Making Hay

We have just officially started Round Three of hay making.



This has been quite a funny summer weather-wise.



In fact, I have been really grateful many times this summer that I am not currently trying to farm a market garden, because the little garden we have this year is floundering miserably! I can't imagine having thousands of pounds of veggies due to go out with the weather we have been having!



We have had tons of rain and not a lot of heat. It has been pretty hard to get much hay made at all!



Haying Round One was at our place. We got a couple hundred square bales off the fields and saved the rest of the land for pasture for when the cows come home. In hindsight, all the grass we hayed has come back beautifully so we could have hayed everything and still had pasture. Every year is a learning year!



Round Two was when we hayed half of our leased fields. We got just enough sun to make about 70 acres of hay, with a bit of rain on the last small field we cut, but thats ok, we like to have bedding hay for calving time too.



We were really impressed because we fertilized these fields in the spring. So far, we are set to double the amount of hay we got last year when we didn't fertilize. 



This haying has been such a whirlwind. I don't think I have ever seen Matt so tired before. He would get up at 5:00am, and go early to his day job, get off at 10:00am, go hay until evening dew and then go to the pastures and fix fences/try to repair the water system. It was peppered with mechanical breakdowns, threatening weather and exhaustion, and some how he still made bits of time for his family.
Quite the man. That is the definition of Handsome in my books.
He kept this up for a week when the weather changed.



There is such an urgency to haying time, that it plays out like a nail biting adventure story, but the stakes are a little more real for the farmers. I would love to take time to share it all but I am a busy momma these days!



Round Three has begun and is hopefully not going to be quite as much of a marathon for him because he is able to take time off of his day job this time!

Family Rodeo

Summer is here!

Its definitely our favourite time of year! I have lots to keep me busy so I am just going to post a whole bunch of pictures of our latest adventures on the farm.

We trust our cows more and more. We used them to mow the lawn which was quite enjoyable.

I had to stop checking if someone was knocking on the door because it was always a calf up on the deck.

The little bulls thought they were quite the hotshots chasing chickens!

The cow birds, always at their heels

Our first batch of chicks, hatched and sold. Always a lot of fun! We had one break a hole in the shell and start breathing and then get shrink wrapped and stuck. After 24 hours I took the egg out and soaked it in a bowl of warm water and he hatched right into my hands. Farm life is absolutely amazing!

I am absolutely loving this young horse. I am at the point now that we are not stumbling along figuring things out and we are actually on the same page. This is when everything gets super fun for me!

The calves playing on pasture

We moved them everyday by using one temporary wire

We also vaccinated and trailed them all for the first time. It was quite the experience! Matt had done it before on other farms but I was brand new, and very naive about it!

It turns out we have an excellent cow horse. Tex was fantastic for sorting and moving cows.

I have always wanted to be a cowgirl and Tex and I were not too bad at it! I feel like I have finally earned myself the right to use that title a tiny bit!

We also moved our cows to pasture. They are quite happy there!

Matt and his girls adjusting the water system

And I went and did something crazy last week!

I am so in love with this mare. I spent the whole first few days she was here just checking over and over to make sure she is not a dream.

She is very personable and when trots up to me with her big floating movement, my knees just go weak....

We call her Callie. I am going to try and register her as Morning Star Calligraphy.

So, as you can see we are following our farming dreams this summer!

My Favourite Things

I don't think I can even explain how much I am enjoying this time of year.

Yesterday Matt was home and we just had a good old farm work day. The sun was shining and the sky was a brilliant blue. All the early spring browns have changed to bright greens that are so vibrant I feel like I have to take a minute in the mornings just to soak it all in. The cows and calves were out on spring grass, the pigs rooting a wallow to cool down in, and cheerful chickens getting into mischief everywhere you look. The kids were delighted to be finding the first toads of spring, the baby cooing at the breeze rustling the new leaves. I kept looking around and saying to Matt that things don't get any better than this.

I didn't take any pictures yesterday. I had my hands plenty full with farm work and farm children, but it was almost kind of nice in away. Instead of trying to get a picture of Matt getting slimed and sprayed by his ridiculous bull playing with the hose, I could simply laugh at them.

But I do have pictures of this last month on the farm, so I will share some of those.

Here are some pictures of Tex and Tansy wrestling.

Tansy harasses him until he finally plays with her. He acts all grumpy but I know he likes it just as much as she does.

When I can see them out my window, I take way too many pictures of them.

The cranes came back a couple weeks ago and treated us to quite the ballet! I just love to watch them dancing together, its like they defy gravity in the most graceful way possible!

Spot nose calved! And its a heifer! We call her Cinnamon.

This was on her first morning. She had trouble remembering how to lie down and was falling asleep standing up or bowing down with her rump in the air.

We have eggs in the incubator. We are less than a week away from them hatching!

The reason why Tex has shedded out way quicker than the others. He has a devoted little farm girl who dotes on him.

Milo is still plushy soft

The kids and I had a great day moving these piggies out into the world.

It was the first day where I have been working on the farm and would honestly have not been able to do things with out their help. It was really wonderful. We loaded the pigs into a dog kennel on a wagon and pulled them over to their new spot. This picture is of the little farmers untangling and pulling the grass around the hotline while I made repairs.

Little farm boy worked the stall door so I could come in and out with my arms full of pig. Little farm girl worked the kennel door and held the wagon still when I had to lift the kennel up onto it. I really couldn't have done it without their help!

These little guys are way heavier than they looked. I could only physically lift the two little runty ones. The rest I had to rely on their agreeable natures to load them up and thankfully they are just as nice as their momma.

This was fun to watch. Sunny went after a bird. The bird was not concerned and Sunny realized his mistake shorty...

And along with my favourite time of year comes my favourite activity!

I think its little farm girl's favourite activity too...

This girl is shedding out beautifully. I have never been partial to palominos, but I can really see their appeal. She is starting to just gleam like a brand new penny (well, if they made pennys anymore).

And this little guy is stealing my heart a bit at a time. He is such a quiet little guy but as I work with him more and more he is really starting to come out of his shell. I could hardly work Tansy a few days ago because he was following me everywhere and squeezing between me and her to claim her scratches.

I am feeling especially excited today because I had my first ride on Tansy this morning!
I have been waiting for a long time for my riding ring to be dry enough to work her there, and today was finally the day! Its quite the invigorating feeling climbing on for the first time! I wish I could start this morning again and do it all over...

These two do everything together, they share every flake of hay that they eat. And check out Milo's dashing double mane. Sigh...

And here is my view as I go about my farm chores. The littlest farmer falls asleep as soon as we go out and nestles in for the ride. I feel like a marsupial farm wife sometimes.

And just because they are so cute, here are some of our little calves.

They are growing well and are as frisky as can be. I think they are enjoying this time of year just as much as we are!