Plans

June 24, 2011 
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This time of year is always CRAZY.  We are back into hay season, farmers markets, plus regular meat deliveries and sales, we have to watch our pigs closely every day due to the heat, build fence to move our cows onto new pastures quickly as the grass dries up, and, and, and…

So, last Friday we had a plan.  We were going to finish baling the hay, me raking with Ada, and Nathan baling, then we would get the cows up from the bottom pasture in the evening.  On Saturday morning we would get started working, castrating bull calves, and sorting the cows as soon as it was light and after we sent friends off to run our farmers market booth, finish the fence to turn the cows out onto new pasture, feed the pigs, and hopefully be back in the house around dark.

Here’s what actually happened:

Friday:  Nathan’s Aunt and Uncle come in from out of town to bring us a load of slaughter lambs and goats they raise and we spend a wonderful morning catching up with them.  That afternoon we get to the field to finish baling and find that the high winds of the past day have blown the windrows all over the field so that what I had already raked had to be raked again (argh! Here goes more $4/gallon diesel down the tubes.), then after one round, Nathan stops on the edge of the field with the baler and signals for me to stop.  Yep, the baler is broken down so no more baling for today.  We discuss whether to get the square baler, which would mean spending the rest of the day plus most of Saturday hauling hay out of the field, or work on the round baler.  We decide to see if Nathan’s uncle can help work on the round baler–he can, but not until Saturday.

So, we will work on fence instead.  As I’m waiting for Nathan to get the baler ready to take back to the house, I notice that there are buzzards circling the field where the cows are and I can see a momma cow trying to run some off that are on the ground.  In the past year we have had a problem with Mexican Buzzards attacking newborn calves and calving cows (Yes, I realize that buzzards are not supposed to attack living animals, but I have seen these do it with my own eyes so it does happen–they peck the calves eyes out and sometimes attack the cow as she is down also.)  Realizing that this could be happening, I race (as fast as you can race in a tractor pulling hay rakes across a bumpy field) to the truck and then take the truck across the remaining field.  Sure enough, there is a new Dexter calf who ended up on the wrong side of the electric fence and the buzzards are after it–luckily the cow was aggressive enough and I found it in time that it was not hurt.

I leave Ada in the front seat of the truck with the air on while I pick up the calf and deposit it on the right side of the fence.  Our crazy donkey then spots the new calf and rushes over to claim it as her own and keep the cow away, ARGH!!!  (As as a side note, I can totally see why the old term for a donkey become a slang term for someones rear end because by this point I was yelling at her, “Noel, why do you have to be such an a**!” and other not very nice things that all included that particular term.)

So, I pick up the calf again with the agitated cow trying to circle around the donkey and take it across the fence to another area close by under some trees.  The calf is also very hot from laying in the 100 degree sun for who knows how long so I make sure she is in shade.  By this time Ada is screaming in the truck because she has been left alone, and Nathan is heading over in the other tractor to see what is going on.  I retrieve Ada and try to figure out how to get the donkey out of the field.  At this point we decide that we might as well go ahead and move the cows up to the barn and separate the donkey as we go.  The calf is loaded into the back of the truck and Nathan holds her on the tailgate while Ada and I slowly drive through the field calling the cows.  Eventually, about two hours later, we made it up to the house with the donkey deposited back with the sheep where she was supposed to be anyway and the calf cooled off and reunited with her mother.  Whew!  By this point it is dark and there is no chance of working on any fence or anything else.

Saturday:  We are able to get the cows sorted into their various breeding groups and get the Dexters out to their field, get the pigs fed, and by evening the baler is fixed and ready to go.  I have to rake the hay about 100 feet in front of the baler to keep it from blowing away, but we get it finished, yay!  But, no calves castrated or fence built.

A week later we just finished the fence and moved the cows.

I really don’t know why we even bother to make plans anymore.