Still livin the life....

and shoveling out bunks... and pulling out the chief... and pushing snow... and pulling out the chief again... and getting the skid loader stuck trying to pull the chief out... and praying the sun comes out to dry the calves... and wondering why the fuse on the skidloader wipers keeps blowing... and climbing onto the machine shed roof to screw down the steel roofing that is flapping in the 50mph wind before it and a couple others go flying ... and driving the tractor over to the chiefs house... and pulling the chief out again... and getting the skidloader stuck in the cattle yard... and bedding down the sows with dry straw... and battling the frozen silo unloader.. and freezing 2 pair of insulated coveralls solid... and pushing snow... and shoveling out every door on the place to get in... and "Grateful for the opportunity!"

Livin the life

A friend stopped out to get some eggs the other day. He said "Man your just livin the life out here aren't ya!" I said "You bet! And I am grateful for it!"

Loader reborn... maybe....

The old case died(radiator problems) and sat at another farm for a month or so. We made a risky decision to try and get her back in good shape as it still could be very useful. We had the fuel pump rebuilt and pulled it home where we could install it more easily. So the pump is on, it starts but needs some tuning yet. Roger got the radiator off and headed to the shop. We hope the end result will be it starts better than last winter if you remember that post. This machine is like an old farmer... replace/rebuild  some parts from time to time, starts rough, looks a bit crusty, doesn't move real fast, can't lift as much as it used to, but it can get a bunch done.

December tile

With the aid of the drought we put a bit of tile right through the chief's nemesis, the peat bed, as described in previous posts. The water was a welcome sight but as you can see the the ice indicates we probably won't get a second line in this year. We tiled last week of December last year and we had a drought this year. I hope that correlation doesn't follow through for this year.

Working cows

Worked the cows a week or so back. 2 open and the both had some age or issues so off they went to town. One was officially the last registered  RX3 we had. She had a letter k tattoo so she was Perry old. We still have one full Rx3 but she is not tattooed so wouldn't have been registered. Ken of Oelwein Vet clinic did the dirty work. He does a great job and is very good at communicating what he is doing and why. Since he was here we worked our last 10 late calves. All ten fit in the chute at once. The last couple there we are keeping for bulls. Still bring those two up on corn but trying to figure out an alternative ration because when they go on full feed it ain't gonna be cheap!

Feeding silage

How do you move a 50lb tub of silage? Well it might take a buddy and you have to grind your teeth. When feeding the calves on feed this morn I snapped this photo of the steaming goodness. Corn silage, cracked corn and ddg, suppose you could call this Iowa corn fed beef? I got out to level the bunk and it smelled so good I would have dug in if I had a big fork and a 4 compartment stomach.

Crappy day

It really was. I mean we had fun but we had to work with it. The rabbits and chickens were much pleased and the garden is the benefactor. But these kids can really shovel it and made the job easy . Thanks to Mr Hartman for letting us use the tank to pump an old pit full of mostly water and haul it to the field. It will take our few pigs awhile to fill it back up.