Snow

We haven't had much snow this winter, it's been mostly a brown season. Here's what we woke up to this morning.

Hard to tell how much cause the wind is cranking and it's drifting, but I'm guessing somewhere between 8 and 12 inches. Still snowing. Should have filled stock tanks and put out hay for the horses yesterday, but the weather guys have been so wrong lately and I've been sick for a week, so I just didn't feel like it. Now I get to do it in this mess. Oh well, that's life on the farm I guess. Ha det bra.

New calf and fire dog

 Here's another pic of the new calf. It's doing great. 99.9% sure it's a bull calf. Seems to have all the right attachments. Jess is coming over this week and help me make a steer out of him. She's done this before so we should be good.

 Here he is nursing. Look just below Red Cow's butt and that's him. I'm calling him Junior Burger.

 Here's the "Fire Dog". She gets all excited when she knows I'm gonna get the stove going. Stares at the fire while the kindling gets burning.

 Then she whines until I throw a log on and shut the door. When I open the door she runs to stare under the bench by the door, cause if the sun is just right it reflects off the stove door and shines a light under the bench.  Weird.

C'mon Dad get a log. Hurry!

Post Script

Just now we were able to observe the calf nursing. This is a great sign. We are happy! :-) I think it's a boy.

New calf

Sometime early this morning Rita had her calf. It looks mostly dry and is walking around. Trouble is it's only 25 and windy. So we keep our fingers crossed and hope it makes it.

I don't know for sure what it is yet, because Frank was in the shelter and I wasn't going to try and get closer. Keep your fingers crossed and hope for the best. I'll post more when I know more.

Chicken butchering

Gramma and I decided to get some different chickens. We want some that lay eggs more frequently. I think we will get some Barred Rocks. They are supposed to lay an average of 4 eggs a week. If we get 10 and a rooster that's 40 eggs a week and we can hatch some for replacements. We can then probably share the eggs with certain people if they want them. Any way we need to get rid of the other chickens. Except Lucy. She gets a free pass and can stay 'til she dies of old age. So I butchered one Welsummer the other day.

 All plucked and ready for the kife.

 All clean and ready for the oven.

Out of the oven. Gramma takes out the backbone and flattens them out so they cook more evenly. Works well. Did you know that a 2 year old chicken is no good for roasting? We couldn't eat it. Like trying to chew cowhide. It tasted good, but was just too tough. So it looks like there will be alot of chicken soup and stew, or coyote treats. Apparently your supposed to buy "Meat Birds" and butcher them at 2 months old. I didn't know that. When you buy from a hatchery they have a minimum order of 25 chicks, so we'll get ten layers and 15 meat birds and at 8weeks I'll butcher the meats and freeze them. We eat chicken once a week, so they won't get old. Anyway that's what we're planning. Ciao.

Trauma on the farm

Yesterday I needed to put out hay for the cows. I was going to wait 'til after lunch when I saw something funny in the pasture. Our youngest steer "Burger Boy" had his head caught in the feeder. He seems small but must weigh a couple hundred pounds.

 Here he is with Frank. I went down right away and tried to get him loose. Well for a small guy he is incredibly strong. I got inside the feeder and tried to push his head out and he went nuts. He started to drag the feeder and me around. That feeder weighs about 190 lbs. and I go 210. So I stopped and went and got Gramma to help. We both tried and almost got him loose a couple of times, but when we had him close he would go forward instead of back. So Gramma called the vet and asked if he could come and tranquilize him so we could get him out and we went back in the house to wait. He layed down for awhile and then got up and tried to get loose again. He did that a couple of times and then I looked down there and he was loose. He must have laid down and turned his head just right and got out. We were Happy!

 Here's the feeder he got stuck in. The lower openings are quite small. A full grown cow can't get it's head in there. Don't know why it didn't happen before.

 The other feeder has large openings on the bottom and only weighs 120 lbs., so Jess is going to order one for us where she works. Gramma and I hurt "Everywhere". Don't wrestle with cows after you hit 50. It's not good. Anyway he seems to be fine and we're the only ones in pain.

Rhoda, Le Beef and Frank wanted their picture taken too. Later.

Fishing

Every February my buddy Mike and I go fishing for his birthday. Been close to twenty years now. This year we went to his family's cabin north of Park Rapids. It's a small lake, but there's panfish and northerns, so we set up tip-ups for pike and sat in the truck and played cribbage and watched for flags.

 Threw this one back.

 Threw this one back.

 Kept this one, about three pounds.

Kept this one, about six or seven pounds. Had fun, caught fish, got cold, drank some beer. It don't get no better than that.