New calves, snow and sprinklers

Lillys from a few years ago hoping for flowers soon.

We now have 8 baby calves. They are so cute racing around. I have had to help a few learn how to drink, or a better wording would be where to drink, they know how (usually) just not getting the location right.

Spunky, they usually get names if I have to work with them, is a nice bull calf. His mom has a couple of problems. We didn't intend for her to be in the cow herd but she ended up there and has a good calf so she got to stay. The 1st and most obvious problem is that she is mostly blind in one eye. She was born that way, you can just see the white of her eye she has to tip her head way up for the iris to show. This makes it harder to handle her, you have to let her know where you are and let her work her way slowly where you are going. The 2nd problem is her udder, it isn't a nice neat one. There is no way her calf can suck the first few days unless he has the mouth of a hippopotamus! So we have to get her in the chute several times a day and get Spunky something to eat. Now Spunky isn't stupid (for a cow that is) he quickly figures out that if I open the gate to the chute that lunch is being delivered. He would run up to the chute and look for mom, when she was slow going in he would run around the other side and check to see if she was there lol but you could see his thought process, as after he drinks on the one side I take him around to the other. Tonight when I went to feed he was already eating dinner, yea the self feeding variety, my favorite kind.
The other cow and calf we were working with is an older cow that always has a good calf, the one this year just didn't get the location part down for some reason. She would eat good after I pointed her in the right direction. Mom was a little crabby about having to get in the chute several times a day. It didn't help that everytime you touched the calf she would squeal like a piggy. So mom was being a pain wouldn't get in the chute, Jon comes over to help and she cowkicks him. Cows can kick way more sideways than you would think they can and this is cowkicking. She got him right at the top of his leg, probably will have a nice bruise. I was glad to see that her calf was the self feeding variety tonight as well.

It snowed a couple of times today. Not a lot but enough to add some needed moisture to the wheat we planted. It is starting to sprout so moisture will be good, so would warm weather but doesn't look like we will get that until net week.

We fixed one wheelline and then rolled it over to where it will be ready when we start sprinklers. With the weather that is a few days off. This is good as pumping water is expensive.

My baby turned 18

Not sure how that is possible He was a little boy just the other day. So I was talking to a friend about our kids and she ask if it makes me sad that Tony has autism and epilepsy. No it really doesn't. This seems odd to people. I don't remember ever hitting the real "Why him" type of reaction to the diagnosis. Tony is just Tony. Oh there were bad days, days when it was just easier to go home or not go somewhere. My issues were (are) mainly with his super busy and noisy activity level. I am very blessed to have family and friends that understand Tony.

I do try, not always successfully, to not take Tony places that he won't be comfortable or where I know that he won't be able to behave in an acceptable way. If he goes to visit in a home he feels that he can make himself right at home, raid the fridge, sort all the toys, stuff like that. If he will have to sit still and visit, it isn't going to happen and I know this, so I just don't do stuff like that when Tony is with me. In stores he is pretty good, except he knows which stores have snacks he likes and it will be a much better shopping trip if we just get some tater wedges first. I look at it like most kids get a snack-treat at the checkout he just gets his first.

He is a happy young man. In his world most things are good. He doesn't have a car, girlfriend, cellphone or surf the internet this is good for me I have enough grey hair as it is with out these things.

Anyway, here are a couple of pictures I don't have many on this computer so the choice was limited. The one with the Tonka truck was taken in Salt Lake City when we were staying with Uncle Mike and Aunt Glenda while Primary Childrens Hospital was trying to find out why he had started to have seizures and which meds would help control them. The other pictures are last year mostly.

New calf and grain planting

Pictures of cows from last year

The 1st calf of the year arrived today. Poor timing on her part. It is windy and cold, about 42 degree for the high and the wind has blowing steady and hard all day. She wants to go back in I think.
We have about 30 head of stock/beef cows. Mostly Charolais, which are a creamy white. The calves look very white with cute pink noses. We also have some that are mixed with Hereford, which are red with white faces and some that are just mixed breed (meaning they can be greyish, tan or yellow-tan with white faces.
Jon drilled wheat all day. Finished up the 40 acres on the back half of the farm. We will have about 80 acres wheat and 220 acres alfalfa hay this year. He drill the front 40 acres on Saturday. The wind made it a miserable job. He had to be carful to get the drill facing the right way when it was time to add more seed so the wind didn't blow the grain around. It was probably a good thing the seed was in sacks this year instead of loose in the truck, it didn't blow nearly as much seed out on the ground. Wheat seed was $31 per sack of 80 pounds. We ordered 160 sacks, ouch no wonder our backs are tired, glad we are done.

Where I live

Terreton, Idaho is located in Eastern Idaho. To find it on a map 1st find Rexburg then go west toward Salmon on Highway 33. Terreton/Mud Lake (names are interchangeable mostly) is about 45 miles from Rexburg. It is also about 45 miles from Idaho Falls which is South/east on Interstate I-15.

Terreton is the name of the town where the main post office is located, it not an official town, the official town is Mud Lake. The only bank is in Mud Lake. There is only about 2 miles between the 2 places. And Monteview, another area with a post office (and where our farm is) is about 10 more miles. You can tell someone you live "in" Monteview and be 50 miles from the post office lol.

The rest of the businesses in the area are; tire/motorsports store, hardware store/equipment dealer, dentist & doctor office, feed store, 2 gas stations 1 has pizza shop inside , pellet mill (makes hay pellets for feed) 2 bars, 2 cafe-diners, equipment repair shop, autobody shop, auto repair/paint shop, another equipment dealer, daycare, woodfloor manufacture, and a fertilizer dealer. Think that is everybody, opps there is also a greenhouse/florist down the road a bit and another greenhouse in Monteview. There is also the schools, a public library, Mud Lake City building with the ambulance garage , firehouse (they are building a new one) and the District health office-open 1 day per week. 4 churches as well. We have a telephone co-op you buy stock when you get a phone then they pay back dividends after 10 years it is great!!! They also provide out internet service. The office is located in Dubois 60 miles away.

Can you tell the main thing out here is farming. Most farmers here raise alfalfa hay, grain-wheat, oats, or barley, some potatoes and corn. There are also several midsized dairies and a few smaller ones. There is also beef cattle raised on most farms and a few ranchers have quite a few.

Notice no grocery store, there was one but it closed about 9 months ago. The store in Roberts which was about 20 miles recently closed as well, so the closest grocery store is 45 miles. The gas stations do stock milk and snacks but plan ahead for anything else.

We have a very nice view of the Sawtooth mountains to the West. Great sunsets like the one pictured that I took a few years ago. It is a very nice place to live.

Back to Winter try #2

Well, the weather man was right (surprised?) it was windy and cold. Didn't get much snow just a little bit of wet, then as it got colder tonight it stuck, so there is a little white on the ground.
Spring in Mudlake brings two interesting things, sandhill cranes and snow geese. The cranes seem to be increasing in number, it used to be rare to see them. Now you see quite a few. The field across the road from us was in corn. When they harvested they left about 2 feet of stalk and the leaves. The sandhill cranes have been really enjoying this treat. They have been putting on quite the show as it is mating season. Unfortunately I haven't been able to get a good picture, brown birds-brown corn stalks-brown dirt, and they don't exactly like visitors, so I googled a couple of pictures that are shown here.
The snow geese come in in flocks numbering in the thousands. They are a very impressive site. I have a good picture somewhere, but not handy so again thanks google and if I did it right there is a youtube video I wanted you to hear the noise, when they come or go it is very loud.

Back to winter

Lovely Spring Day

There is nothing like a lovely spring day to get farmers out of hibernation. Just like ground squirrels you see them popping out to check the weather. After the fall work is all done and enough snow falls to make working outside impossible farmers retreat to "the shop". The shop (think ultimate man cave) is where equipment is checked over, repaired and just in general tinkered with. I think tinkered is a good word for farmers. A true farmer can "tinker" with about anything, using up all that winter time and therefore at least looking busy.
So along comes the second true warm day of spring. No matter that they are talking about high winds in the afternoon and possible snow tomorrow, it is warm today. Tractors start popping up in fields and farm yards hooking up to equipment.
No different here. I was feeding our cows this morning and heard the weather report about the high wind gusts for later. This usually wouldn't be a problem but I had two pieces of irrigation wheelline that had come unhooked from the rest. The wind would blow these pieces across the field, in general making a mess and possibly breaking more pipe. So, because Jon was busy, I thought I could just take out a spare pipe we keep on hand and replace the broken one. Good idea and things were going fine but I soon realized that the loose pipe were no longer lined up with the others and I would have to take them apart, move them a few feet down the field and put them back together. This I can do, however, it is easier with 2 people. Lucky for me Jon and our friend Dennis decided to come to the farm to fill the grain drill. They came out and helped do the pipe. Replaced the 2 broken sections, much much easier with more people.
So with the pipe hooked back up it is then time to get tractors out of the shed and start hooking them up. Check air in all the tires stuff like that. Got the grain drill hooked up finally and started filling it with wheat seed. This is when we all discovered that perhaps we were a bit, just a bit mind you, out of shape lol. Because we haven't grown grain for a couple of years, just grew hay, we had to buy the wheat seed in sacks instead of using the auger on the truck to fill the drill. So we get an assembly line going, Jon gets up on the drill to pour the seed in, I hand the seed off the trailer to Dennis and he opens the sacks and hands them to Jon. Sounds easy but after about the 10th 80 pound sack you realize that you have about 25 more to go yikes 36 sacks of grain I'm out of shape!!!!
Picture is Tony in our newest tractor last fall. He thinks it is great because it has a "buddy" seat net to the drivers seat.

Getting Started

Well it has taken me a long time but I am finally joining the blog ranks.

It is spring ok almost spring in Eastern Idaho. Today was the 1st really really nice day. The kind where you dared open the doors and windows and let in some new air after winter.

Tony was happy to be able to go outside and find actual dry dirt to dig in. He doesn't much like snow but has enjoyed the lake that formed in the drive-way. We have a gravel drive-way so he was able to spend some time throwing rocks in the lake.

I cleared the leaves out of a couple of flower beds (just the small ones) found some tulips just starting to come up. This is good, I had to move a bunch of flowers last year and was afraid most had died but it looks like a few will make it.

The little guy pictured above (if I did it right) was in a straw stack down the street.