed) as one of my cows who isn't doing very well (has hip issues) surprised us all by having a healthy calf yesterday morning.  She's not in any shape to raise a calf though, so it will be our new bottle-baby. 

At 1:00, I drove into Napoleon and picked up our neighbor children (the 3 I stayed with for a week last month) from preschool.  We went to the post office to mail a package for my dad, and we also bought a case of powdered colostrum at the elevator, as we're going through it faster than we'd hoped with all the calving problems.  Thankfully, we haven't lost any babies in the last few days! 

Now I'll be staying with these children until tomorrow night when their mom gets back from visiting a dear childhood friend/working.  Their dad is away for job-training, so it's just the 4 of us again.  They just finished their bath and want to get back to playing tinker toys, so I'd best post this and get back to play.  ;)