Phoebe the Resourceful Puppy...

Winter finally feels like it's threatening to pay us a visit, and the dogs are finding warm places to sleep at night.  They have numerous options...upstairs in the barn in either the sawdust pile, the hay mow or the straw mow (their usual first choice)...in the dog house with the flannel blanket...or downstairs in the barn with the cows.  We let the door open so they can go in and out as they please.

This morning when we went out to milk, I found Phoebe curled up in the cow stable in a pile of corn fodder...

Last night this bale was intact, but by this morning, she had torn it apart and made a nice warm nest for sleeping.  She's a late riser, and was still quite sleepy and calm when I found her.  I actually curled up beside her for a few minutes before I had to get back to work!

Some may think she made a mess by tearing up a fodder bale...but since it was going into the gutter in a few short hours anyway, I call it "being resourceful"!  :)

Fall 2016...

It's been a while since I've posted...

A lot has been happening, but my "get up and go" must've "got up and went"! My camera has been pretty idle.  There have been a bunch of things that I've had to cross off my list...stressful things...but hopefully I can put them behind me. The time change certainly hasn't helped anything.  This getting dark early stuff is for the birds! I need lots of sunlight/daylight to keep me going!

In the meantime...fall has been in full swing.  The rye grass behind the barn is growing, and I think this is one of the most beautiful views of the farm!

The corn and soybean harvest have been finished for a while now, and they both yielded very well.  Jim is about finished with baling corn fodder. The barn is full...

He finished cleaning out heifer pens...aka spreading pazutski...over the weekend, and now it's on to some other things like moving calves around, repairing some leaky water bowls and lots of other busy work. The weather has been beautiful!  It's actually rather dry, and the fall leaves have been hanging on extra long this year.  Jenna and I went on a college visit near Philadelphia on Friday, and the drive was spectacular!

Phoebe is growing...and is a mixture of sweet...

and naughty!

I will say, I wasn't very happy with her this weekend!  On Friday night we noticed that we are down one chicken...thanks to miss Phoebe.  :(  And on Sunday morning, Jim noticed that she had chewed off some wires on his sprayer.  :(  It's a good thing she's so sweet!

Yesterday afternoon, when Jim and I returned home from an afternoon at Eric's cross country banquet at college, we were greeted by the sweetest, most enthusiastic, warm, wiggling little brown body, and it almost made me forget that I was frustrated with her.  Puppies are definitely a lot of work.  We don't want her to be "one of those dogs" that people don't want to be around because she jumps up, destroys things, etc. We're slowly getting there!

What are your fall days busy with?

Doing the Mundane...Among Other Things...

I've had folks ask already..."what needs to be done in the barn in the morning besides milking and feeding?"

Well...it used to be what I often did...but now the truth would be..."what does Jim (or Daniel) do in the barn in the morning and what do you sometimes help with?"

After milking (which I do help with) and feeding, the mundane morning work must be done.  Cows poop.  A lot.  Anywhere.  And everywhere.  So...the manure must be cleaned out of the gutters every morning,  Dry corn fodder or straw is then put into the gutters to help reduce splashing and to help provide bulk that carries the manure up the elevators and into the spreader.

You can also see the white barn dri that has been spread on the entryways behind the cows.  It makes a nice, non slip surface to walk on and helps to keep the barn clean...

Fresh sawdust is tossed under the cows to help keep them clean and dry. The sawdust is stored upstairs on the barn floor, and shoveled down through a hole in the floor into a cart, which is then pushed through the barn to wherever it is needed.

On a side note, a little fyi.  If you look closely, you'll see an orange tag above the cow on the right.  She came into the barn in heat this morning, and that sign indicates to the breeder which cow needs to be serviced...

We were hoping that the heat and humidity were about gone, but it's really sticky outside this morning.  So the cows are staying inside today with all the fans running.  We have five of these 48" fans, along with some smaller hanging fans that help to keep the cows comfortable...

After the routine morning work is finished, the heifers and dry cows at the other farm need to be fed.  Then after lunch, who knows what might need to be done?  There are a bunch of cows that are ready for their vaccinations. Maybe that's one thing we'll do today.  There's always something!

Looking back on the past couple of weeks, which have been super busy...

The silos are full...

Fifth cutting hay is finished...

Rye grass has been seeded in the fields where corn silage came off...

Some of the pens are cleaned out, now that there are some bare fields to spread the manure on...

The West Lampeter Fair has come and gone for another year...

Now we wait for the beans and the remainder of the standing corn to dry and be harvested...hopefully in another few short weeks.  Then there will be corn fodder to bale and more pens to be cleaned out.

I've always said that I think fall is the busiest time of year here...and I think I'll stick to my story!

You Know It's Spring When...

You know it's spring when...

There are lots of ways to finish that sentence, but one way you know it's spring here is that the pens at the other farm get cleaned out.

I'm a few weeks late with this post, but here are a few pictures anyway.

It happens every spring and fall, but there's nothing quite like a barn that's been completely cleaned out of pen pack manure.  Load after load of manure has been spread on the fields, and now bales of corn fodder are tossed from the mow, down through the hole onto the floor below...

(the windows are open now, letting more fresh air in the barn)

Fresh dry fodder has been spread all over the floor of the pens and the skid loader sits idle out in the barn yard...

The cows (with the bull, of course leading the way) are left back into the barn after spending the day outside...

They suspiciously explore their freshly bedded pens...

...and get right back to work at messing them up for the fall clean up!  That one won't take as long, because the animals will all be spending a lot of time out in the meadow before too long!

How do you know it's spring in your neck of the woods?

21 Bpm....

What is 21 bpm?

Well...it's like this...

When you've been unloading corn fodder for four hours straight with your friends...and you get a little bored (and tired)...you have a contest.  How many bales can you get from the wagon to the hay mow (stacked) in one minute?

Eric and his friends tried it.  They started out at 8...then 13...and then finally, their record...21 bales per minute.

There you have it!  Bpm...

To keep things interesting, you can also decorate the ladder with loose bale ropes...

...and crush your soda cans...

...and best of all, you go out for pizza afterwards!

A lot of fodder got unloaded and stacked the past few days.  Thanks guys!

And More Fodder...

We're still baling and unloading corn fodder!


The past few days have been gorgeous...perfect for drying the fodder and comfortable for baling and unloading.  Jim estimates that we have at least 2000 bales so far, and he hopes to bale four more loads tomorrow.  Those wagons won't be unloaded...he'll back them into the barn and we'll use the fodder right off the wagons...they won't be needed anyway until next spring

This scene kind of reminds me of a runway full of jets waiting to take off...

When we're looking ahead at baling fodder, it can look like a formidable task.  It's often cold outside, it's very dirty and dusty, and it's hard on the baler!  But now that we're almost finished...it wasn't so bad this year!

Another Busy Day...

Once again I was reminded that fall is our busy busy time!  It felt today like we were going non-stop.  Finally now, just after 8pm, we're finished with supper and ready to settle in for the evening.

Yesterday afternoon Jim began raking corn fodder at the other farm.  This morning he headed out after breakfast to rake at the rental ground at our neighbor's.  It was chilly, and he called for an extra coat...

By lunch time, he had begun baling, and had filled several wagons...

We ate a quick lunch while we waited for the guys to arrive who were helping to unload the wagons.  They began unloading and stacking the fodder in the mow at the other farm.  We use lots of fodder and straw for bedding up the dry cow and heifer pens.  (Fodder is our first choice, since it is much more absorbent than straw)  

Jim headed back out to bale, and the wagons kept coming...and coming...


Eric is hooking up a full wagon to be pulled into the barn...
 

Everyone is tired tonight!  Jim was raking and baling for about eight hours...and then tonight during milking he raked up some hay to be baled on Monday.  The kids unloaded fodder for about five hours, and then helped with milking.

It's wonderful to have had a beautiful day to get all this accomplished!  There were about ten bales of fodder left in the mow at the other farm this morning, so the timing couldn't have been better!  Hopefully next week will go just as well...there's more fodder to bale on Monday!


 

"Pazutski"...

One of the daily jobs that needs to be done, regardless of the weather, is cleaning out the cow gutters and spreading "pazutski".

Have you ever heard of "Pazutski"? 

Pazutski is another name for cow manure, cow poop, or anything else you might want to call it!  I have no idea where the word came from, how to spell it for sure, or if it's even a word...it's just what my family has called it ever since I was a little girl...

We don't have a manure pit, so each morning, Jim backs the manure spreader under the elevators and turns on the barn cleaner.  Behind each row of cows is a gutter about ten inches deep.  Laying in the gutter is a heavy chain which makes a complete circle...through the barn, up the elevator and back down again.  Paddles are attached to the chain about fifteen inches apart.  When the chain moves, the manure moves through the barn, up the elevator, and falls into the manure spreader.  Jim stands on the edge of the spreader and scrapes the paddles clean.  Then we spread corn fodder or straw in the empty gutters.  This makes more bulk and helps the manure to move up the elevators more easily.  It's also great for the soil...



The trusty old Farmall M is the work horse for this job.  Jim's dad bought the tractor many years ago, and it's still going strong!  (It's a 1950 something)  It has no power steering, so it's a bear to steer, and it's the only tractor we own that  I don't know how to start or drive.  I'm happy to keep it that way...that way I can avoid doing this job!  :)

Regardless of the weather, this job needs to be done.  So, you can imagine that in the winter time, this can be a challenge.  Sometimes Jim has to plow a path under the elevators and through the field to get the tractor and spreader through.  In the single digits this morning, he said it was FREEZING on the tractor!  Right now he's spreading on some rental ground about a mile away, so has a cold ride!  On his way home, he's usually heading into the wind, and is glad for the cold weather gear!



So...as long as cows keep making pazutski, we'll have something to do!  It's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it!

Photo gallery from the past year...

It's that time of year...we're in our slow mode...and if I don't keep myself motivated, I can waste a lot of time! 

I'd like to think, though, that blogging is NOT a waste of time...so I've compiled a collection of pictures from the past year that I found interesting. 

 Some of them are directly related to farming, some of them are of family, and some of them are just beautiful scenery.  (Some may be repeats from earlier blog posts, but if you see them twice, you know I really like them!)

Enjoy!


2010 began with a bang!  In February we had two major snow storms a week apart, resulting in 40+ inches of snow...

Our neighbor's farm to the west always makes a great photo, no matter the weather...

Several years ago Jim bought a Honda 50 dirtbike like he rode when he was a kid.  Last winter he found a Honda 100, so now the kids each have a dirt bike to ride.  They use them for fun and for work...

Spring arrived, like always, and I was thrilled...

These particular chickens loved to sit on top of the fence around their pen...



Of course there was also work to do...my nephew from Chicago loved gathering eggs...



And Murphy blessed us with nine adorable puppies...but they wore her out!  They were born in June, during one of the hottest weeks of the year...



Our neighbor Joe came over every day to see them...

The laundry never ended...

Some beautiful scenes shot by Jenna...

And then of course there was some more work...baling round bales...Jim drove the tractor while the Amishman who owns the baler rode behind and operated the mechanism that released the bale into the field...

Fun...it doesn't take alot to be entertained...

We just can't seem to get away from those cows!   (photo by Jenna)

More "real" work...Eric unloading hay...



The east hay mow is almost full...



Jim's dad on his old (1950 something) Ferguson 30, just before he sold it...he used to use it for cleaning out pens...

After a dry summer, we had a LONG day of rain...over 8 inches of rain...(I forgot to empty the rain gauge before bed, so we aren't sure just how much we had, but it was a lot!)

We chopped corn the next day, and left no tracks in the field or mud on the driveway!  The ground was thirsty...

And there's our neighbors' farm again...taken out the west barn windows...



We found a little time to play...we spent an afternoon picnicking with friends at a park...

Fall work was upon us...combining corn, and loads of corn fodder waiting to be unloaded...

My dad repaired our cow trailer...he doesn't look 81, does he?!

This is where the dogs hang out while we're milking...right under our feet...

And this is where Slinky the cat hangs out...high above the dogs...

Self-service balage...or so they think!

Me and my next-oldest sister...Look behind us...I just can't get away from those cows!

And I couldn't let this one out.  We all gathered after Christmas to watch my brother in law start his old 1936 John Deere D that he, with some help from my Dad, restored.  It started up, he whooped and hollered, we cheered, and he's still grinning!  This one's for you, Marty!

And to round out the year, here's another picture of the sunrise on New Year's Day 2011...

Thanks for humoring me...do you have any favorites?