Moving the Beef Herd

Generally speaking, the beef cows move incrementally through a field by us moving a strand of electrified poly-wire every evening.  After they've finished going across the whole paddock, however, we need to start over with another one somewhere else.  Sometimes the new paddock adjoins the previous one; sometimes it's in an entirely different quadrant of the farm.

It's best to forestall mayhem by stationing family members along the cows' route in order to keep them together as a group.  Believe me, the little bit of time that seems wasted while standing there waiting for and eventually watching the cows go by is a worthwhile investment compared to the time you'll spend rounding them up should they discover they are free to choose their own paths.

Mostly the mothers of the group are careful to make certain their babies go along for the move, but sometimes there'll be a straggler or two that we'll have to go back and get.  Right now we have one we call "The Blind Calf".  Sadly, it lost its sight to pinkeye. It was going along alright until it made a sudden wrong turn and dove into the pond.  

Calves can swim, yes.  Ideally it is for short durations, though.  We weren't sure how soon it would find the shore, so Trent and Paul grabbed the only available boat and rowed out toward it.  It found the far shore before they got to it, though.

~Colleen

Changing the Cattle Trailer Axle

Our family notoriously puts major things off until the absolute last minute.  Like when Blake went to get married.  He was literally sitting in the empty engine compartment of the very truck he intended to drive to Vermont to fetch his lovely bride.  What was he doing while sitting there?  Laughing.  Laughing that giddy-I-have-no-idea-why-I-did-this-to-myself laugh.  Laughing because he knew he had to get the whole thing back together and he knew he only had DAYS in which to get it done. But he did get it back together....and that was just what we all expected was going to happen.

The other day started out with Paul mentioning that he needed to haul some beef steers in the evening.  Then he mentioned that the axle of the cattle trailer was bent, so he should replace it before leaving with it. Sure.  Change the axle really quickly and then take it.  Sounds like a typical Yoder move to me.

So, Garth positioned the pallet forks of the loader to elevate the hind end of the cattle trailer and Trent commenced removing the tire lugs.  As it turned out, BOTH axles were not well, so the job just got one axle deeper.

Meanwhile, the hands  kept whirling around the clock and evening was fast approaching. They were able to fix the first axle fairly quickly.  

The other was proving to be more difficult.  At one point, Paul decided that he wanted Garth to lower the trailer onto its own wheels by lowering the pallet forks....only there was a slight miscalculation on Paul's part as to where his own hip bones were aligning with the trailer's rear-most axle as it came down.  (Yeah, he was under the trailer when Garth gently set it down....). Let's just say that a week later, he is still limping but thankful that he didn't end up hospitalized.

Time was no longer on their side, so the guys decided to simply remove the front axle entirely for that moment. 

Here Daniel, who has never been formally introduced as our newest farm hand, and Garth give it a mighty yank. Paul, having just reduced his own range of motion to a fraction of what is otherwise normal for him, is looking on, coaching them.

We have no pictures of the next day when Paul opened the trailer door and one of the new steers rushed out, cleared a board fence, and dashed wildly over yonder hill.  Brock immediately closed the most pertinent gates with road access, and we stationed Miles for three hours at the one place we couldn't secure.

After much searching we determined the steer had pulled the perfect ruse:  he jumped in with a herd of our other cows and went unnoticed for some hours.  What compounded the search was that some of us had never gotten a chance to actually SEE the steer before it disappeared, so we weren't exactly sure what we were looking for!

~Colleen

Garden

Because this family eats an incredible amount of watermelon each and every summer, it's definitely worthwhile to plant A LOT of them....which we did.  One year we sent Christine to the local produce auction to buy a whole bin of them.  I'm not sure if I should be ashamed to admit that we ate all of them!

We have fond memories of last summer when of our German friends, the Jetters, were here. We enjoyed taking them out to the garden to haul in great, big watermelons.

I personally *like* having flowers growing in my garden.  It makes me happy.  It inspires me to actually go out there and work.  Later (after I have cleaned it all up for the camera....ahem....) I will go out there and snap some pictures of the lovely haven I pretend our garden is. (Irony of ironies that a mother whose family  possesses so many lawn mowers should be left in want of one....)
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Strangely, it isn't that we even really *like* peppers that well, but the plants are neat and tidy, and I like to see them growing....how lame is that?  We do eat them, by the way, preferably smothered with vegetable dip.

Paul and Clark went to the Family Farm Field Day a couple weekends ago and brought back some literature about these pens that someone is making locally.  We decided to go ahead and buy one to test it out.

The evening Brady, Paul, and I put it up was very chilly so we didn't put the turkeys out that night as it would've been too much of a shock to their systems to go from the warmth of the brooder bus to the chilly outdoors.  Paul was sooooo disappointed by that fact because he was so anxious to test it out.

I wanted to try them in the garden area because I thought it would be multi-purpose:  fertilizer; they can eat garden scraps; it is relatively close to the house and the other turkeys still in the brooder; water is not far away; plus I just thought it seemed like a good place to put them.


~Colleen