Happy Cows...

After what seemed like a winter that wouldn't go away, we aren't the only ones who are ready for spring!

The milking cows here at home have been out on pasture several days a week for about two weeks now.  The first morning we put them out, they kicked up their heels with glee! Seriously!

The past few nights have been warm enough that they're out over night as well. The downside is...tying them in their stalls in the early morning is a zoo!  Until they learn the routine, the young heifers are...let's just say they're  very "heifer like", and leave it at that!

Enough words..

Let's get to the pictures of the other farm, where we put the dry cows and heifers into the meadow last week.

First,  we had to get ready...

Jim wanted to give them a small section of the meadow for starters.  The Allis Chalmers D-17 has fence wire on a reel, so he brought it into the meadow...

He dropped fence posts, and I pounded them in.  Gloves are a necessity when handling fiberglass fence posts!

He wrapped the wire around the posts..

And then we tied bale rope on the wire to make it more visible...

Of course, in the middle of it all, I had to just sit down in the lush, green grass and marvel at how spring is actually here!  No matter how dreary or cold the winter, spring ALWAYS comes!

 And of course,  the cows were happy too!

First Grass...

This has got to be one of the most fun things to do in the spring...

After the fences are all checked, and the grass is long enough in the meadow, and the ground has dried off enough to handle those sharp hooves, we let the cows out to graze in the meadow.  Here they come...

(Check out the cow on the right side of the screen as she runs down the path on her knees, she's so excited!)

Before they settled down to graze, a couple of them had to play queen of the mountain...

One of them broke a wire and took a friend along for a short stroll before we got them back in.  Thankfully everyone else was busy and didn't notice, or we'd have had a real problem.

We stood around the edges of the electric fence for about thirty minutes until they all settled down and put their heads down...

That first grass...mmmmm!