My Personal Trainers

This morning I spoke to a friend about the possibility of his oldest son coming to work here on the farm for the summer.  (Ya'll know who you are!) When I asked what the young man's plans were for the summer, his dad told me that he was planning on working out with a personal trainer five days a week, all summer.  The kid is very good at athletics, but wants get into better shape.  They do live in Texas after all and football is everything! 

I smiled at the thought of a personal trainer.... hehe.  "Welllll", I said. "I think he'd get just as fit working his butt off on a ranch! You should see how ripped I'm getting!" 

This is actually a very true story.  Every single day, twice a day, I am getting a one hour aerobic workout.  At each feeding of the calves I am running around the barn and the corral.  Chasing them from their pen to the feeding room.  Chasing them out the door into the corral.  Chasing them back into the barn and into their pen.  Hustling to switch the bottles out when they empty and run in a new batch of calves.  (Feeding three to four at a time.) Having to keep my balance against getting mauled and butted constantly.  It is insane!  I just keep telling myself, in 60 days when they are weaned, I will be very glad to have ten healthy steers! But for now, they are my personal trainers! At the end of each feeding I am sweating like a pig.

This is "Batman".  He and his brothers are getting me into shape!

The calves are only a small part of my fitness regime.  Add in the daily raking and shoveling that is just part of farm life.  Walking out to bring in the alpacas every night to keep them safe from the dang coyotes.   Add in trying to keep both my horses ridden regularly, especially Fancy who needs a lot more saddle time..... Plus hoeing and planting the massive garden and dragging hoses all over.  And rock picking.... Oh, I can't forget hauling hay a couple of times per week.  Loading and unloading 80 pound bales onto a pickup to unload and re-stack around the farm.  After the garden is in I will be starting on the many fences that need to be built around here.

All this is why my "old" jeans are starting to fit again.  I am now also a proud bearer of the official "Farmer Tan".  So, by the end of summer I am confident I will be looking a whole lot like I did before I had the twins.  And I will have all of my "personal trainers" to thank!



 



Bye for now,

B



Yesterday, I Lost My Mind

This week was sure a busy one.  On Monday my big boy and I drove south to Wilsall, Montana to pick up my Fancy mare from the trainer.  It's a three hour drive there.  Once there, I took a lesson from Jaydee on how to use the new skills Miss Fancy has acquired.  Then we made the trip back and stopped to play a little on the banks of Belt Creek.  A treat for my big boy for being such a good traveling buddy.

On Tuesday I drove north to cousin Joellyn's house for some creative brainstorming.  She is helping us establish our logo and image for the farm.  So stay tuned!  Once we settle on a logo, I will debut it here! 

Wednesday mom and I gardened our hearts out.  We set up irrigation lines, planted lettuce, onions and potatoes and corn.  And I don't mean just a few!  Some thing like 100 potatoes, 200 onions, 4 long rows of lettuce and lots and lots of corn. Mom also got some tomato plants set out in their raised beds and I planted flowers out front.  The rugrats took a good  nap that day and we were able to get so much done!

Thursday was a little less hectic.  We did plant some more seed and put out more irrigation line in anticipation of the rains that were for casted.  It also showered a bit here and there and kept us cool, which was NICE.

Yesterday I lost my mind.....

I drove to the Montana, Wyoming border and picked up ten little angels.  There was an ad on Craigslist for newborn Holstein bull calves at a very good price.  So my traveling buddy and I set off again and made a 12 hour round trip.  They traveled great and ate an awesome supper when we got home.  But boy, it was a rodeo! We have to get our system worked out!  They will require constant care and bottle feeding twice daily, for two months.  But it is a very inexpensive way to get started on growing some awesome, natural, grass fed beef.  Yup, we're gonna eat them.  And that might seem harsh.  But there is no better way to insure that our beef is raised in the most ethical, healthy way.  No routine antibiotics, no cramped, disgusting feed lot conditions.  Just happy steers, eating grass.

This afternoon, the feed room got it's long over due cleaning.  There was so much moldy, nasty hay, straw and grain in that place!  Not to mention mice! Yuck! So after a couple of hours of pitching, raking and hosing it out, it's fit for feed again.  I'm germ phobic and/or smart enough, that I decided to wear a mask the whole time I was working in there.  No Hantavirus for me!! 

Well, I'm gonna go take a couple of Ibuprofen for my aches and pains and hit the hay! 

Thanks for reading!
B

A Farm Tour

Most of you, dear readers, won't get to actually visit my little piece of heaven.  So as I was walking around the place today, I saw some things I could share with you right here in this blog.  We have only been here about a month or so.  In that time we have been going a hundred miles an hour every day, all day long, to get things up and running the way we want them.  But!  I haven't forgotten how important it is to do the little things that make a farm feel like a home.  Little things here and there can make the difference between being happy to walk up the front steps, or not.





This is now what greets us on our front steps. I found this ancient hay bale picker upper thing (technical term!) down in the farm yard. I think it's neat behind the flowers!



T



The back deck has fresh chives, just waiting to be snipped into salads!

 

 



 

A place to sit and watch the kids play....

 

 

 

The lilac hedges around the farm are starting to bloom.... Can't you just smell them? These white ones are amazing!

 

 

 

 

This tired old bucket was laying down by the grain bins. I think it's happier with it's new job!

 

 

 

I'll leave you with this quick shot of the "girls".  I guess there is always gold at the end of a rainbow!

 

 

It was fun sharing a few special little things with you.  Don't forget to take the time to make some things beautiful in your life. No matter how busy things are....

 

Bye for now,

B

Are Your Wheels Spinning?

 

Do you ever feel like your wheels are spinning? Like you don't ever really get enough done in a day?
With our recent farming endeavour there is now more to get done in a day than ever. Each day we tackle projects that have to get done ASAP. But lots of evenings I sit and think, what did I get done today? It's been such a blur!

Last night I made a friendly competition with a friend to see who gets more done in a day. Which prompted me to write down today's tasks so I could keep track and of course win our friendly bet. Then I added one more thing to my list and decided to BLOG today's projects. Oiy! I'm nuts I think....

 

Today was a major gardening day.

This is the little potting bench I set up to sort my seeds and organize my tools.

This is how things went.....

(Mom made us breakfast)
Got the kids dressed 
Fed the alpacas
Fed the chickens, changed water, gathered eggs.
Fed the horses
Seeded 20 acres of pasture with the 4-wheeler and a seeder, then ran out of seed.
Mowed part of the yard. (Mom did the rest.)
Made lunch for the Rugrats
Rototillered 6 raised garden beds with the small tiller
Took the tractor to town for an oil change
Planted 60 cabbage plants in the raised beds
Planted sunflowers, hollyhocks, green onions, lettuce and sweet peas
Made a casserole for dinner

Some of my little cabbages that I started in my garage.  Now they are much happier!

Some how I managed this list while having 1, 2 or 3 of my sons in tow.  Sometimes grandma had one, sometimes their dad had one, sometimes one was in school.  But right now, I have dinner in the oven and all three are here waiting for it to get done!

Two outta three, hanging out while momma gardens.

After dinner I will go haul some hay to the different areas of the farm where it's needed and doctor a horse that decided to kick through a 4 strand barbed wire fence.  Ugh.  Superficial wounds thank goodness.  Then I'll bathe the kids and put them in bed.  After they're in bed, mom will watch them and I will go put my alpacas in the corrals for the night and tuck in my chickens.  THEN I will get to sit on my porch with a cup of tea and enjoy the views and the perfect evening.  (After a nice hot shower.)  After that I'm sure I'll pass out in my bed until 6:30 am when it'll start all over again....

So then next time you feel like you don't get enough done in a day, take the time to write it all down.  It is very affirming!  Especially if you are like me, trying to be productive and be the best momma you can be! We really are doing more than we think!

Bye for now,
B

The Rest of the Story....

Today the wind is howling, as it is known to do out here on the prairie.  We are kind of blessed in Geraldine.  The wind doesn't blow here as much as it does just over the mountains in Great Falls. It blows quite a bit more in the spring and I like to think it's trying to blow in some better weather.

Last Saturday I planned to take my big boy on a trip to go pick up five more alpacas.  Then I got the weather report on Friday morning and it said some big ol' wind was headed our way by 6:00 am Saturday.  Not wanting to be caught pulling a good sized horse trailer in a wind storm, I decided to head out on Friday afternoon.  We beat the wind and drove as far as Sheridan, Wyoming before finding a hotel.  With a pool....had to have a pool for the rugrat.  It's probably the only reason he agreed to go along with his momma on a crazy, long trip to get alpacas.  We were up early and talked the hotel clerk into letting my boy swim a whole 3 hours before the pool was supposed to open.  After swimming we scarfed a continental breakfast and hit the road. 

The alpacas we were after had been on Craigslist for an unbelievably low price.  The gal said she had to sell them because they were moving and couldn't take them with them.  She had four girls and one boy.  Two of the girls are expecting with and early June due date.  I saw pictures and they all looked pretty good.

Well, the pictures must've been taken a while ago.  When we got there we found some very skinny alpacas.  The gal also had a bunch of very skinny horses.  Youngsters with every rib showing.  Grrrrr!!  A couple of the alpacas look "ok" but even with all their fuzz you can tell they need to gain.  One of them in particular looks awfully skinny and sad.  You can see her poor little spine and hip bones.  You aren't supposed to see those on an alpaca!!!  I looked around and didn't see any hay or feed in sight.  Just a big ol' patch of dirt.  I'm thinking that poor gal must've ran out of money to feed her critters.  But when that happens it's our responsibility to find new homes for the critters before anybody goes hungry! Ok I'll get off my soap box now....

This skinny girl is named Kate.

As soon as we got the poor things loaded, we hustled back up to Casper.  I know where the feed store is there and we HAD to get them some grub! I was worried about them making the long trip without any feed.  We found some awesome Timothy hay and put the whole bale in the trailer with them.  They dove in and started eating frantically, before I could even cut the strings.

We drove like crazy so we could get them home as quickly as possible.  The original plan was to overnight again in Sheridan.  But instead we pushed through.  We rolled in at 3:30 am on Sunday.  You should have see the joy in those little alpacas when we unloaded them into a nice, green paddock with all the hay they could eat!  They jumped out of the trailer and immediately rolled in the grass and took nice long drinks.  It was as if they were saying, "We don't know where in the heck we are, but man this is nice!"

From the left we have Zoe, Topper, Kate, Sadie and Lina. 

 

One of the best parts of this little alpaca adventure is how much my boy likes them.  I also love that my little rugrats can be out there in the pens with me and I don't have to worry.  They really are very gentle creatures and that is so nice!  I love my horses, but my little ones can't just hang out in the corrals while I'm feeding my horses. Alpacas and kids go together!

Bye for now,
B

Weekend Insanity

Last Friday was the craziest day that I can remember having!  Prairie Momma Trish was branding that morning and invited me to come along to "help" and take pictures.  I did find myself being useful a few times, but spent most of my time behind the lens. I was taking in all the beauty that one only sees at a branding.  The weather was perfect, clear, deep blue skies, light breeze, warm but not too warm.  What I enjoyed the most was the camaraderie of life long friends and family all working together to make a tough, necessary job as enjoyable as possible.  It's always the very highest of  honors to be invited to help at a branding.  It means you've proved you're worth your salt and won't be a cog in the wheel.

A collection of friends, neighbors and family.

I was most in awe of  "Aunt Jo".  A woman of this prairie who has probably spent the equivalent of my lifetime on the back of a horse.  Weathered by many Montana years but still an formidable presence in the sorting pen....

Her horse is the result of breeding her own mounts for seven generations. "A little Appaloosey, a bit of Morgan, Thoroughbred and some Quarter Horse that goes back to Poco Bueno."

Unfortunately, I had to miss the branding dinner.  There is always a feast after branding is done.  I'm sure I don't even wanna know how yummy it was.  But I had to go meet up with a nice fella who was leasing a piece of oil field equipment from us.  I got things all squared away and sent him on his way back to North Dakota.

When my big boy came home from school we jumped in the truck and headed out of town on a rescue mission!  All the way to Cheyenne, Wyoming! Then we had to drive all the way home! I can't wait to tell you about it!  Tomorrow.... It's been a long weekend....

But just for kicks, here are some more images from Friday morning....

The Paint in this shot is actually my new little mare, named Dice.  Thanks to Miss Sherry for trusting me to give her a new home.

This is the gear on one of the horses that was used to gather the cows that morning.

Bye for now,
B

Adventures in Animal Husbandry

Last Saturday was a bugger of a day.  It was supposed to be a great day!  We were finally moving out to the farmhouse.  We still have the house in town that is going to be re purposed into a (hopefully) profitable endeavour.  (More on that later.)  So we didn't have all that much to move when it came down to it.  Bedrooms, kitchen stuff and of course the dining table that my step-mom's father made back in 1975. It was handed down to me about 13 years ago and it is one of my only earthly possessions that I am way to attached to. 

And then it rained.... and snowed a bit.... and threw in some sleet.  Just for fun.  Why does it always rain when you try to move?  But we ducked rain drops and got most things moved without getting them wet.  I'm thankful for the lovely friends and neighbors that took the time to help!



Banner the miracle alpaca.

And then we had a sick alpaca.  A very sick alpaca.  I noticed on Friday evening that he wasn't acting right at all.  He kept going to the poo pile and straining but nothing would happen.  Not a good sign!  He also didn't want to eat anything.  A really bad sign for an alpaca!  They love food as much as I do!  As soon as I got the little guy caught and checked his vitals I knew he was in real trouble.  He was dehydrated for sure.  Capillary refill was slow.  All he would do was strain to poo and then go lay down. 

So I had the neighbor girl come over and she held him still while I tortured the poor beast.  First by squirting syringes of warm water and olive oil down his throat.  I didn't have any mineral oil and figured some kind of oil had to help! He was too sick to fight much and took the liquid pretty well.  We got about 10 ounces down him.  After turning him loose and encouraging him to walk around for a bit, we caught him up and the torture got worse.  I can now say I have given an alpaca and enema.  Several of them actually!  The enemas did seem to help things move along somewhat.  So after an hour or so of torture, we turned him loose to live or die.  I had a feeling he had sand colic and I wasn't feeling very optimistic.  Actually I was down right sad.  I thought I was going to lose my first alpaca.

The next morning before we got busy moving things I rushed over to doctor the poor guy.   When my big boy and I got to the barn, I warned him to brace himself for the worst.  We walked into the corral to find Banner laying flat, not moving, teeth showing, eyes still and open.  Looking pretty darn dead.  I crept over to find he was still breathing.  I nudged him and he got to his feet but he looked bad.  We and repeated the water and oil down the throat procedure and got him to take about 16 ounces.  His breath was horrible!  With his breath smelling like necrotic tissue I just knew he had ruptured an intestine.  I just knew I was going to have to shoot Banner.  But instead I doctored and prayed and prayed some more.  If he got to looking like he was in constant pain I was going to put him down. 

We left and went to haul our things to the farm.  A couple of hours later I checked on Banner and saw a very slight improvement.  He was standing up more.  A few hours after that I saw a miracle!  He was out in the pasture with his buddies and actually nibbled on some grass!  I couldn't believe it. By the end of the day I thought the bugger might actually live!

Banner and his buddy Huck.

The next morning we wasted no time getting out to do chores.  There was Banner alive and well and he was HUNGRY!! He acted like his only care in the world was food!  He happily dove into his alpaca chow and never looked back!  He is now my miracle alpaca. 

All is well that ends well.

Bye for now,
B