Sunday. Cloudy and dreary out. 50's . Possible showers but hit and miss... more possibility coming in tonight and tomorrow. We are getting dry so not unhappy if we get some rain.
Yesterday DS said he wanted to try to get some more cow/calf pairs moved if I could help. So I went with him and we got about 20 paired up, bull calves banded, all calves given blackleg shots, and sorted out and moved to 3 different places. He had already moved some during the week last week. The grass is heading out already at the pastures... It came on fast. He even said we should have gotten them out about 2-3 weeks ago.... I just listened.
There are still 20 or so that have not calved this spring. Now we know that there are 2 that are not pregnant. One calf that he had tagged #5, died a week later, and he never knew who the mother was... One calf was the one that he hadn't caught, then he caught another the next day and then 2 days later the untagged calf was dead, and then we weren't sure if it belonged to my heifer or the tagged one did. So we had gotten her in and after several days, got her to take the tagged one. So either hers was the untagged one that died, or the tagged one the next day was hers, and she was just not a very smart 1st time mother. But she is in the little field/lot with the nurse cow and the calf from DS heifer that prolapsed and died. They are doing good with their calves and will be going out to pasture soon.
Anyway, there will be 2 in there that will not be calving since they already calved. I am not sure why this group is so far behind.... I remember that there was one group of cows that were about 2 months "less pregnant" than they should have been when we checked them. So that means the bull was either very slow to get started, or he was shooting blanks for awhile, or just might not have that good a fertility. Guess we should get them all semen checked this year before we put them out to be sure they are in good condition.
The 2 that are not pregnant will probably get sold once we figure them out. We did put the one that we had to pull the dead calf from, and would not take the orphan calf, back out with the bull to rebreed since she is a young cow and this is her first problem. Can't really blame the having to pull the dead calf, on her.... sometimes it just happens. She did fine last year so she gets a pass.
DS put the 18 (?) heifers at the one pasture to get bred. Some are the red white face and the horned hereford that we had bought for cheap prices back in Jan and Feb that he was going to maybe sell and then didn't. We need some more spring calving cows so that will work good. They will get a bull in June/July for calves next Mar/April which is good. There are a couple more at the barn that he thought were a little small, one is mine that I think will get put up there as I think she is big enough. So maybe a few more will go. Might even see about picking up a few more at the sales if the prices continue to get cheap on these bigger 7-8 wt heifers. Then, if they don't turn out to be what we like, we can sell in the spring next year as breds or young cow/calf pairs. If it costs say 500 to buy some of these bigger heifers, and figure another 500 to feed for a year, and they get bred and can sell for $1500, or more as they have been this year, we can make some with little "extra work". That is saying the bred market stays where it is this year. I have seen some with calves bring in the $15-2200 range but figure $1500 as round figures. The pasture they eat this summer will cost next to nothing, the silage and hay for the winter will cost more, so you average out at 500 per year cost to keep an animal. With the prices in the 70-80 cent per 100 lbs, a 700 lb heifer has been costing in the $5-600 range . So, I might be looking for a few more.... Especially at the graded sales where there are a few odd sized ones that get discounted because they are decent but don't match.... sad for the seller but a fact of the cattle market in this area.
So I did not get down the hill yesterday. I am going down in just a little bit. I did get the clothes off the line and they were dry so that was good. I still do not feel 100% but at least not hurting like a few days ago. May have to take antibiotics longer, they called and said it looked like it might be a bladder infection as well as the UTI.... no wonder I felt so bad. No idea where or how or why I got it. Maybe stress with the problems with my father and all up north, trying to get moved, all rolled into one????
Skies are very threatening. I have a bunch of stuff on the truck to go to the dumpster, and more at the stone house to take. So I think I will go there first and load more dumpster stuff and make a trip there first, then go back and see if I can get at least one of the freezers emptied. Cooler chests are there. Then I can come up here and back up to the front porch to unload and pull it in on a rug, to not mess up the floors, and pull it inside and get the one smaller freezer filled... Then the other freezer out in the building... and it won't hurt to go back and forth with the freezer chests on the truck. I can back right up to the building here with the truck to unload the chests to put stuff in the freezer out there. Then they can get the last 2 freezers moved next week and then I can get the chickens out of the freezer at the fairgrounds and into the chest freezer here.... See how much I have the strength and energy for today.
I have to go pick up the samples at the owner sampler farm too. Got a farm that wants to wait for next week to test and 2 that I haven' heard from but suspect one will want this week. Hope so, want to space them out if I can.... 3 days in a row were too much , but then I was really in pain from that infection too.
One of the "yellow peonies" that I bought myself isn't yellow.... it is white with a really faint whisper of a hint of cream color.... It was the only one with that name tag, so I am suspecting it was mis tagged. It was not the one I paid the real high price for, so I am going to keep it because it is pretty.... a double white.... I am sure hoping that the high priced yellow one blooms soon and is really yellow.....it has 1 or 2 buds on it.... If it is not yellow, I will take it back while still in bloom.... and at least see if I can get some money back on it. The one that is varigated does not look to have any blooms on it this year but is growing good foliage. I did not pay any more for that one than any other normally priced one, so whatever it is will be okay.
Friend of ours has a younger guy helping him part-time that really likes to weed eat and stuff. I have decided to get him here to do along the rail fence along the road.... and then I will get the peonies planted along the fence.... into a permanent place for next year. If he likes to do that kind of yard work, then I will get him to do some of the cleanup of the scrub stuff that the "boxwood guy" didn't do. Still need to get the stumps ground down.... that is the area where I want to put the concrete pad for the outside wood furnace to go. And then get some of the wood chips spread around the base of some of these trees to make the mowing easier. Need to get them done when the cleanup is done so they can smother out more of the weeds and junk. That is why I want to get the weed eating done and then put down a good base of wood chips and then move the peonies later on when they are done blooming and the weeds will be less if the wood chips have smothered out the stuff along the fence.
Oh well, one thing at a time. Got the specially ordered several different varieties of potatoes from Irish Eyes the other day... need to get on the garden too.....wanted to try several different varieties to see what I like and what works/grows good here. I have the 5 lbs each of Yukon gold, Kennebec and Red Pontiac that I got at the feed store awhile back ; and then 2 lbs each of 5 different kinds from Irish Eyes. I figure that each will plant about a row here. It is pretty sure that we will not be getting any more frost... but since I never get in a rush to get the garden in before Memorial day, it is all fine.
Haven't had any calls to get any left behind chickens either. The companies have been picking up all the chickens from what I have heard.... shortages.... GLAD that I got all the ones I did last year even if I was not prepared for them and didn't have a good place for them and lost a bunch.... I still put alot more in the freezer than I would have.
Time to get my rear in gear....
welcome to BYH. You have a long LOOOONNNNNGG way to go if you are going to read my journal from the start.... There are lots of others on here too that have journals much more interesting than Mine!!!!!
Good luck. If you get rain, please send it here!
