Category Archives: Prayers

Out to pasture and 1st calf 2021

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Here we are again. Another year of grazing, and another year of babies.❤️

2021 marks our 15th year of calving! We had a longer break from milking this year since we purposely waited to breed our mamas a month later than what we’ve done in the past. We thought this would maybe decrease some of the mud issues we’ve faced in past Marches, and also give the grasses an extra month to grow so our mamas’ feed would be more lush after calving. As it turned out, this season has not been a wet one, lol.🤷🏻‍♀️ But that’s ok – we were happy to have this longer break to prepare us for whatever is to come for 2021.🙏🏼

Last week we finished up getting all our groups of cows out from their winter area and out grazing in the pastures. It is always such a delight to see everything turn green and flowers pop out in the Spring!🌷

The yearlings were the first to move. Here they are on the 13th.☀️

Here are the dairy girls in route to their paddock in the Shire on the 19th.🌤

We’re expecting 5 calves this season. 3 of them are due on April 30th. One is Ruby…
Another one is Uno…
And lastly, we have Nat as the 3rd one due on the 30th. HOWEVER, you’ll see as this post continues that she actually had her calf this afternoon.🐮
Gluey is due 5-25.
And Sarge is the last one due on 6-5.

And then the last group to move on the 19th was our beef herd.

So that’s all our grazers, and now it’s time for babies!!💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻

Today, Mike left the farm for a bit to help a friend. He gave me a head’s up that he was pretty sure it looked like Nat was prepping to have her calf soon. It was nice the girls were in the Shire by our house. I checked on them every hour or so. It wasn’t long and I saw an extra face in the grass…😍

I zoomed in from our yard and txted Mike to let him know he was right.😆
I got a little closer, and could see all was well.
It was good to see Nat got her calf up, but I never saw it eating…
But she did introduce it to the water trough, lol…🤦🏻‍♀️

Once Mike returned, we got the fences ready and started the routine of bringing the calf and mama to the milking barn.

Nat was where she was supposed to be, and her calf was on the other side of the fence…
The calf stayed laying down until Mike got the halter on.👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
It’s a boy!!❤️

We decided to name him Gary, in honor of one of our friends who is recovering from a very serious surgery. Lord willing, he’ll be well enough to come out and visit his namesake before the summer is over.🙏🏼

Next step was to get Gary back on the same side of the fence as his mama, in hopes they would both walk to the barn together…
…but it didn’t work…Nat just wasn’t interested in coming over & Gary didn’t want to walk to her…😬
Do you hear crickets??😂

Plan B involved calling Michael. He was home from work, so Mike asked if he wouldn’t mind bringing the 4wheeler over, lifting Gary up onto it, and then helping to drive Gary to the barn. We’re grateful he was willing to help, and Mike was especially happy he didn’t need to carry this calf!😬

I wasn’t going to put this picture in, but zoom in on Gluey in the background, lololol…😂🤦🏻‍♀️
His mama, Nat, is in the background…just wants to eat. This is pretty typical of her. She’s had 3 calves for us so far. Nat was bred to “Gauge” – a beef shorthorn. Last year we decided to not use our own bull anymore, so all 5 of our dairy girls were AI’d.
Here is a picture we found online of Gauge.

<Click here to read about Nat’s calf from last year.>

<And here if you’d like to read about when Nat was born.>

Michael drove while Mike jogged behind. All I had to do was run the gate and take pictures, lol.🙃
Mission successful!👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Then Mike & I went back to bring Nat over for a milking. We figured she’d be at the back of the pack so everyone would make the trek, and we were right, lol.😏

I love these walks with our girls…❤️ So excited to have begun another milkng season. Thank You, Lord, for this gift!✝️
Once we got Nat in the barn, we walked the other 4 back to the pasture. We got enough milk to feed Gary, and he was happy to eat.😋
The sweet sound of a successful feeding…✝️❤️

Now that the dust has been blown off the blog, I look forward to writing more updates as babies arrive.☺️

Wow, Lord. What a perfect day to bring our first calf of 2021. Thank You for giving us this opportunity to be here and capture pictures of life on this farm. Continue to prepare us for what is to come, and may we never cease to be amazed at how You orchestrate every detail, always.✝️❤️🙏🏼

Current tally: 1 boy. Lord willing, 4 more calves to go!

Meet Roni – 1st calf 2020

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Not gonna lie. This one caught us off-guard.😯 Yes – we knew calving season was approaching. But it just didn’t “feel” like it was gonna be this soon, lol. We were thinking next week would be the earliest…🤷🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️ But God knew. And today we started our 2020 season with a beautiful heifer from Uno. This is Uno’s 5th calf for us. [Click here to see the post from her calf from last year.] [Click here to read about when Uno was born.]

Mike txted me this when he went up to feed hay this afternoon.

After the shock wore off, we stopped working on our current projects, made a list of things to do before we could bring them down, and got to work: cleaning up the milk house (which had recently been serving as a maple sap rendering station), creating temporary calf pens in the top of the milking barn, checking runway fencing, and hooking up some electric wire along the field up on top of the hill. An extra bonus was that Michael was home from work to be extra hands if we needed him.👏🏼💪🏼

We’ve been getting A LOT of rain here lately, so everywhere is pretty yucky.😬 Thank You, Lord for boots that can handle wet and slimy mud!!👍🏼

Uno did a great job cleaning her calf up. We decided to name her Roni. (Sounds like the end of macaroni. Think: short and slang for Corona. Because – well – that’s how my brain works – I think about what’s going on around me…😂)

She allowed Mike to walk right up to her to get the halter on.❤️

And off we headed out of Mordor and to the milking barn.

Uno dropped her afterbirth on the way down…

We decided to keep them both together until tomorrow, so Roni came with us into the milking barn while we did a quick check on Uno. All was well, and back out into the field, we went.

We should have 7 more calves to arrive this year. They will be spread out longer than our normal six week window, as we had problems getting our girls bred last year.

2019 was a challenging season for us. It had been another wet year, and our ground really suffered. That, in turn, had consequences in the fertility of our soil, which led to pastures that did not thrive, and health issues for both our dairy girls and our calves. It got bad enough, that we ended up shutting down our herdshare dairy in October. Severing ties with over 30 families made it an emotional end-of-milking for us, but the Lord could not have made it more clear that that chapter needed to end.😔

So 2020 will be the beginning of a re-boot here. We’ll be reducing the sizes of our herds so we have less animals on the land. That way, we can amend the different pastures with what they are deficient in, so they can recover and thrive again. Depending on the quality and quantity of our milk this season, we’re prayerful we’ll have enough to feed our family and perhaps to even feed out a couple pigs. We sold our bull the end of October, so any breeding we do will be artificial breeding as we move forward. Our desire would be that in a few years, this land will be able to support more animals again and that we’ll be able to continue providing food for our family and others.🙏🏼

The Lord will use t-i-m-e to show us what is next here. Something new He introduced for 2020 is the rotation of harvesting timber from some of the farm’s wooded areas over a pattern of years. Mike has enjoyed walking the woods with the forester and learning more about better timber management.🌳 (And drooling about a future sawmill some day.😉) This avenue fits in perfect with the firewood harvesting we do each year, and the woodworking Mike enjoys dabbling in when he can.❤️

Our prayer is that we honor the Lord with each of these decisions alongside Mike’s parents. We recognize that He is moving us in the direction He wants us to go, and we cling to Him each step of the way. There will be seasons where we work off-farm for a bit, and there will be others where we get to stay here. If we focus on what we don’t know, it can be overwhelming. But when our focus remains steadfast on Christ, He is faithful to direct our paths. We wouldn’t have it any other way! Been there, done that.😉✝️🙏🏼

We are so grateful for the support we’ve had since day one, and we appreciate all the encouragement and prayers we continue to receive in this farming journey!🥰

Stay tuned!☺️

Four years in the making…

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It all started with this picture that came up on my social media feed back in January of 2015:

I LOVED how it looked like a sewn quilt, but was actually crocheted. I did some research and I think the pattern was called Grandmother’s Flower Garden… At that time, I was looking for a project that was portable with the potential to be connected into something bigger. Also, our down comforter seemed to be losing some of its warmth, so the thought of making something functional AND pretty was intriguing.🧶

I decided to create my own pattern since I wasn’t finding what I wanted as I searched. We found some hexagon graph paper, and Mike helped me map it out.🤓

After researching all about different fibers, we decided to use wool.🐑

And even though I knew the cost to make it would be higher, I really wanted to use yarn from a smaller company. I was excited when I learned about Brown Sheep Yarn, and that a small, local yarn shop had it in stock.🧶

In October of 2015, we started acquiring skeins. (I could crochet 21 hexagons from each skein.) Each one was $8, so we just purchased them for the flower petals as we had the funds. We waited until we had a larger chunk saved up to purchase all the yellow at once. A benefit to this kind of patchwork project is that dye lots are really not that important. Any slight color variations wouldn’t really be noticed. We also did not assign flower colors on our graphed pattern until after I had most of the flowers done. I had no color preferences for the flower petals going into the project, but I wanted the middle of each flower to be the same yellow. I wanted the flowers to be random. (In reality, it is more like planned random, lol.😂) I wanted there to be enough flower colors that when I laid them all out, I wouldn’t have two of the same color next to one another.🌸

Next, I found a hexagon pattern I liked. I didn’t want something that used a ton of yarn (like the one in the original picture), or that was complicated to make. The one I settled on only had 3 rounds, and I could complete one in under 8 minutes. It was perfect.👍🏼 (I used a size “F” hook.)

Click here for the link to its pattern.

In September of 2018, it was nearing the time we’d need to make the biggest purchase – all the green. We learned of an online warehouse inventory sale that Little Knits was having for Brown Sheep Nature Spun yarn, so we investigated the price for the 30 skeins. To our amazement, each one would only be $2.65!! We did a quick inventory of how many other colors we needed to complete the remaining flowers, and placed an order for what we needed. It was so exciting to actually have all the supplies here to complete the project!❤️

It took 16 months from that point to finish those remaining flowers, all the green hexagons, and then connect everything.👍🏼

When this project started, our boys were in their junior year of high school.😯 I crocheted as we watched their final two years of baseball games⚾️, it’s been my travel companion in the car wherever we’ve driven for the past four years🚗, and it was in my hands during many evenings of the colder Ohio seasons❄️. Many prayers, tears, laughs, and even irritations have all gone with this project. I’ve learned much about my creative abilities AND its limitations, lol. Creating the hexagons and flowers was easy. Making the flowers was easy. Connecting it ALL together was NOT. Ugh.🤦🏻‍♀️ Once the connecting got to the point of long, heavier strips of blanket, it was easy for me to get lost where I was on my pattern. Straight lines became “bendy,” and well…I often didn’t know which end was up!😳 I’ll just say I’m very grateful the Lord gave me Mike to double check my work and help dig me out of messes.😆 I became an expert on how to disconnect hexagons without ruining them.🙄 <For those who are not familiar with crochet – one wrong snip of the yarn and the entire hexagon could unravel.😬>

I’ll end with the funniest mistake I made the day before completion. I was down to my final group of flowers to connect to unite the two sides of my blanket. <In hindsight, with my connecting-challenged abilities, I SHOULD have just worked from left to right.> Mike helped me line up the first flower, and went to bed. Some time between picking up both sides of the blankets and getting situated on my chair to crochet it, I must have moved the flower’s position to the wrong set of green hexagons. AND I NEVER DOUBLE CHECKED ANYTHING UNTIL I WAS DONE. I had decided I was going to stay up as late as it took since the end was so close… So at 12:30am, everything was connected, all my ends were tucked in, and I was ready to lay it out and admire its beauty…🙈

Ugh. I couldn’t believe it.😫😂

Needless-to-say, it was NOT finished that day.🤪 I spent Sunday afternoon, evening, and late night disconnecting the entire strip, fixing all my ends, and re-attaching to the correct location.👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Last night was the first night we had it on our bed. LOVED IT! It was toasty warm and didn’t slide off the down comforter like other blankets have.❤️ Now I’ll be on the lookout for a bed-skirt when we hit the estate sales. I think that would be a nice finishing touch.😊

I’m excited to crochet some new projects now – but I think it will be awhile before I do another BIG one, lol.😎

Might as well end with my nerdy details😏:

53 full flowers and 14 half flowers

Grand total of 875 hexagons.

875 x 7.75 minutes each = 113 hours in crocheting hexagons, and no idea how many hours in connecting everything…🤷🏻‍♀️😉

Thank You, Lord, for giving me the ability to crochet. What a fun activity to keep my hands from being idle! I’ll always treasure the time that was invested in this blanket. Thank You for giving me Your Word to meditate on, personal circumstances to talk to You about in prayer, conversations I was able to have with others as I worked on it, and for the activities I was able to watch while crocheting. May the warmth of Your love be felt by each person who is wrapped up in it, for however long it lasts. Amen

And just like that: we’re done calving for 2019!

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2:25PM 5-2-19

I got this txt from Mike. This is Ruby – the last of our 3 heifers to calve… We knew her calf would be born within a few hours, just didn’t know if she would require assistance or not. Needed to watch and wait…🙏🏼

2:51PM 5-2-19

I finished up what I was working on and headed up to the field to get a couple pictures for myself. She had progressed a little – you can see feet sticking out! But she was hungry, so she just kept eating, lol.🙏🏼

4:30PM 5-2-19

Ruby was laying down and beginning to push.

We waited around/watched for the next 40 minutes or so. Got to listen to a lot of grass chewing, lol…

5:02PM 5-2-19

Ruby continued to make progress…

And she didn’t want Mike to help speed things up! The other 2 heifers: Peggy & Nat, came over to throw some interference, lol…😂

As I’m taking pictures and videos of all this with Ruby, all of a sudden I hear a weird noise behind me. I turn around to seeing Gluey laying on the ground and pushing for a few seconds and then she popped up and started eating again. I asked Mike if he thought maybe Gluey was going to have her calf today, too?🤔🤷🏻‍♀️ Time would tell…

5:10PM 5-2-19

Decided that since Ruby didn’t appear to be in distress, we would head down to get a drink and come back up in a half hour or so.

5:43PM 5-2-19

Found BOTH Gluey AND Ruby with calves, lololol…😆

Wow. So funny how some labors take hours and others just minutes!😲 We could tell a rain shower was headed our way, so we decided to let the mamas clean their babies up, grab a quick sandwich from town, and then come back up to assess the situation after the rain rolled through.

It’s a boy! This is Ruby’s first calf for us. [Click here to read about when Ruby was born.] His name is Boy-o. A name from a movie my boys have memorized lines from. Kind of fun to attach it to a calf now, lol.😂

This is Gluey’s 9th calf for us – her 5th boy. [Click here to read about her calf last year.] Gluey is always cracking us up because she kinda looks like a cartoon cow – sorta clownish.🤣 We’ve often said she reminds us of Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars… Therefore, we’ve named this boy: Jarjar.😎

7:16PM 5-2-19

The rain was done & we had eaten, so we headed back up to check things out on the hill.

Both calves were pretty cleaned up, and it looked like they either had already eaten or were in the process of eating.

If you listen closely toward the end of the video, you can actually hear him sucking!❤️

We toyed with the idea of trying to get everybody down to the barn, but with only about an hour left of daylight, it would have meant that everyone would have needed to cooperate 100%. That was not happening, lol.🙄

After much prayer and deliberation, we decided to allow the boys to stay with their moms for the night. With the sun going down quickly and our bodies feeling weary, we felt it would be better to bring everybody down in the morning instead. This concept is scary for us control-freak-types…😬 In this field, the herd is contained in just a single wire of electric, and there is no perimeter fence around the edges.🙏🏼

7:49PM 5-2-19

Mike decided to add some kelp and DE to the girls’ mineral feeder in hopes of diverting their attention from the two new additions. Perhaps then the calves could bond more with their mamas in peace.😉

First Mike allowed Peggy to try some to see if it would entice her to get more. It worked! Didn’t take long for others to follow her.👏🏼

Of course, extra attention was needed, too…😏

It was such a beautiful evening.❤️

6:29AM 5-3-19

Sure enough – BOTH calves were on the WRONG SIDE of the fence when we got up there this morning, lol.🙄 We don’t think it had been for too long, though. They were quite happy to be laying together. Sure did have all the moms in a tizzy in the corner!🤣

Boy-o and Jarjar were good about letting Mike & I get halters on them. That made it easy to get them back in with their moms.👍🏼

Next we wanted to start walking everybody down to the barn as usual. This is when we realized it would be nice to have an extra set of hands to help. Fortunately, Michael hadn’t left for work yet, and was able to join us for this fun.😉

Mike had Boy-o, and they started walking with Ruby the direction we wanted. Gluey wanted to follow, but it took a bit for her to convince Jarjar to join her…

Amidst this drama, Ruby ended up leaving Boy-o and coming back to meet up with me, Gluey, & Jarjar.🙄 Mike was able to walk Boy-o to a fencepost and tied him there until we could get back to him.

Then Mike took Jarjar from me, and walked him with Gluey & Ruby toward the barn. At this point, BOTH mamas thought Jarjar was their calf, lol.🙄

Michael & I were ahead of them and walked the remainder of the herd down to the barn.

Once we got them in the barn, Michael headed back out to join Mike with Boy-o and his two mamas.😆

It wasn’t long, and Boy-o was really losing his steam, so Michael volunteered to carry him the rest of the way down the runway. Mike was overjoyed to allow Michael to do that!😏💪🏼

We were so grateful for Michael’s help this morning! What a blessing that Don’s Custom Meats is so close to our home, so he wasn’t too late getting into work.❤️

Mike was then able to walk Jarjar to his stall in the barn.👍🏼

Next, Mike & I headed back up to where Boy-o was waiting. He basically informed us he was DONE walking, lol.🙄

Mike prepped the 4-wheeler for the trek down the runway…

He scooped up Boy-o and loaded him up. This is the pose I get when I’m supposed to be driving, but turn to take a QUICK picture, lol…😏 (Have I mentioned lately, that I LOVE this man? How in the world he can even put up with me, I will never understand…☺️)

Unlike Clint, Boy-o hardly moved at all in the drive down. It was a much more comfortable walk for Mike down the hill.👏🏼

Mission accomplished! All the dairy girls were in the barn, and both calves made it to their pens. THANK YOU, LORD.✝️

We were also grateful that they both ate today. Sometimes, when they’ve been with their mamas for a decent spell, they aren’t interested in eating from a bottle for awhile. But these guys drained their bottles. ANOTHER PRAISE!✝️

11:55PM 5-3-19

Phew. What a long two days. I don’t think it’s ever taken me so long to write a blog post and get it uploaded!

Final tally for 2019 is 5 boys and 3 girls.❤️

What a season this has been, Lord. We’ve already learned many new lessons, and we know more are coming. We thank You for how You lead and teach us, and even how you gently correct us. We continue to seek Your Wisdom now as we move forward. With the Psalmist, we pray: May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us – YES, establish the work of our hands! Amen (Psalm 90:17)

5th calf 2019

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We were so pleased to see that Peggy (the first of the three heifers who are bred for this season), had delivered her first calf without any assistance and it was all cleaned up when we arrived in the field this morning! And how fun that it was so colorful!❤️ [Click here to read about when Peggy was born.]

It’s a boy! We’ve named him Steve. (Figured since his mama’s name came from the Captain America movie, his name should, too, lol.🇺🇸💪🏼😂)

Neither Steve, nor Peggy minded Mike getting the halter on him, and he walked at a nice pace all the way down to the barn.👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

It was a long morning, but a good one. Once we finally got Peggy in a headlock in the barn, we were able to get her milked just fine. Thank You, Lord!🙏🏼

Should be three calves left to come: two more from first-time heifers, and one from veteran mama, Gluey.🐮🐮🐮

Tally now is 3 girls and 2 boys.👍🏼

4th calf 2019

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Found our 4th calf when we went up to check on the herd this morning. Meet Ginger! Her mama is Sarge, and she’s the same shade of red as her with a splattering of white in several spots.

This is the fourth calf that Sarge has had for us. Lord willing, Sarge’s first calf, Natasha from 2016, will be having a calf this season, too.🙏🏼

[Click here to read about the calf Sarge had last year.]

[Click here to read about when Sarge was born.]

When Mike arrived with the halter, Ginger was fine until the last second. That’s when she bolted toward ME – the one who’s terrified of animals!🙄😂 But the Lord had me covered with the prayers leading up to today. His strength enabled me to tackle Ginger and hold her until Mike got to me.✝️💪🏼 Otherwise, we’d probably STILL be running around trying to catch her, lol!☺️

Sarge had only one thing on her mind – to get down to the barn. She didn’t seem to care much about waiting for Ginger to keep up. But to Ginger’s credit, she made an excellent effort to stay close! Mike had quite a brisk walk/run most of the way down to the barn. Our bodies felt the workout this morning!👵🏼👴🏼

Tally now is 3 girls and 1 boy. Lord willing, we should have 4 more arriving within the next few weeks.🙏🏼

1st calf 2019

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Mike found Uno with her new addition this morning…

Since we’d already made arrangements to bring home a couple more loads of hay this morning, we decided to stick to that plan and bring Uno down with her calf after that.

Was fun waiting and wondering if it was a boy or a girl! We’ve never had a calf with so much white before. No doubt that’s because of our new bull – Mr. Sandman:

We headed up later in the morning, and saw extra activity around one of the round-bale feeders…😂

Got a little closer, and saw the reason. This is a first for us – a calf in a “play pen”, lol!

Welcome, Angel!❤️ She is Uno’s 4th calf for us. [Click here to read about Uno’s calf last year.] [Click here to read the post when Uno was born.]

Mike got the halter on Angel and lifted her through the feeder. She was a champ and made the mucky trek down to the barn with her mama.👏🏼

Her color-tipped ears are just darling…😍

She ate like a champ!❤️

Whiney was pretty happy, too…😻

Hard to believe this is our 13th season of calving! I just went and counted how many calves we’ve had over that period and am completely amazed. Angel is the 145th calf born here!😱

To the best of our knowledge, we’re expecting 8 more calves this season.🙏🏼🐮

Lord, we are so grateful for how You’ve sustained us each and every year. Thank You for allowing us to care for these animals, and for providing nourishment from them for our family and so many others. Prepare us to handle whatever comes of this season, and grow us as You see fit through both the ups and the downs. It is a joy to see Your hand all around us! Amen❤️✝️

5th and 6th calf 2018

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What a morning! Came over extra early in hopes of being able to make it to church, but it wasn’t long and we knew that wasn’t going to happen…

First, we could make out the outline of Uno and a calf; and then as we approached them, we could see another calf in the distance.😯

These next few pics are not very good. It was still pretty dark, super cold on my ungloved hands, and pretty chaotic to say the least. Rather than scrap the pics, I decided to lighten them up as best I could and keep them as a reminder for memory purposes.

Here is Uno with hers – a girl!!😍 This is Uno’s 3rd calf for us. [Click here to read about her calf last year.] [Click here to read about when Uno was born.] We’ve decided to name her Lulu – mainly because it sounds nice with her half-sister’s name that you’ll read about below…

And here is RedRobin’s (a.k.a. LilRed) calf – another girl!😍 EXCEPT – she was NOT with LilRed, but Tangerine.🙄😡

This is LilRed’s 2nd calf for us. [Click here to read about her calf from last year.] [Click here to read about when LilRed was born.] This calf is the great-granddaughter of Buttercup – one of the 3 heifers my Grandma and Grandpa Cegelka bought for the boys back in 2005. (My Grandpa wanted to buy the boys their first calves.❤️) [Click here for a cool Buttercup post.] Of the 3, Buttercup was the only one that made the cut as a dairy cow. She had 5 calves for us and was a GREAT milk cow. In honor of her, we wanted a flower name for this calf. So we decided on Lily.😍

Lulu was still kinda wet and getting cleaned up, whereas Lily was pretty dry and spunky.

Since most of the activity was centered around LilRed’s, we decided to try to get it and the rest of the milkers to the barn first.

The walk to the barn was probably the most stressful walk we’ve had yet. Many lessons learned this season…😬🙏🏼

She petered out halfway across the barnyard so Mike carried her into the barn. At least she wasn’t as big as Fiona!👏🏼

She was pretty exhausted after her big morning…

Mike laid her down in the pen with Lloyd. Then we put halters on Lloyd and Fiona and walked them next door. Fiona walked great. Lloyd – NOT SO MUCH. Mike came back to help me get him over.🙄👍🏼

We still needed to milk before we could feed the calves. Until then, we kept Fiona and Lloyd on one end of the corral. Patty and Fillup were on the other side, but they hadn’t come out from the barn to meet them yet…🙂

After milking, we came back and fed these 4. Here are a couple pics of the new calf headlocks Mike is building. They aren’t finished yet because we needed live models to see if our spacing is correct. Good thing we waited to finish them – we’ll need to make them a wee bit smaller.👍🏼 The saw horse is working ok to hold the buckets for now. Maybe this week, Mike will attach a board that will go all the way across.

After cleaning up from feeding calves, we decided we were going to run the mamas who have already calved back up to Grey Heaven. We’ve had enough of them being in Isengard.😉

That meant we needed to move their round bale feeder and mineral feeder, too. So that’s what we tackled next.👍🏼

Uno+Lulu, Sarge, and Coco stayed. (Of course, I couldn’t help but take a few pics of them while I did the gates for Mike.)☺️

After we opened the divider gate, we headed up to Grey Heaven.

Don’t let the sunny day fool ya – today was SO COLD! The wind was nasty, and after a 4.5 hour morning in it, my whole body just hurt.😬 Yep – that’s ice in those puddles!❄️

Still needed to feed some hay to the ones we left down by the barn, and then we could head inside for a warmup.👏🏼☕️

And we were blessed with a beautiful sight right before we headed home…❤️

3 hours later we came over to check on Lily in the barn. We were so thankful she got up! Such a cutie.😍 We tried to feed her, but she wasn’t interested. Decided we try again later and we let her rest some more.

Went back out several hours later and did the afternoon feeding with some friends. Then it was time to bring Lulu to the barn. Extra hands meant someone else could take the pics! Thanks, Jennifer & Grant!☺️

Led her under under and out a fence and walked her to the barn.👍🏼

And last-but-not-least, 3 hours later, we returned to try and feed Lily again… SHE ATE!! It’s a beautiful sound to hear a calf suck down her milk!🎶

Thank You, Lord, for this amazing day. It’s been long and exhausting and cold, but You have sustained both us and our animals.✝️

Only Sarge left to calve now. Count is 4 girls, 2 boys.👍🏼

2nd calf 2018

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Last evening after work was done, showers done, and the 4 of us sat down to watch a movie together, the call comes: Gluey had her calf.😂 Figures, right?🙄 This is always the hard part – had the girls’ been up in Grey Heaven, we would not have known she’d had her calf, so we would have found out in the morning. BUT, once we KNOW a calf’s been born, we just can’t NOT go and check on the situation…especially with a snowstorm on its way annnd Gluey’s past fiascos…😬

So Mike & I got bundled up and headed next door.

Could tell from a distance that the calf was a boy, and that he had just been born. He was still wet, and hadn’t eaten yet. Gluey has had 8 calves for us. This boy makes her count 4 girls and 4 boys.👍🏼

The snow was just starting to stick, and we had about an hour of daylight left, so we told Gluey she had one hour to prove she knew what to do… If he wasn’t cleaned up when we came back out, we’d bring him inside and milk Gluey so we could feed him ourselves.

Michael randomly chose the name “Phillip” for him when we came back inside to catch some more of the movie. I thought it was kinda weird as I had no idea where that name came from, but it ended up being the perfect name…😉 (This will make more sense in a bit, I promise.😂)

So now it’s an hour later. Yes, Gluey had done relatively well at cleaning him up, they were still alone together, and he was walking around looking like eating was on the agenda. The snow was coming down a little heavier, so it was a really hard decision to let them stay together. But after much consideration and prayer, that’s what we decided to do.🙏🏼

Came out extra early this morning to see how things were going. Found “Phillip” up by the round bale feeder with the rest of the mamas.❄️

Mike got a halter on him, but then he decided he didn’t want to walk…🙄

So Mike carried him and led the way into the barn.💪🏼

He’s MUCH bigger than Patty, so it was a challenge for Mike to carry him as far as he did. These bodies lack the oomph they used to have…😬🙏🏼

Next Mike carried “Phillip” upstairs. He was pretty wet from the snow, so I grabbed a towel and dried him off a bit. Began to wonder at this point if he actually HAD eaten…😟

Gluey milked well, and we got plenty for “Phillip’s” morning and afternoon feeding. Got his bottle ready and headed up. NORMALLY, a calf that has been with its mama overnight is not interested in a bottle the first day with us – especially bull calves – they just lay around and pout for a day, but by the next morning they are ready to eat and do fine after that. BUT THIS GUY SUCKED DOWN ONE WHOLE BOTTLE AND A BIT OF ANOTHER. We hardly had to cooerce him at all to take the bottle. All signs to us that perhaps he really had NOT eaten with Gluey.😠

We are VERY encouraged he is doing well now and we rejoice in the resiliency of these animals.❤️ He is not out-of-the-woods yet. We’ll be watching him closely, especially over the next 24 hours. And “Phillip” is now being changed to “FillUp” in my records. Because that’s just the kind of weird-word-girl I am.🙃

Patty continues to flaunt her cuteness to us, visitors, and the cats – especially Junior.😻

Lord, we thank you for the gift of life. For the patience You have with us as we stumble through difficult circumstances. For allowing us to feel Your mercy and grace as we go. Continue to grant us the sustaining strength and divine wisdom we need to navigate through this farming adventure. In Your name, we pray. AMEN

Our count is now 1 boy+1 girl. Lord willing, 5 more to go…👍🏼

1st calf 2018

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It’s that time of year again! Our first calf arrived this morning. Fiskars (a.k.a. Bubby) had her first GIRL! Welcome: Patty.🍀 <Click here to read about her calf last year.> This is her 4th calf for us. <Click here to read about when Fiskars was born.>

This year all the mamas are in the field: Grey Heaven, rather than Mordor as they have been the last 10 years. We weren’t sure how the new route would go, but these two had no problems with it.👏🏼

Here are some pics as we walked them out of Grey Heaven and down toward the milking barn.

Here they are approaching the crossroads. They used to come from the right and then walk down the hill to the barn. This year, they’ll all turn left to get to the barn.👍🏼

And here we are on our way down the hill.

Finally got a good shot of Patty from the front. She’s a cutie!😍

We are expecting a total of 7 calves this season. Sure feels good to have the first one here, and all is well!👍🏼

[Of course, today is the day my phone decides to die and we spend several hours at the Verizon store upgrading to a new phone. And then the new phone won’t accept our iTunes backup because it’s too old, lol. (All consequences to waiting too long to keep up with current technology…🙄😬) So grateful we have techie friends who can walk us through these changes!😇] So assuming I can figure out this new phone quickly and we can eventually get all our records back on it, calving posts should still get up relatively quickly. Not exactly how I wanted to start this season out, lol, but I have no doubt the Lord is already using this experience to grow me in MANY ways…especially patience!🙏🏼❤️