We couldn’t believe the snow Sunday morning, October 14th!  We got a little less than 2″ and it stayed on the ground all day, but was gone by Monday.  A real awakening about the coming winter!  Guess we better get our projects done soon.  It’s been at freezing or below overnights, and in the 40’s during the day for the past week.  We are hoping to get some 60’s again so we can get the last hay field cut!  Meanwhile, the cows are in the last pasture of the season before going back to the winter paddock.  The bull left on October 8th.  We plan to get the cows preg-checked at the end of this month so we can decide who to sell.  We’d like to sell 3-4 pregnant cows in November.  In the next few weeks we plan to build an insulated pump house, put in a heavy duty fence so we can wean calves soon, and a few other smaller projects.  It’s a matter of getting it done before the real cold and snow sets in.  And, the time change is coming in early November.  We are also waiting for our renter to combine the corn on the top field so we can bale the leftover corn for bedding this year.  Wish we had one more month of warm weather!

 

We finally hayed our leased land in September.  It was seeded in early Spring and took all summer to get tall and thick enough for haying.  The soil there is sandy, so it will probably take a couple more years to get it the way we want it.  We will be seeding it again next Spring.  But, it sure is nice and flat for haying!  And, for the first ever cutting, we got more bales than expected.  Now, to haul all the equipment back to the farm- it’s about 10 miles.  Next year we will try to purchase a second haybine to leave there along with our old rake, so we only have to bring the tractor and baler over.  Some time this Fall or next Spring, we’ll haul the bales back to the farm too.  In a week or so we will also be sending the bull back and hopefully we have a nice bunch of Angus calves in the Spring!  On to more projects before the cold weather hits- we are fencing a divider in the winter paddock so we can wean the calves in a couple months.  The fence has to be real sturdy so they can’t get through it.  We won’t get a watering fountain this year, so instead we decided to build a winterized pump house so we won’t have to carry the pump back & forth like we’ve done every winter.  Should make things alot nicer for us this year!  And, Craig is fixing some problems with our pickup and plow so we are ready for snow. He’s been pretty busy!  A farmer’s work is never done!

The weather is finally cooler!  Time to think about winterizing and getting hay for the winter.  We got 100 bales from our neighbor, plus we are cutting my brother’s fields for the first time, and should get one more cutting from our field on the farm.  We are hopeful that we’ll have plenty of hay for the winter.  Besides that, we are planning on selling 4-5 pregnant cows this fall to get the herd size down.  The bull is here through the end of September and then we can put the cows out in the hay fields for some green grass again.  We have been supplementing with hay most of the summer.  I got a short break from the farm, though!  Our son Dusty was home for a couple weeks to pick up some stuff, and I rode back to LA with him and flew home.  We drove 2000 miles in 2 days!  But, we made it safely and I got to spend some time at the beach before flying home.  It was a nice break for me, but Craig had to stay home with the cows.  Dusty is doing well in LA- he’s been doing some freelance editing while trying to get a full time gig.  He really likes it there!  The weather, the ocean, and the mountain hiking trails are great, but I don’t like the crazy, fast traffic… I guess you need to be young to drive in LA!

Yes, the heat and humidity continues.  A real summer in Wisconsin.  We leased a bull again and got him the last week of July.  He’s a stocky guy- think we’ll get some nice Angus calves next Spring.  We are short on pasture again this year so we’ve been feeding hay as a supplement.  They love the grass hay we got from first and second crop on the farm.  We are planning on getting a 3rd crop in September.  And, we are cutting the hayfields at my brothers in the next week or as soon as it dries out for a few days.  Now that we want to cut hay, it rains!  But, considering the drought-like conditions we’ve had the past month, we needed it.  Meanwhile, we purchased some hay again from our neighbors to be sure we have enough over winter.  We sold our steers at the local livestock auction- first major sale of the farm!   And the calves are still growing!  They are all brown in color, but most likely will turn to black in the next few months.  And, the two Wagyu calves are mostly black now.  It’s so much fun watching the cows and calves enjoy the green pastures- what a life!

The calves are so much fun to watch!  In the evenings they are especially active, chasing each other around, dancing and kicking.  So glad that they are all healthy and growing fast!   We put the cattle in our far end pasture which is usually pretty wet, but not so bad this year, so they have been enjoying the green grasses.  The grass was so high we could hardly see them!  And, we are sending our yearling steers to market this week, hoping to get a decent price for them.  We are renting a bull again and he should be here the first week of August.  And, once we know who’s pregnant, we plan to sell a few more this Fall.  It is too hard for us to work full time and feed that many cattle.  So, until we can make more hay ourselves, we want to limit the size of the herd over winter.  Funny how we worked so hard to get the herd built up and now it’s too big!  Counting the calves, we have 27 head right now!

We also had a small “Farm Tour” in July where we invited Craig’s mom, aunt, uncle and cousins over to see the calves.  They were here last year and really enjoyed it!  So, we hope this will become a yearly visit!

We had another Angus calf born on July 6th!  We named her Blue- she has a slight bluish tint, but also it’s a good July 4th holiday name!  She was born to No 6- and she’s a great mom- had Blue up and nursing right away.  Think we may get 1 or 2 more calves this month.  Then we will be leasing a bull towards the end of July.  It’s been so hot and humid this summer!  We’ve had to keep the cows in the winter paddock so they have shade.  If we let them in the pastures, the moms tend to forget about their calves and leave them baking in the sun while they munch the green grass.  So, to be safe, we are feeding hay in the paddock.  We let them out to the pasture in the evenings sometimes so they can get the green stuff.  Looking forward to the next hay cutting also in the next few weeks.  Summer is going by fast!

We put ear tags in the calves a week ago.  They look so much alike!  Fumiko, Sachi and Akira are #001, 002, and 003 respectively.  And we have #18- Lilly, #19- Rocky, and #20 Reggie.  Much easier to know who’s who.  It has been very hot and humid the past month and because of that we have kept the cattle in their winter paddock where they have the shed and shade from the hot sun.  That means we are also using up the hay bales we just made!  But we feel better knowing they are able to stay cool.  We are also getting ready to sell our four steers soon.  We might sell two or three of our older cows also this Fall.  Not sure about the Angus calves yet- we really don’t need to keep any more. Plus, we think there’s a couple more calves due this month!   We want to cut the herd down a bit so we don’t need so much hay over the winter.  In a couple weeks we should be haying second crop!  Time is flying by!!

We had two more Angus calves on June 20th, one bull calf and one heifer.  That gets us up to 6 total calves so far.  And we think there’s 2 or 3 more coming in July.   We opened up a pasture on a side hill to get them out of the mud and into a little green grass.  Much easier for the calves to run around- not to mention us!  The weather is finally drying out a little too.  We were bottle feeding the last two calves for almost a week before each decided mom’s milk was better.  That was a relief to finally see them with their moms.  Believe me, getting up extra early before work to bottle feed is not fun!  Makes for a very tiring week!  Everyone is doing well now and we are very proud of our growing herd.  Up to 26 head right now – Uffda!!

We were astonished to get what looked like another Wagyu calf on June 17th- 5 weeks past the due date of May 6th!  But, #9 did a good job and we got another heifer, Akira.  But we weren’t so sure if she was Wagyu.  We’ll wait and see if she grows horns like the other two.  And #8 had a black angus calf on the same day, we named him Rocky.  He had contracted tendons on his front feet so we tried a a splint so he could walk better.  But, after a few days, his tendons stretched out and he got around fine.   Lots of action on the farm this weekend.  We also got about 4″ of rain the afternoon/evening after the calves came!  What a muddy mess for all!  It was very muggy and hot prior to the storms.  We got the calves into the shed in hopes they would stay there.  And, we have been bottle feeding colostrum because we haven’t seen either one nursing yet.  Sometimes it takes awhile to get that bond between mother and calf.  Excitement, storms and mud, feeding the two calves, and generally making sure all are okay adds up to lack of sleep and high stress levels!  Oh, life on the farm!  Our herd grew to 24 today!

We have been patiently waiting for more calves.  Looks like a couple of them will be coming soon!  Meanwhile, the cows are enjoying the tasty green grasses in the pastures.  We started the first crop of hay  on the farm and are hoping the rain holds off a few more days.  Seems like every time we think there’s a stretch of dry weather, it changes to chances of rain!  Yup, living in Wisconsin.  But, we are doing our best!  The hayfields we planted at my brother’s this Spring are coming up nice and we hope to get one crop of hay off there later this summer.  The first two calves are growing nicely- they sure are buddies! We love summertime on the farm!  So nice to see the cows in the pastures and the beautiful scenery around them.  We are lucky to call this home!