Northern Farmer

This is one of those Praise the Lord evenings on the farm! Spring work can be a crush, in fact it almost always is, but things worked out this week just perfect right to the very minute! Was working the fields all week, planting oats, brome grass and orchard grass all together. Then when that’s done we come with a different seeder and plant the small seed hays like alfalfa and birdsfoots trefoil. We got the seeder for that at seven this morning from the neighbor and it was cloudy out with a good chance of rain. Scrambled with cattle chores and got going planting. I never figured we’d get done with the way the clouds looked today plus the off and on drizzle, but it held till the last round in the very latest part of the afternoon. When I was putting the wheels back on the planter to be transported home I got soaking wet and was just happier than a wet duck! Finished up some yard chores, fired up the outdoor wood furnace and headed for the house where it’s nice and dry.

Now to most folks I know this doesn’t sound like much but I tell you when you work all week on all them fields and give it all you got this is worthy of a big praise! Because if you read closely we seed the same field two times with different seeders. Now if we were to get an extended wet spell with one seeding already done and that crop came up while we were waiting to get back out and seed the second time we’d have a mess. Thus the reason for happiness here. In reality this was text book perfect, just a little nerve racking. Ah the joys of farm life, eh!

So now with all that done I figure we’d better get the brooder cleaned out tomorrow cause a hundred and fifty chicks are coming Monday morning and I’m not exactly in the mood to be cleaning the brooder out on Sunday. I don’t mind chores and necessary work on Sundays but there are times a fella got to draw the line on this stuff. Besides a person has to have a few hours of rest after the first phase of planting got done. I can talk like this, you know, using the word rest because it’s raining as I type. Trust me, the word rest wouldn’t be used very much here if the sun was shining! Also tomorrow I’d better get out there and tag the new born calves and match their numbers up with their mamma’s or I’ll have mass confusion in a couple weeks when I try and sort them. This ain’t no little herd where every critter has a name and all that. Although sometimes they do get names, like one calf this morning that got stuck in the quicksand pit by a main gate. Had to rope it by the neck and pull hard. Then the little rascal lets out a bawling like this was the end of the line. And our angus cow herd is highly sensitive to that. They all come a running with one thought between their ears and that’s to kill whoever or whatever is making that calf bawl…., you know…me. So there I am in knee high rubbers, half stuck myself with around a hundred cows wanting to send me to the Promised Land a bit early by the way I figure it. I’m judging their estimated time of arrival as I keep pulling the calf and my stuck boot and figure how I’m going to scramble up the corral planks and all that. Now I think I was writing about calf names and a few select cow names and even a name or two I called myself at that moment. I think I’ll leave it at that. But Glory Be I’m still here tonight to write about it all. The joys of country living, that peaceful existence where everything is in perfect harmony! Yup!

I don’t think I’ll get into any subject at all tonight cause what the heck, I could’a been dead or at least in the hospital laying there all busted up waiting to see how many folks come and visit me. At least that calf is safe and not dead so I hope I get a payback someday on saving that little critter’s life, even if it was against his or her will. I didn’t take any time to look. This is a night of sitting in the house, nice and dry, dreaming of newly planted seeds getting their first drink so nice and soon. I’d better finish up here and get some reading done in a book, more than likely the Good Book. This computer makes my eyes sore in a very short time. I don’t think I’d survive any job where I had to stare at one for more than fifteen or twenty minutes. But it’s a blessing really, not having the ability to stay on the computer very long. Even writing this I don’t look at the screen or I’d never finish. Type it on Window’s Word and when I’m near done I look up and everything is red as in mistakes! Don’t ever think I can spell this good! At least the spell checker gives me multiple choices on all my mistakes. Then I just guess what looks good to me.

That’s about it for fun and adventures around here. Ain’t complaining, just praising!

This entry was posted on Friday, May 4th, 2007 at 8:44 pm and is filed under Northern Farmer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.