There’s No Place Like Home

Thanks oxnun,

I took the calves out sunday evening after turning them out in the barn yard for a bit of sparing with the other calves. I can’t believe how much they have grow in 7 weeks, I need to look into a piece of wood for a 6″ as soon as I return home for the spring for good. I may have to cheat and make a run to Berry Brook if I can’t find a dry enough piece of wood.

Anyway I got the calves out, watered, brushed and yoked. The steer was fast and the hiefer was rank. I didn’t hitch to anything but took them for a good long walk in the snow and was rather assertive with them. They came back to working mode in a little while,but still had a lot of energy. Yesterday I hitched to a good sized tire and they drug the drive way and road for a good while. their education came back to them and they really started to listen to my commands again. They still have some habits that bother me, but I blame them a lot on being older when I started working them and the way that they are kept with the beef herd in the barn has a bad influence on them as well. Considering the circumstances I am happy with what I have accomplished and with how they go. I will do things differently when these two are sold and I get a pair of dairy steers of my own.

I will take them out today after I get the greenhouse going and start a good 50 flats of onions, leeks, shallots and lettuce, what a great day to work out there.

Glad to be home if only for a few days,

Erika

Thanks Jenn!

On 3/3 my co-worker called to tell me that there was not nearly enough work for 2 people to share for the coming weekend. Either I could extend my trip if the price was not too steep or fly back to FL and give her the weekend off, the choice was mine. Well for $125 I could stay home for an extra 5 nights and 4 days, the trip home was a gift anyway and there was only one choice as far as the gifter was concerned. So I just got back from home this morning, what a great trip home.

I worked the calves everyday and got them back to where I left them 7 seven weeks ago in a day or two. We did a little conditioning work even though they won’t do any more for the next month. In college we had the only school owned 1/2 mile harness training track, the conditioning battle cry drilled into my head was LSD, Long Slow Distances. So the calves and I would go for long walks down the dirt road with a big truck tire in tow. We did 2/3 to a mile everyday, then leave the tire by the barn and go back out for some fine tuning with commands. The steer especially just wants to go back to the barn so I always make sure that we go by the barn a couple extra times before we are done with our lessons, it is hard though because they are so herd bound with the others in the barn.

I managed to seed everything that I could in the greenhouse and of course they all pop up today now that I am not there to see, but I guess my germination rate looks good so I am happy to have not lost my touch.

Once I was certain that I had a few more days at home I tore apart my syracuse walking plow and cleaned and painted it. I know they were originally red, but I had blue and a little gold paint on hand so that is what color the plow is now. I finally found a handle source and may even be blessed with a spare point, fingers are crossed.

Erika

Thanks I really miss art class:) Really though, I just wanted to show of the details in the beautiful metal work. You don’t find such details in most anything these days, so I thought a little sunshine yellow would do it justice in this sense. Perhaps Bazel could help paint next time I visit, I can just picture the trouble we could get into with oil based enamel 😉

The Everglades are taking back the land that civilization stole from it. some of my neighbors here in FL had small ponds in their backyards, now they have homes in the middle of their big pond. All the rain that we have had, are currently receiving and will receive, has returned the land to swamp. It looked more like the camargue this morning at the horse show, with horses running on water. I plan on wearing sandals to wade to my truck, and then change into my shoes at work. There is so little high ground that even the dog had a hard time finding a place to do his business. At least the dirt roads are passable here in “rural south FL,” (a complete oxymoron).

Erika

12 hours until my departure for Virginia and then on north to NY, just me, the dog, the truck and the open road. The 4 ant bites that I just received may take away from my remaining hours, so just in case I don’t get the time later. I wanted to wish you all a good rest of the year and hope we meet up at one of this years draft events some time. I enjoy my winter DAP days and wireless bliss, but hopefully this is it for my Florida work and chances are highly probable that I will spend next winter where the freezing winds blow and the cattle are friendly.

My best to you all,

Erika

My poultry school event was a huge success with 98 attending, poultry husbandry is here to stay.

Dale actually came up with a chore for the calves, I think he has accepted the fact that they are getting integrated into the system. We sowed annual rye between rows of biotello film mulch and I used the calves to pull a tire and work in the seed. The results looked good with few holes in the mulch.

Thursday I was riding in the lime truck and discovered that an old classmate of Dale’s raises Milking Shorthorns, and that they happen to have 3 bull calves that have been born in the last 2 weeks. They keep all calves to raise on the farm. We are going to have a look on Wednesday morning, my fingers are crossed.

Erika