What’s a Morel? Pure Deliciousness

Every person is unique, but there are times in life, at least for me, when it becomes particularly apparent that my life just isn’t like everyone else’s. Every time I try to explain morel mushrooms to people who haven’t heard of them turns out to be one of those times. Hunting and eating morel mushrooms is something that most people I knew growing up did. It wasn’t until college that I realized that this wasn’t a mainstream thing. Each conversation goes something like this:

Me: “My parents found some mushrooms last weekend, I wish I could make it home to eat some this time of year.”

Friend: “Mushrooms? What are you talking about?”

Me: “Morel mushrooms. They’re so good.”

After getting no response, or furthur questions, I elaborate.

Me: “They’re these spongy looking mushrooms that grow in the woods. You find them in the spring after it’s rained and the ground has warmed up.”

Friend: blank stare or “and you eat them? How do you know they’re safe?”

Me: “If you know they’re morels, they’re safe. You rinse them and soak them in salt water to kill the bugs and then you bread them and fry them.”

Usually by the time I get to “kill the bugs” they’ve decided this seems like a bad idea, and I realize my life isn’t normal because I still think it’s a great idea.

I hadn’t eaten any of these mushrooms in probably 10 years or so. Finding the time to go hunting is often a challenge, and you can purchase them, but I can’t begin to bring myself to pay $40/lb for something I can find in the woods. Morels are pretty unique because despite their popularity, no one has been able to successfully grow them in a farm setting. It’s still completely up to mother nature to produce them, and it requires a lot of luck but very little know-how to find them. This year, the first day I saw pictures of friends’ finding them on Facebook, I made the effort. The first hunt was unsuccessful, but the next morning we checked another area and found about a dozen small grey morels.

Fresh morels just picked from the timber in one of our pastures.

A dozen isn’t many, but it’s enough for a side dish for two people, so I was satisfied. I took them home, rinsed them, sliced them in half an let them soak for a couple of days in a bowl of salt water in the fridge.

If you’re trying them out for the first time, or typically use a different preparation, here’s a tutorial of my family’s time-tested everyone-approved method:

What You’ll Need:

Morel mushrooms

Flour

Oil or Shortening

Salt

Soak in salt water, bread with flour, fry in oil – it’s that easy!

Recipe:

This one is about as easy as it gets. Let’s go with 5 steps…

Step 1: Rinse the mushrooms and set them on a paper towel.

Step 2: Coat them in flour while heating oil or shortening in a skillet.

Step 3: Fry them on medium heat until golden brown. I like them a little crispy.

Step 4: Place fried mushrooms on a paper towel to absorb oil and lightly salt.

Step 5: Enjoy!! (warning: they will be hot immediately after being fried)

Lightly salt and serve! They were crisp and delicious, and EXACTLY like I remembered!

Eating food you find in the woods may be a little unconvential, but for us, this treat is well worth going against the grain.

All in the Family

For quite a while we’ve been tossing around the idea of registering some of our cows.  Some breeders venture into the world of registered Holsteins by purchasing heifers or cows that are already registered.  We’ve talked about that, but for now, that’s not something we’re too interested in.  Instead, we hope to register some of our best.  We’ve always been a purebred Holstein dairy, and we already use registered bulls for our AI breeding program, so not much will change in our genetics except now there will be an official record.

We haven’t registered anything yet, but we did take the first step in the process by joining the Holstein Association and reserving our prefix.  Registered cattle all have names.  Their names each start with their breeders’ prefix.  We took the obvious route when naming our dairy (Heim Dairy Farm), so our choice of prefix may surprise you.  Each breeder must have a unique prefix, so we were relieved to find that Stellamaris was available – we already had our hearts set on it. 

A couple of heifers strolling along the shore of Lake Stellamaris this winter.

Those of you who know us personally likely know that David’s family owns a fishing lake (roughly 60 acres).  The lake was built by his grandpa and great uncle in 1960, and the property borders the farm we live on, which was then owned by his grandparents. The lake is commonly referred to as “Heim Lake”; however, the official name is Lake Stellamaris.  David’s great grandma (the builders’ mother) was named Stella, and we aren’t sure where the “maris” came from, but a quick Google search tells me that “Stella Maris” is an ancient title for the Virgin Mary.  Given the family’s Catholic faith, this is likely related. Regardless, the lake is important to our family and has traditionally been the site of family events (including our second wedding reception because we were married in Illinois). Stellamaris also happens to sound nice at the front of a cow’s name – when considering a prefix, it seemed like an obvious choice. 

In the last few weeks we’ve also taken a little bit of time to examine our herd records and identify specific cows we would like to register.  We were looking not only for a great cow, but a great cow with great daughters who could form our first cow family, and hopefully be a great foundation to continue to build our herd upon.  As we looked through our records, that family became clear.  In fact, a few members of this family have already graced this blog.

According to David, one of the best cows we have from the original herd is number 929.  Amazingly, 929 has also had 5 heifer calves, and we still have three of these daughters.  One, number 1108, had her first calf this spring and is one of our favorite 1st lactation cows.  She is a Geneva daughter, and her calf is a heifer by Boliver (number 1205).  You may have seen this pair in this post & video about a calve’s first few hours. We were excited to discover that 1147, who is breeding age now, is also a Geneva x 929, and we now have pretty high hopes for her.  And last fall, 929 had her fifth calf and fifth heifer: number 1194 by Abraham.

Cow number 1108 the morning she freshened, with her heifer calf, number 1205.

We haven’t figured out the exact registration process, but we’ve determined that we’d like this to be our first registered cow family.  As we work through this process, we’ll be sure to keep you updated on our progress and the official names of our animals.

Workin’ It

We’ve been having quite a bit of moisture lately, and we’re not complaining after last year’s drought, in fact – we’re still in a mild drought. However, it’s May now, and we didn’t start working ground until the week before last. Last year, we started working ground in March, and we were planting in April. We feel like we’re pretty far behind, even though last year felt early…go figure.

What does working ground mean?

Working ground is a generalized term farmers use to describe the many processes that break apart and/or turn over the soil. We typically use two pieces of equipment to do this – a disc and a cultivator. The disc has sharp blades that penetrate the soil about 6” or so and turn the soil over, breaking up stubble from last year’s crop and any weeds or grass that have started growing (the weeds have a big head-start on the crops this year). The cultivator doesn’t go quite as deep or disturb the soil as much and leaves a much more even surface when it’s finished, but it can’t be used in very hard ground or thick weeds without first using another implement, such as a disc. Working ground loosens the soil to make it easier for our planter to deposit seed and for the roots of this year’s crop to grow.

Discing our first field. You can clearly see where the ground has been worked.

It seems these days you hear a lot about no-till technology, but it’s not the status quo for our farm. No-till offers some conservation benefits. When ground is not worked, the root structures of the previous year’s crop help keep the soil in place. The no-till process also saves time and fuel with fewer steps to plant a crop. The technology requires specialized planting equipment, though, to break through the tougher ground and deposit the seed. It also requires a no-till applicator for applying anhydrous amonia, a very common method of adding nitrogen (fertilizer) to the soil. Generally, no-till also requires more herbicide use because weeds are able to develop stronger roots that might otherwise have been disturbed or destroyed by tillage.

We do occasionally no-till, but there are several reasons we don’t regularly employ this technology. For one, we don’t have the specialized equipment required. We did modify our planter this year in the hopes of reducing tillage, but it’s still not ready for planting into thick ground cover. Our drill on the other hand cannot be modified, and we also can’t afford to upgrade to a no-till capable model at the moment. The same goes for our anhydrous applicator. We also haul manure as fertilizer. We have it readily available, and it’s natural and great for the soil, but it has to be worked into the ground. Finally, there is typically a reduction in yield when no-till technology is employed, especially the first few years. We don’t sell many crops, but we are trying to feed our cows with a limited supply of land. With the type and size of our operation, going 100% no-till just doesn’t make sense.

An anhydrous ammonia tank. This is how we add nitrogen (which corn needs to grow) to our soil.

Two weeks ago we finally had a little dry weather and got in the field to start working ground. We used the disc on a couple of fields, and just the field cultivator on another, and we’ve applied anhydrous to all three. Yesterday we even got 15 acres of corn planted, but we’ll be waiting several more days to continue as we expect rain and snow and will have to wait for it to dry out again. We still have manure to haul, more ground to work, and more fertilizer to apply before we can finish our planting. We’re off to a late start, but we’ll be going full-speed-ahead at every dry opportunity. What a different a year makes.

AI Breeding Goals

If you know me well, or follow me on twitter, you probably know that I put a lot into our breeding program.  I spend a lot of time selecting bulls to purchase semen from and carefully mating each cow and heifer to the best bull for her.  If you want to know more about AI, Ryan Goodman wrote a great post including an explanation of the process.

Breeding is important, but it really doesn’t matter what you breed a cow to if she doesn’t get pregnant. Last spring, we started using blood tests to confirm pregnancies. Since then we’ve tweaked our protocol to best suit our herd’s needs.  Our milk hauler picks up our blood samples, and I am usually home on Sundays to draw blood, so every other Sunday, when our milk will be picked up on a Monday morning, I take blood samples from cows and heifers that were bred between 8 and 10 weeks prior who have not shown a heat since.  The test can indicate pregnancy at 28 days, but we were observing a lot of heats just shortly after testing, and about a month after testing, when we were testing earlier.  We’ve been on the every-other week at 8 weeks bred schedule for 3 or 4 months now, and have had very few come back in heat after being confirmed pregnant.

This little gal (who is not this little any more) is from one of the cows I personally bred, which is a very cool feeling. She’s out of the bull Boliver, who happens to be one of the few proven bulls we were using last year.

Several weeks ago we wrapped up pregnancy confirmations on all our cows and heifers that were bred in 2012. We tallied everything up, and here’s what we learned:

Conception

We started out the year with great conception – about 60%. Then we had two unexplainably terrible months in March and April. Summer brought normal lulls due to heat, but was still better than March or April. After the heat subsided and the herd adjusted, we finished the year with solid conception and a lot of pregnancies, including several cows who were on their final attempts. Next fall may be busier than this one was.

Sire Selection

We used a lot of bulls – 34 total. Of many of these, we only used one or two straws as we were finishing a cane (the typical semen storage vessel, each holding 10 straws) as the year started or starting one as it ended.  But, we were also only purchasing 10 units of most bulls. This wasn’t exactly unintentional. We were using mostly genomic bulls (the numbers come from DNA testing rather than daughter-proven performance), and since the technology is new, we like to balance our risk by using a variety. However, on paper, it was a little shocking,.  We also hadn’t realized how few daughter-proven bulls we included in the mix.

Lessons Learned

The excitement of genomics apparently went to our heads. We used 10 units of a sire named G W Atwood who has the show-rings buzzing with his fancy daughters, but in hindsight, that’s one of the worst investments we made.  Don’t get me wrong, Atwood daughters are beautiful cows, but many are too tall for our stalls and less efficient from an feed intake vs milk production standpoint than daughters of other available bulls. That’s not what we’re looking for.  Thankfully (I guess?), from the 10 units we only have two pregnancies, and they’re both short stocky old cows that should be complemented by Atwood’s dairy type, and their smaller stature will hopefully influence the stature of their potential daughters.

We also learned that conception is important. We knew this, but after the terrible time we had last spring, it really has started to hit home. One of my favorite bulls we used last year isn’t very fancy.  His production isn’t off the charts.  He’s just a decent bull, but he does his job – he gets cows bred.  We purchased Shyster for two primary reasons – 1) his pedigree is an outcross on almost everything we have (he’s not a cousin or brother to many of our cows) and 2) he was listed as a high conception bull.  I’m not sure what his overall conception rate is in our herd now, but I know he was 3 for 3 on his first three breedings including a cow and a heifer who we had already given more chances to get pregnant than most farms would.  Shyster gets cows bred, and that’s what breeding is really all about!

Moving Forward

Our biggest take-away from all the data was the need to focus on our specific goals moving forward. Our plan for 2013 is to use more units of a few carefully selected proven bulls while still mixing in a variety of genomic bulls who best fit our goals, based on both numbers and pedigree.  These steps will hopefully help us achieve the focus we feel we are lacking.

So – what are we looking for?

Our ideal cows are moderate in size, convert feed efficiently into milk, and are durable and healthy to hopefully stick around for the long haul.  In addition, we have started looking more closely at components (fat and protein), which are the portion of the milk we are actually paid for. Thankfully, components also happen to be very “heritable”, meaning that in just a few generations, they can be greatly improved.  And if the cows look gorgeous while producing gobs of milk, that’s great, too.

This calf is over a year old now, and we confirmed her bred today. She’s out of the bull Planet, who is still near the top of the proven lists, and is bred to sexed Grafeeti. We are milking two Planet cows currently, and we really like them.

And I’ll say it again, conception matters.  The best bull in the world does us no good if we don’t get cows bred.  Conception is affected by a lot of things – the cow’s feed and environment play a role along with our breeding techniques, but the semen plays a role, too.  For most bulls there is conception data of some sort available, and we intend to take advantage of it. Semen that doesn’t get cows bred is money down the drain.

Every bull doesn’t have to meet all of these criteria; we look at more than numbers.  And we do carefully mate, so we know the cow’s strengths play a role, too.  That being said, I am very picky when I select bulls. I think I should be.  These are our girls, and we have to do what’s best for them and their future daughters.  Anything less would be selling our herd, our milk check, and ourselves short.

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Mixing It Up

This week we bought a new-to-us TMR wagon. The TMR wagon is what we use to mix feed (TMR) for our cows. I’ve written before about some of the different components of our cows feed, and since we stopped feeding grain in the barn, the cows have been exclusively eating a TMR ration.

The new TMR wagon made it home!

This purchase is more than a change in equipment, though; it’s also a change in the way we feed our cows. Our old mixer didn’t have a conveyor for unloading feed into bunks or tires that would work off of concrete. This meant that we had to unload the feed where we mixed it, and then use other means to put it in the feed bunk. We had a bunk right next to our silo (where we mix) that we would scoop the feed into using a skid loader. The main problem with this was that the silo isn’t close to the free stall or lean-to that our cows like to hang out in, so they were eating and then going to lay down, with too much travel in between. It’s better for them to be able to eat and lay down as they wish throughout the day. The long walk meant they did one and then the other instead of eating a little, letting it digest, then eating a little more.

For a couple of months we did try loading the feed into a different wagon that did have a conveyor and adequate tires (but that couldn’t do the mixing) to be able to feed closer to the free stall and lean-to. It should have been better for the cows, but the process took a significant amount of extra time, required an additional tractor, and we saw no change in milk production to justify the extra effort. It became clear that if we were going to feed near the barns, we needed a wagon that could both mix and unload the feed.

The conveyor unloading the TMR into the fence line bunk.

We spent some time looking for such a wagon, but every one we found was out of our price-range. We really had quit looking; we were getting by with what we had. Then last week David’s dad was at an auction and noticed they had a wagon just like what we had been looking for. Knowing we had stopped looking, he didn’t bid. The wagon was auctioned and “sold”, but we have enough experience with auctions to know that “sold” doesn’t always mean a piece of equipment has gone to a buyer. The price they stopped at seemed reasonable, so the next day they called the auction company to see if the wagon was still available and it was.

On Friday, David and his dad went down to take a look at the wagon, and for the same price the auctioneer pronounced the wagon “sold” for, they pulled it home that afternoon. David mixed with it that evening and fed the cows in two big steel tubs and a concrete bunk along the fence line, right next to the freestall and lean-to. The cows were a little confused at first, as they stood by the gate to the silo while their feed was unloaded back by their beds, but they’ve caught on now. Our cows aren’t the type to miss a meal.

Some cows enjoying their dinner at the fence line bunk.

We hope this time around the cows’ production will increase, but if not the wagon is a good investment for the time it saves. The old process used to take an hour and 20 minutes twice day, but today mixing and feeding took a total of about 45 minutes. The new wagon has two augers to mix instead of one, so it mixes a bit faster, and the old process to unload and scoop the feed was cumbersome and time consuming. By giving David an extra hour every day, the new-to-us TMR wagon should help our overall dairy operation run a lot more smoothly!

Let’s See What You’re Made Of!

In our introductory post (over a year ago), I mentioned that we would be making improvements to our house. At the time, there were just two things standing in our way. First, we needed to own the house, and then it needed new windows. We officially bought the house last April, and now, almost a year later – we’re finally getting windows!!

Windows were the first step for two reasons. 1 – They’re expensive, and 2 – we didn’t feel qualified to install them ourselves. To save our budget, and potential rework on other things, we felt that we had to get them out of the way first.

Our house is old. The first two rooms were built in 1883. Over the next 100 years or so it was expanded from 2 rooms to 7 through various additions and remodels. Most if not all of this work was done by the people who owned and occupied the house. We believe the basement was even hand-dug by David’s grandpa.

The windows that were in the house were of different ages and styles, but all were single pane, and several were actually cracked. It’s already so much warmer, and so much quieter, and they’re not quite done sealing everything up! Probably the most interesting thing about the process so far, though, is finding out what our walls are actually made of. The windows aren’t the only thing that were different room-to-room.

All three of these wall sections occur in the same room (our kitchen). Two of them are actually in the same wall!

The kitchen contains three different interior wall types. The first is 1/2″ plywood directly over wood studs covered in wallpaper. The second is tongue-and-groove board similar to wood siding, covered with 1/4″ plywood, covered with wallpaper. And in the same wall, the 3rd is wood lath and plaster covered in wallpaper. The kitchen was the second-to-last addition and likely the wall type along that wall changes at the break between the previous addition and the main part of the kitchen. This wall was also completely lacking insulation, so that explains the extreme temperature differential between the kitchen and the remainder of the house.

The first two walls are in our bedroom, part of the original two-room house. And the third is in the living room, the most recent portion of the house (still very old, but post-basement).

We knew the walls in our bedroom were plaster, but we had assumed that the plaster was supported by wood lath, like that in the kitchen. We were surprised to find that instead, the main support was provided by sheet rock. The first photo shows sheet rock covered by what looks like masonry cement covered by plaster. The second is actually 1/2″ plywood covered by sheet rock covered by plaster. The second location was once the front door and was converted to a window after David’s grandparents grew tired of people knocking on the door at their bedroom. The other window on the same wall matched the first photo.

The third photo was the only predictable wall type. The living room, back bedroom and office all have wood-paneling on the walls, and the openings revealed exactly what we anticipated – that the paneling was placed directly on the wall studs.

The windows look great so far. Now we’re ready to dive into more home improvement projects, and it’s nice to know what the walls we’ll be working with are actually made of!

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It’s a Heifer! And a Bull?

Wednesday evening cow number 976 had a calf. It was a heifer. The calf was pretty small, which is generally a good thing because its easier on the cow. But this time it had us puzzled; 976 was 5 days overdue, and it’s unusual for an overdue calf to be that small. The cow was up and had cleaned the calf off, so we moved her to a hut, fed her colostrum and covered her in straw to help her keep warm. Fifteen minutes later I walked by the barn, and 976 had delivered a second calf. This one was a bull.

We were disappointed for several reasons. We never like for a cow to have twin calves because it’s tough on her. On top of that, when the twin calves are different genders, often the heifer is a freemartin. This means she has received testosterone through a shared blood stream and is infertile. A freemartin heifer appears to have the reproductive parts of a female, but she grows and behaves more like a steer (castrated bull). Not all mixed twin heifers are freemartins, though. It depends on when the embryo divides. Since we couldn’t see that, we needed another way to assess the situation.

We were aware that there were indicators that could predict if the heifer was fertile, but in the past we had just raised them and waited to find out. This is where the awesomeness that is twitter comes in. We asked a couple of friends who we thought might have experience with this, and within minutes we had a free and easy check to try. The explanation that follows isn’t dinner-table conversation for most people (it is here..), but I think it’s worth sharing.

A blood test tube we normally use for pregnancy tests.

If the heifer is a freemartin it’s likely that the length of her reproductive parts would be reduced, so we used a small blood test tube (blunt with rounded edges, so it won’t puncture or tear anything) with AI lube on it and inserted into her vulva and applied gentle pressure to see how far it would go. The tube stopped at about 2 1/4″. Based on the guidance we were given, anything over 2″ means it’s worth raising her and trying to breed her. If the tube had stopped only an inch or so in, the odds of her breeding would be very low, and we would most likely sell her as a calf. Thankfully, we don’t have to worry about that.

The twins, bull on the left, heifer on the right.

We had a beef farmer stop earlier that evening looking for a bull calf to put on a cow who had lost her calf. We didn’t have one at the time, but he was still interested a few hours later. After we fed the bull it’s colostrum that night and in the morning, we sold him to that farmer. The heifer is a lot smaller than another calf born the same day, but hopefully she’ll start catching up soon. We’ll find out for sure if she’s fertile in 12-14 months.

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National Ag Day: Why do we farm?

Today is National Agriculture Day. I often write about what we do as a part of agriculture, but today I want to talk about why we do it. Michele Payn-Knoper wrote this post about taking the time to explain the personal nature of farming.

I’ve said too many times that farming is hard, that it’s so hard that many people aren’t willing to do it. I’m certainly not saying farming is the only difficult job out there. Engineering is hard, too, trust me. But as an engineer, I’ve never had to get up at 2 AM and go out in a cold rain to check on anything. As a farmer, I have.

So, if farming is so hard – why do we do it?

It’s a difficult question to answer – and one I’ve asked myself a million times. After all, when I met David, I wasn’t a farmer. It’s difficult to explain a decision like ours to someone who hasn’t farmed. There are certainly easier ways to make a more comfortable living. I admit that at times I needed a little convincing, but the process that convinced me didn’t include lists of pros and cons and logical reasons.

The process of buying the farm was very stressful. If we had given up and moved closer to my job, our lives would most likely be easier. But it wouldn’t be right. We talked about it, a lot. The thought of someone else milking our cows, of not seeing our calves grow up and have calves, of my husband putting on a tie every morning – it was heartbreaking. The more we worked side by side, I just knew. I understood what David always seemed sure of.

David’s veiw from the tractor while planting corn

I believe farming is something inside of us. Its a love for all things living and (for us at least) a faith that God will provide what we need. We love the good times – the newborn calves, the high milk tests, the yields that exceed expectations. The struggles, though, are what make those good times great.

The weather and our prices are two of the things we depend on most, and two of the things we have the least control over. Last year, our first year as owner/operators, neither was favorable. The past year has no doubt made us stronger. It has made us appreciate the things that do go right. If farming was easy, it wouldn’t be so rewarding.

View from the chopper.

We enjoy the challenge of doing more with less and finding new ways to do old things to make our cows and our farm better than they were before. And I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again – we take pride in continuing a tradition that started in our families over 100 years ago. Farming is truly in the cloth from which we were cut.

If its so hard, why do we farm? We farm for our families, for our cows, for our land, for all those who need something to eat and drink, and for us. We farm because it’s who we are.

“It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard…is what makes it great.” – Tom Hanks as Jimmy Dugan in A League of Their Own

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The Pulse of Milking

Our pulsators are something we rely on every day, twice a day, like so many things at the dairy. When everything’s working correctly we can forget how vital things like this are to our operation. Two weeks ago half of our pulsators quit working, and we got a brutal reminder of just how important they are.

What is a pulsator?

The pulsators are really what makes the milking units work. You can have all the suction in the world, but without a pulsator, you don’t get milk. The vacuum pump provides the suction to the milking units while the pulsators cause the shell liners to move in and out, basically squeezing then releasing on the cow’s teats.

If you’ve seen someone milk by hand you know they don’t just pull and hold, you have to pull and squeeze and release and pull and squeeze again. That’s what the pulsators do using differential pressures on the inside and outside of the liners. They also alternate so that two teats are squeezed and two are released at all times. Our pulsators are fairly loud, so you can clearly hear them switching back and forth. I guess they provide the rhythm for milking.

Here’s a short video with clips of a couple of cows milking. With our (new) clear shells, you can actually see the black liner squeeze and release. You can also hear the rhythm of pulsators and see the milk flow alternate between teats.

When the electrical box for the pulsators on one side of the barn quit, we were able to get both sides wired through one box so we could get by. They didn’t have quite enough juice, though, so a few units wouldn’t work correctly, and it really slowed things down. We milked with disabled pulsators for three days before we were able to get them fixed (it was a weekend, of course). After that experience, we’re a little more grateful for things like our pulsators and vacuum pump that really make our lives easier when they work twice a day every day.

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Bring on the Mud

We had about two feet of snow at the end of February, and last week it was over 40 degrees for several consecutive days, melting all but the tallest piles of snow. Then, on Saturday, it rained all day long. We were sitting on the couch on Sunday night, and I said to David, “Any ideas what I can blog about?” His response was “All I can think about is mud.”

To say it is muddy is an understatement. We do our best to keep everything clean and dry, but this time of year it’s nearly impossible. Every calf group has some type of shelter, a structure with a roof, to keep them dry, but our cows and calves eat outside. They have free access to the exterior of their shelters at all times. Because of this, despite our best efforts, they get muddy. They really don’t seem to mind, but boy they are a mess. And muddy cows and calves result in muddy farmers.

The muddy road through the barnyard.

This weekend I bedded down all of the huts and groups. We use a bale shredder to bed down the milk cows, but the tractor won’t fit in our calf pens.  Bedding down calves means bending over into buildings whose roofs are lower than your height and breaking apart and spreading out straw bales to give the calves something warm and dry to lay on.

In the end, the person doing this is generally a little sore and completely covered in straw. To give you a visual: I had my phone in a pocket on the inside of my vest, and I have a case that covers the charging port, and when I went to charge my phone, I had to remove a piece of straw from inside the closure over that port. I can’t explain how that happened. Bedding down calves isn’t anyone’s favorite job, but its important to keep things as clean as possible, and the calves are always appreciative.

Let me stop my complaining for a minute, though, because I’m not really complaining. Last year we went months without mud, and drought is far more difficult to deal with. So as the rain came down on Saturday, no one complained. We changed our wet clothes at noon and went back out and got our dry clothes wet without a word. We’re extremely thankful for the rain that will hopefully turn into ground moisture to help our crops and pastures grow so that our cows will have something to eat.

Because of last year’s drought, we’ve had to buy a lot more feed than normal. And because of last year’s drought, feed is hard to find and expensive. We hope to grow more feed ourselves this year and need to buy less next year. And we hope that what we do need to buy won’t cost quite so much. Given all that, bring on the mud.

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