The First Calf of the Season
March 4th, 2008 by Northern FarmerThings are plodding along around here and winter doesn’t seem to want to loosen its grip yet. I was just checking the forecast and there’s sub zero in the forecast for a few days this week yet, yuck! But someday spring will come and this will be one glad farmer when it does. One would think that with the huge workload that faces a farmer in spring a person would be a little shy about its coming but that’s not the way it is at all. I can’t wait to get out there and get working. Plus temperatures that don’t down right kill you aren’t all that hard to take when the workload comes on strong.
I’ll make this one short tonight, busy with other things you know. Plus the pay I receive from the blog ain’t really all that great. Have yet to see my first cent but that’s what makes it so much like farming! Any multi billionaires out there wondering what to do with some of that interest money, well just send it over this way to the farmer’s relief fund. There’s a few of us that would know how to split it up good that read this blog! In reality though things are going OK, first calf was born today about five weeks early, which has happened before, and it always catches me off guard. But calf and calf’s mama are doing fine in a pen all alone and bedded down. I tell you, even bedding is so short here I went up in the old dairy barn and was gathering bedding from who knows what generation and hauled it down to the calving pen a hundred yards away so the little bull calf would be nice and comfy. An early calf is nothing out of the normal, but I figure the rest might hold off for a month or more before those early calve start popping out. They’re due to start calving officially after April 15th.
Tomorrow night’s church as it is every Wednesday evening so we’ll be heading over that way as always. I tell you, I don’t know why it is but I seem to enjoy Wednesday evening services better than Sunday services. I mean Sunday is fine and all, but there’s something about being at a little country church in the middle of the week worshiping our Lord that I always love. Breaks up the week a little or something and recharges a person when its sometimes needed. In fact that would be a long haul for me just going to church on Sundays, it’d be a long, long week. But that’s just me I guess.
So I’d better get myself going with all the things that I’ve got to do around here tonight.
March 4th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Tom,
I’m sending you your first cent from blog. You should recieve it by the end of the week. No need to thank me. I’m just a nice guy.
March 4th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Hey Don,
And besides, some would accuse me of being a money grubber if you sent me a cent!! Can’t have that now can we??!!
Keep it and let it grow! Besides if I made a cent off of this blog I’d ruin my perfect record of poverty that I’m so proud of around here
Thanks for the noble thought though
March 4th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
I just can’t wait till spring either Tom. We are getting ready to plant the garden and build fence and barns. I also am in the process of building a new woodshed. I am going to farm full force. I think everyone here is as excited as I am about it. I also wanted you to know that the blog don’t make you any money, but it makes you alot of friends and a bunch of respect and admiration; especially from me.
March 5th, 2008 at 6:30 am
Morning Darrell,
Well, spring still ain’t sprung around here, snowed a tad bit last night and I suppose now it’ll get cold again, probably blow some snow around for good measure too. I suppose I can get the chores done today and barring any wrecks in the cow herd I’ll get myself inside and grind a hundred pounds of pork for sausage that we’ll stuff and smoke on Thursday. Good stuff if I must say so myself! Plus I’d better chop up some maple wood today for the sausage smoking tomorrow, almost forgot
Sounds like your gonna hit er full force this coming year, eh! Sounds great! Nothing quite like it either! I thank you for your kind words, I must be getting so sick of this long lean winter that some complaining is sneaking through here which I’ll try not to do very often. Wears a guy down a little bit as time keeps plodding on. Its folks like you that keep this old blog going, because it sure ain’t me! Here’s to you and yours this year, may God’s Blessings be upon you!
March 5th, 2008 at 11:10 am
I want Spring to hurry up and get here!
I bet it is great at you little church. Reminds me the church I was saved in.
March 5th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Hi Lori!
I figure spring might start getting a little more bold and try and make an appearance pretty soon, but first we gotta get through another bout of sub zero here for a few days again.
I tell you, our little church is something else! I’ll be heading there pretty soon tonight and really look forward to it! There’s just something about a small church that’s on fire for Christ! Good old power preaching, no nonsense Bible preaching. Where God is God and Heaven is Heaven and hell is hell! And get em “well saved”! Yup, there’s nothing quite like it!
March 5th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Tom,
Okay I’ll hang on to the one cent. It can be a down payment on a farm for me.
March 5th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
We are already starting to see new calves out in the pastures with their mothers, down here in the Ozarks. There ain’t nothin prettier than Holstein cows and their calves on rich green pasture. I have always sayed that if happiness had a color it would be spring green. Another 3 weeks or so, and everything around here will start to green up. Spring gets an earlier start down here at these latitudes. I’ve driven by feedlots out west several times, and if there is anything sadder than cows standing in smelly, or dusty feedlots pens, up to their knees in manure, I don’t know what it is. Cows want a nice green pasture, with a big shade tree, and a nice pond to drink and cool off in. So bring on those bawling calves! We used to go to gospel meeting during the week, all the time, when I was growing up. Boy, what singing! Folks singing like they meant it. I could of swore there were angels sitting up in the church rafters, just come down to listen. Real songs, not these modern songs that were made to be sung at Kumbaya Camp by two girls with a guitar. Songs sung by generations of faithful
saints in small churches, for generations.
March 6th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Mark,
Calf is doing good on some nice fluffy straw with his mama watching over him. It’ll be a while till we have those nice pasture scenes around these parts. Winter is hanging in here. But things keep on keeping on!
Those mid week meetings are by far my favorite. And last December and one Wednesday evening in January we had us special meetings that a person will always remember! Special traveling preachers, the old songs about the Cross, about the Blood! I tell you, if more churches would do that again and preach what should be preached there’d be a heck of allot of less problems around today. Preach the truth, not that watered down garbage that tickles the ears nowadays! And when that truth is preached it doesn’t leave a person all that easy. We need this again, now, not sometime later. Durn, I’d better watch myself cause I could get going on this and I don’t have time at the moment. Just got done making all that homemade ring sausage today. The smoking went perfect and guess what’s for supper in a little bit?? I’m getting hungry!
March 6th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Don,
I like staying in the below zero bracket!
Yup, gotta start somewhere, eh! Besides, if you’da sent that one cent it might have moved me up into a different tax bracket and we wouldn’t want that would we