Life After Cows...Trip Part Two...

Last time I think I left you in West Virginia, where Jim and I enjoyed our first weekend away with my sister and brother in law. 

On Monday morning we packed up our car and headed into the "unknown".  We knew that our next destination would be Hesston Kansas, where our daughter is in college, but we didnt' know exactly which route we would take or where all we might stop.

We wound our way through the mountains of West Virginia, and ended up on Route 64 in Charleston, where we began our trek west towards Jenna.  There were lots of hills and lots of hairpin turns on those roads for the first hour or so!

Kentucky was the first state that we entered that we had never been in before...

What I remember the most, was the amount of steel bridges that we saw and crossed!  It made me think of Eric, who will soon graduate with a degree in Civil Engineering.  Steel structures are in his area of interest...

We found a motel just east of St Louis, where we spent the night.  We hoped to go up into the arch the next morning, but were unable to purchase any tickets online.  Bummer!  Or so we thought.  We decided to stop anyway, and were pleasantly surprised that we could still buy tickets on sight.

It was a gorgeous day!

I must say that if you are at all claustrophobic (which I am) the ride to the top of the tower is a bit of a stretch.  You sit in a small pod with up to four other people, your knees all touching and your shoulders a bit hunched so that you don't bang your head for the 4 minute ride to the top.  The view however, was worth it...

Looking east.  That's the Cargill grain elevator in the front center of the picture, with a barge apparently loading some grain.

Looking to the west.  The St Louis Cardinals baseball stadium is on the far left side of the picture...

The Mississippi River was quite muddy and very high.  I have never really seen it up close before to be able to compare it to "normal", but there were several docks just below us that were partially under water.  There was also a lot of debris in the water that had been caught up in piles near the shore.  A lot of the water from the flooding upstream was clearly making it's way south...

After we came down from the arch, we found a place to grab some lunch, and hopped back in the car for the rest of our trip towards Hesston.

We stopped at a car museum that we saw along Route 70 in western Missouri...

...and made our way southwest from Kansas City just before dark.  If you enlarge the picture, you can see a line of fire on the hillside in the distance.  It's the time of year that farmers burn their fields...

...a beautiful Kansas sunset...as beautiful as it could be from a moving car window anyway...

Finally, look who we found!  We haven't seen her since Christmas!

More next time on our adventures in Kansas and beyond!

Life After Cows...Trip Part One...

When Jim and I first started thinking about selling the cows, we also began dreaming of a vacation.  We had each been able to get away on occasion...alone...but not together, and we were ready for that to change!

We are very thankful to our current employers, who saw how important this was to us, and who were willing to give us some extended time off so soon after we began working for them!

All that said, I'm excited to recap our vacation for whoever would like to follow along!  I posted on Instagram and Face Book along the way, but didn't give a lot of details.  I'll warn you up front...the posts will be picture heavy, but it's what I do!  I snap away.  After all, I wouldn't want to forget anything!

Here's the first weekend...

We left home on Saturday morning March 23.  I had filled up the gas tank the night before on my way home from work, so we started with just ten miles on the trip odometer.  (We typically drive older cars and run them until they die, so none of our current vehicles were trip worthy.  We found this car at an auction last fall and bought it with this trip in mind.  It's fourteen years old, but had only 45,000 miles on it when we bought it.  An older man was the sole owner, and he had kept it spotlessly clean and had it serviced regularly and garage kept.) The mileage will look a lot different when we get home!

About an hour from home, we hit a traffic jam.  A stand still, get out of your car and walk around traffic jam that delayed us about an hour.  There was an accident on the highway a mile or so in front of us.  We never heard if anyone was badly injured, but we could clearly see where it had happened after traffic began moving again.

Thankfully (for more than just us!)  it was the only accident we encountered on the entire trip!

Our first destination was to my sister and brother in law's home in Kimball, West Virginia.  They are location coordinators for SWAP (Sharing With Appalachian People) which is under the umbrella of MCC (Mennonite Central Committee)  It's a great organization, if you want to check it out!

One of my favorite things on this trip was seeing how the landscape changed from state to state...even from mile to mile!  This is somewhere between here and there, either in Virginia or West Virginia...

It was supposed to be about an eight hour trip, but it took us ten hours due to the accident and a leisurely lunch stop.  We still had some daylight left when we passed Pinnacle Rock along Route 52, so we stopped for a quick hike to the top.  It's not a long or difficult hike...but it's worth the view!  The Appalachian Mountains are quite different from the Rockies, which I'll get to later...but beautiful just the same...

On Sunday afternoon, Lee and Peg took us hiking at Brush Creek Falls.

Aren't the water falls beautiful?  That's a 33' drop, in case you were wondering.  While we were there, a couple of young people took the plunge.  They looked pretty cold when they got out of the water!

The first waterfalls were close to the beginning of the trail, but there was a second falls about 1 1/2 miles further along the trail.  It was a beautiful day, and we had no cows to milk...so on we went...

And this...THIS...almost got us off to a really crummy start on our vacation.  I slipped and my phone ended up IN. THE. WATER.  Totally submerged in about two feet of water.

Jim was closest to it, and he grabbed it as fast as he could.  I thought it was all over.  I mean really...we are so attached to and dependent on our phones!!  How were we going to travel halfway across the country for two weeks with no means of communication and no internet access??  Talk about a first world problem.

I am so very thankful to say, that after the screen went blank for about ten minutes (and me panicking) my phone came back to life with no apparent permanent side affects!  My case is mostly made of rubber, and I think that's what saved it.  I don't know.  But ANYWAY...we were fine.  Sigh.

Thanks for following along on the first weekend of our getaway.  More to come in the next few days...

Final Milk Check...

Twenty five years ago, Jim and I eagerly awaited our first milk check.  We had to wait for a while, because dairy farmers are paid for milk shipped the previous month.  We were so excited, and documented the event...

This past week we received our final milk check, one month after we milked for the last time.  It was much nicer on this end, getting paid for a full month after we finished milking!

It would be nice to say that after twenty five years, the milk price has continued to increase like everything else, including expenses...but sad to say that's not the case.  I tried to compare prices, but it was difficult.  We shipped to a different co-op in 1994, and things were structured differently. The deductions that come off of the milk check each month are so different, and so much more now than they were then, but it was still fun to look at those old milk check stubs and try to compare!  

One thing that hasn't changed is the smile on my farmer's face!

Heifers Homecoming...

Settlement on the other farm happened a few weeks ago, but we were able to keep the dozen or so bred heifers over there until we ran out of feed.  I'd say Jim planned pretty well...last fall he had to guestimate how much silage we would need until late Feb/early March, and it worked out just right!  We brought them home on Saturday morning.

These three youngin's have no idea how their world is going to change.  They're used to having the run of the outside pen...

It took about fifteen minutes to load the ten heifers and young bull into the the trailer, and another five minutes to get them home...

(those barn cleaners are getting a long needed rest after being used daily for many, many years)

The outside pen is once again full of animals, back home where they "grew up"...

They don't care much where they are, just so there's food, water and shelter available!

Once the meadow greens up this spring, we'll let them out to graze to their heart's content.  As they spring up, they'll then be sold at a dairy sale.  Anyone need some nice first calf heifers?

Adjusting...

It's been two weeks today since we sold the cows, and we've been gradually adjusting to our new normal.  We're still feeling good about our decision, but there have been adjustments.

I will say, it's been easier in some ways than we expected, and harder in others!  The hardest part for me has been giving up my time at home.  Although we were very tied down with the cows, we often had flexible time throughout the day for running errands, etc.  That has changed a bit and is an adjustment, but we'll figure it out!  I need to be more intentional about meal planning, cleaning, laundry etc.  Jim still has some manure to haul and projects that he would like to tackle, and will have to adjust to the same thing.

I headed off to a new job almost two weeks ago, working in the office at a feed mill. I'm enjoying being able to remain a part of the ag community and I'm also enjoying the work that I've been doing.  I have a LOT to learn, but thankfully the people there have been very patient with my many, many questions!

Jim has been trying out a few things and hasn't decided for sure which direction he would like to go.  He will find a good fit I'm sure, but it might take a little time.

The dogs and cats may have the hardest adjustment of all!  They were used to having us around all day and would enjoy many ear scratches or belly rubs, and sneak treats throughout the day. Snickers has, in the past few months, bedded down in a pile of straw and corn fodder in the cow stable.  When the barn was full of cows, it was nice and cozy even on the coldest of days. When Jim cleaned out the stalls, he left her little pile in place so that she would have a comfy bed.  She could easily sleep upstairs in the straw with Murphy and Phoebe, but she chooses this...  

I'm headed off for a half day today, and when I get home the dogs will be jumping (at least Phoebe will be!) with excitement.  It's good to be loved, especially in the midst of big life changes!  :)

Reminiscing...

I had a day off from my job training today so I tagged along with Jim to the other farm when he went to feed the heifers.  Settlement is next week, so we took what will likely be our last opportunity to walk through the apartment where we lived for nine months when we were first married.  We lived on the second floor of the farm house (our kitchen was inside that huge bay window), Jim's Grandma lived on the big side of the house, and another family lived directly below us.

Here's our trip down memory lane... 

We entered off the porch and headed upstairs...

Our little kitchen table was inside those windows.  This faces south and east, and was a beautiful warm sunny place for eating breakfast and keeping my African violets blooming!

The tile back splash and cupboards have since been painted, but the tile was a bright aqua blue and the cupboards were a natural wood twenty five years ago...

Sycamore trees really make a mess in the yard, but this beautiful landmark is huge, old, and such a familiar sight outside our kitchen windows...

Older and hopefully wiser...

Our pretty little bathroom with the huge linen closet...

Checking out the heifers in the barnyard from the bathroom window...

On the north east side of the house was our bedroom.  When we got married, the bedroom suit that we had ordered from an Amish carpenter, wasn't ready yet.  So, we put our mattress and box spring on the bedroom floor and borrowed a dresser from Grandma D.

The tobacco shed out the spare bedroom window...

We lived here during the fall, winter and early spring months, so we didn't spend much time on the balcony, but it was so warm and sunny today!

Here's Jim almost exactly twenty five years ago, with the balcony behind him, holding our very first milk check!

Jim will be feeding heifers here for a little bit yet and then we'll be bringing them home to our farm.  The gorgeous blue sky against the beautiful white barn and tile silo today was just begging to show off in a photo, so here you have it!

Thanks for coming along on our trip down memory lane!  More coming soon on our new jobs and how that's going!

Time For Something New...

It's been a season of changes around here, and this week, they became reality.

On Monday morning, David, a young Amish neighbor who is starting out farming, came to choose which of our cows he wanted to purchase.

On Tuesday we sent several cows that he didn't want, to a dairy sale.

Yesterday several older cows went to the sale barn, and early this morning Jim and I headed to the barn to milk for the last time...

It was pretty cold, but thankfully not windy...

We finished up milking and kept our eyes on the clock, anticipating the cattle hauler arriving soon...

He first transported some cows from another neighbor and then arrived at our farm...

The cows cooperated quite nicely as they were loaded onto the truck.  Off he goes with the first load...

Last trip down Clearview Road...

...and here they are, settling into their new home!  Henry, age 2, looks on...

Our job for the next hour or so will be draining all the water lines in the cow stable.  We don't need any surprises when the weather warms and we turn on the water again to the barn!  For now we'll water the heifers with a hose from the milk house into a stock tank.

It's the end of an era, and as we expected, we have mixed emotions.  One thing that helps is knowing that most of the cows went to a neighbor, and will be helping him get off to a start in dairy farming. We've felt a lot of support from friends and family, and are looking forward to what's next.  What all that is, we don't know yet, but we're slowly piecing it together.

Jim and I spent almost twenty-five years working together, and we think that over all it went very well!  We might not get to eat three meals a day together any more, but we'll be fine!

For now, we still have some heifers and a couple of young calves that will keep our fingers in farming for a little while!