Got another talking-too

Every time I think we're doing okay we get a visit (or in this case a quick call) from our favourite farmer, and the both of us get a butt-kicking over something!

And every time we do I'm appreciative of the advice, feel like we're learning and thankful to have someone that'll kick our butts before we do something really stupid! After all, the man has been farming his entire life, we've been doing it for 4 months.

Those things are darn heavy!

This time it was the hay bales, we turned all ours up so the animals wouldn't be able to push them around very easily. WRONG! Turning them over on their side means the rain will run off them instead of soaking into them. Which I wish I had learned before the last week of rain! I spent about 2 hours trying to push them over, and got 6 or 7 on their sides, the others are soaked.

One of the things I probably should have asked before we bought the cows, were things along the lines of "what are they?" "what are they bred too?" "how old are they?" etc. ... We didn't do any of those things! But we trust the Farmer quite a bit, and knew he was going to pick out some nice ones for us (he was our landlord for 3 years). Plus the Wiggins stock is pretty well known for being great cows.

Gertie (LimoXSH) & Steak

So I learned Burger & Steak are pure shorthorn, which is great. What is even more exciting is that Hilda & Gertie are bred back pure shorthorn for next year! Which means if Hilda gives us a cow-calf we're definitely keeping it! Also the Farmer has a shorthorn bull for next year too so we're going to organize a little visit for Hilda & Gertie (and Hilda & Gertie Jrs) back to the farm next spring. Give our pastures a little rest (which is great because I was worried about no-inner fences & keeping the cows off the grass early when it's wet), and get them preggers again for another year.

Hilda & Burger
(shorthorn)

Burger is going in quite soon, Nov 7th or 8th with some of the Farmer's cows. Which means we're weaning them next week, probably on the 6th. That means I've got to get my butt moving to get some hay out into the sacrifice paddock, and I'd like to start feeding the little guys some treats in there. Then we'll lock Burger & Steak in that little paddock and Hilda & Gertie out. At least that is the plan.

Luckily the Farmer also as an RFID tag for Burger for us, which is great because we didn't know a thing about that until 2 weeks ago when he told us...

Sometimes we're so lost & clueless it's funny even to us. Everyone's gotta start learning somewhere, right?