I would like to start off saying thank you to everyone who was able to make it to the party Memorial Day weekend!!! As usual it was a blast! I wasn't paying attention this year and only got a couple of pictures of the fun. These pics were of the water balloon fight. A few of the guests decided to change it up a little this year and it worked great. After filling a tub with water balloons they made the kids all stand at the wagon to wait for the start of the fight. When they yelled go it was game on!!!
It took about 30 minutes with four adults and all the children and two hoses to fill the balloons. The entire balloon fight lasted about 2 minutes! We also decided to utilize the garage this year in case it rained. This turned out to be a good idea as we did have a brief shower that didn't really make the ground wet but it would've made a mess for eating. Plus the garage kept the winds from blowing things around while everyone relaxed after eating. We are already planning to do this again next year but we will be sure to have it better organized for more space next year. If anyone has any photos of the party please send them to me or Natsuko. We have been keeping them and I want to start showing some of them from past years at our future events!
I wanted to post a few pics of Zeus. Those who were able to make it to the party got to meet him. He is growing very fast and is currently 30# and is very tall and long!
These pics were from last weekend. He was waiting for my wife to get done fixing breakfast and noticed I was taking his pic so he had to pose for it.
He also fully believes he is a lap dog. He absolutely loves to lay on my lap when I get home from work or on Sunday morning after I finish my breakfast. I am not sure how much longer he will be able to do this since he is already spilling over both sides of my lap. It is quite an interesting balancing act for him to stay on my lap comfortably right now!
I also picked up some new farm ground this year. I had about 30 acres between two different farms that I plowed the day after the party. Last week during the week I spent my evenings working it down the for the first pass and then my brother made the final pass on all of it Friday. It is now ready for planting.
I am using dads transport disk and spike tooth harrow hooked in tandem. The disk chops up the sod and other clumps and the harrow levels and fills the holes. I have one more field that I plowed yesterday and will be working down today and then I am ready for seeding. The seed I ordered in the spring ended up being a larger quantity than I was expecting. This ended up being a great thing because now I have enough Oats, Sudex, and Hay seed to seed all the new ground that I got after I ordered the seed!!! If all goes well it should be a decent year with plenty of feed for the cows. I am drooling waiting to see what next year brings since it takes a year before the newly seeded hay ground starts to produce at full volume!
My wife and I went out to check the cows Friday night. Naturally baby girl found us as soon as we got out there and posed for a great pic with my wife!!! My wife has been working with the cattle since she is not working at this time and is starting to get it figured out. However, she still has a long way to go in telling when cows are about to calve. Shortly after this pic was taken we found a calf that was born at some point in time very early in the day. Great news is that it is healthy, mom is doing great, this was her first calf, and of course it was a heifer!!!
Lastly I am happy to state that we finished up the last field of first cutting silage hay for dad yesterday!!!!! This is the fastest we have been able to do it yet. My brother kept mowing any time he had a chance while I was doing all of my hay and tillage and also helped by raking for me and helping move my hay. The last 40 acres dad mowed while Martin and I were baling, raking, wrapping, and tilling! It was great to see dad out on the tractors again. He and I used to do this together and it was great to see him out with Martin and I to get it done in short order!! Now all they need to do is hit it with some Nitrogen and lime and let the rain come for a nice second cutting.
The pic below was from yesterday. When I was a kid we moved one bale at a time from up home to the barn to where we fed the hay. At 8-10 minutes per trip...6-8 if you were hauling ass...it took several days to move all the bales down and used an enormous amount of fuel, time, and equipment wear and tear! Dad was able to get our first bale wagon about 4 years ago and the last week of 2014 I found an even bigger one that was a super buy. Now we can haul 23 at a time for silage bales and if dry we can haul 30!!! in four trips we moved 84 bales of hay and wrapped it all in a total time of 2.5 hours. Even though it was fun as a kid to move bales I would have been in heaven to have been able to do it this way!
Well, I am out to check the cows and then go get my cousin's bull. I sorted out all of the heifers that are related to Legacy and we are using my cousin's Lineback bull to breed them. Not only is he smaller but he is not related in any way which allows me to keep Legacy longer by not having to worry about him breeding his own progeny. We sorted them out from the herd last night and they are penned on the lot for the next week or so. After he spends a week or so with them there we will turn them all out on the pasture together. We also let Legacy out with the rest of the herd last night so we should start seeing our first calves the third week of march next year, I can't wait! With the addition of the new heifers that brings us to 29 breeding age females. My goal is to be at 40. If I wanted to I could be there now but with the need for cash flow I am only keeping the best heifers and selling the rest. Plus, there is always a couple of cows that do not end up pregnant and are sold in the fall which is why I still need to keep a few heifers each year as replacements. Still, 30 is the bottom end of where I want to be so we are pretty much there. It is gonna be wild knowing I will have more than 20 -30 calves to pick from and possibly sell next year!
Have a great day everyone!!! Enjoy the summer, it will not be here for long and it will be cold once again.
Kenny
