My "Day Off" from the group home

I had off from the group home today! Yea! Problem is that I don't really get a day off. Here is a run down of my day today.

First, the day started with milking. The thing that was different was today was testing day. Once a month we have a woman come out to our farm. She milks with us and collects samples. She takes them back to a lab were they test the white blood cells and other things. This also tells us how much each cow is giving for milk.

Next, while we were still milking, the plumber showed up to fix our waterer for the cows. He got everything working properly again!

Then we had this guy show up. He finished off our cow lane. Now the cows should come into the barn cleaner! And he cleared of our bed pack so we have a fresh start for the winter! Another yea :)

Then, our last two calfs of the year got shipped off to market. Its bitter sweet. On one hand, it's sad to see them go because I like watching them grow. On the other hand, now I don't have to feed any till sometime at the end of February. That will be a nice break.

Finally we get to eat...and take a 15 min. nap.

After we woke up, we drove about 45 min. to the woods where Noel goes hunting. An FYI, he didn't get anything this year :( We spent about 2 hours out there, taking down 5 hunting stands. Noels dad came with. We went back to his dad's house and helped him throw some wood down into his basement.

We got a pizza to go and ate it on the drive back to our house. We got back, unloaded the chopper box full of feed, got our feed mix going in the mixer, and fed the cows. We got cows milking by 7pm. Not too bad for all the stuff we did. We were almost done and Noel left me to finish up while he mixed another load of feed. He fed that out and I cleaned up the barn. We got in the house a little after 9pm! Wow, that has to be some kind of record for us. What a productive day. It felt really good to go out to the hunting land, get the cow lane done, and the bed pack cleared away. I wish every day could be like this.

This is how a typical "day off" is for me. And some people wonder why my house is not always clean, I have dirty dishes in my sink, and my yard doesn't look like it belongs in a post card. Tomorrow I head back to work at the group home.

This week

We have big plans for this week, before the frost sets in too deep. Stay tuned for all the details!

A Rough Night

Last night was one of those nights that was not fun. We had all intentions of pounding posts to fix our wind block for the cows. Noel spent all morning getting the pounder hooked up to the tractor. When I got home we loaded up some posts on the front of the tractor and headed out to the field. All was going fine, but then...the pounder fell off the tractor! We spent two hours messing with that. We only got one post partially in. I twisted my ankle while getting out of the tractor. The cows got milked late. And now we have to deal with the post pounder.
Even with all of that happening, I was still in an ok mood. I have been thinking about our adoption and having a fund raiser for it. I posted my thoughts on facebook and got a good response from people. Now I just need to decide which one and when. All has not been lost, and I look forward to the future!

Every cloud has a silver lining, just like the background picture of this blog, that I took one day after a rain storm!

52 and 11-0

These two calves, that were born on Sunday, are why I am tthankful for the number 52. We are now milking 52 cows! These two babies came out of the last two heifers that we were expecting to calf before the end of the year. We try to have all of our calves in the spring, so they are big and strong before going into the harsh Wisconsin winter. These two will actually not stay on our farm. They will be going to market where someone else with a calf barn will buy them and raise them for the winter. It has been so exciting to see the calves, that we have raised from babies, have their own babies. We are starting to grow our herd from within it's self!

11-0 is the other number I am thankful for. The Packers, my favorite team, won today! This is their wins vs losses for the season!

On Thanksgiving I would also like to say that I am thankful for my husband, friends, my family and co-workers (that all can drive me crazy at times, but teach me so much). The fact that I am working, and able to work. All of my animals that make me smile. All of the ffamily and friends that have gone before me to meet our Lord. I'm thankful for all of the good food that he has provided for me. Oh yea, and to the first person to follow and comment on my blog! All of these things make me who I am and I wouldn't change a thing. Thank you

Buddy

This Buddy. He is our Australian Shepherd. He is our herding dog. It's all he has ever really been interested in. With all of this time off lately Buddy has not had a chance to case (herd) the cows. Tonight was the first time. He was so excited. The second picture is him running back to me after I had to yell at him for making the cows run to fast. Buddy loves to run. Every time I let him out to go to the bathroom he looked at me as if to say "Mom, are we going to chase cows? When are we going to chase cows? Not now. Ok. How about now?" Poor Buddy, I think he is glad to be getting back to normal. To tell the truth, so am I.

The Past

I have heard stories of farmers past. How they milked each cow by hand, carried the milk buckets and poured them into a bigger bucket, how they raised animals for the meat and used every part of that animal, and all the work it took just to be a farmer.

Some people say that farmers now have it made. They have pipe that carries the milk to the bulk tank. They take animals in some where to get butchered, and they have REALLY big tractors to do the field work. I would have to agree that farming has changed, A LOT. But still is the same in some ways.

For Noel and I, we still seem to work hard. We still worry about the weather. We are always watching the milk and grain prices. We still milk our cows every 12 hours. We still feed calves. We have one tractor and lots of pitch forks. We do a lot of manual labor, compared to the bigger farms around us.

Our dream is to get bigger and bring me home, out of the group home. If all goes well, I will be home by 2013. For now, we talk to people and find out how to improve, we share stories, and keep praying.

Today I am thankful for...

Noel, my husband of 8+ years. I knew this day would come. I woke up this morning, to my alarm clock (boo), and realized that I had to let the dog out and load the wood furnace before going to work at the group home. Because Noel doesn't have to leave the yard, this is usually his job. It wasn't sooo bad, it just took time out of my usual me time in the morning. Noel tells me all the time that I am like a florescent light bulb in the cold. Sometimes I flicker a little until I warm up. Now this does not mean I was cold, it just takes awhile for my brain to warm up in the morning.

On my way home this afternoon it also hit me that this is my last night off. Tomorrow is when Noel will be returning from hunting and we only have our helpers in the morning. This means full steam ahead tomorrow night. My vacation is over. Life will return to it's normal amount of crazy. Wish me luck.

I can't seem to say it enough... I have loved this little vacation from the farm and the group home. I also can't wait to see Noel again (after he showers of course). :)

Time off during hunting season

I am so grateful for this time off. I have gotten to hang out with some girl friends, clean my house (in preparation for the social worker coming over soon), watch movies I want to watch, and just relax. Noel came home for a shower on SSunday. It was nice to see him. They said that they haven't seen any deer but they did see 4 bear!!! I'm guessing that's why they haven't seen any deer.

On a side note, it has been really strange. Being at home, seeing the help come and go, and knowing that the cows are getting milked while I am inside. I almost feel guilty. I do find it interesting that it takes 3-4 people to do the same work that just Noel and I do. Yes it would be nice to have another person to help Noel while I am working at the group home but, our farm is not cash flowing that well yet. Hopefully within the year it will be though. I guess for now, I will put aside my guilt and watch a movie with one of my best friends. I can't wait. I am truly blessed to have this time off.

Kindness

As a farmer, I pray a lot to our God. Today I was so inspired at church that I almost got tears in my eyes.

This was taken from our book and pretty much sums up the entire mass:

[Sometimes we loose our way and become stressed, injured, or afraid. However we can release all our worries because we have a mighty shepherd. Our Lord assures this in the first reading (Ezekiel 34:11-12, 15-17), "The lost I will seek out, the strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal." Do you want God to seek, find, and heal you today? If so, proclaim the words of today's psalm (Psalm 23:1-2, 2-3, 5-6): "The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want." When I allow God to guide me, I will find green pastures and safe waters, and "only the goodness and kindness follow me all the days of my life." In the second reading (Corinthians 15:20-26, 28), Paul assures us that our Good Shepherd guides us fearlessly, even through death: "In Christ shall all be brought to life." In the Gospel, Jesus calls himself a shepherd, promising to save everyone who helped him when he was hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, ill, or in prison. he explains, "Whatever you did for one of the least brothers of mine, you did for me." So we are all shepherds of each other.
Because the Good Shepherd seeks, finds, and heals you, how can you in turn help another person today?]

Wow, this makes me think. We all need to be kind to one another and help each other whenever possible!
We have been blessed with so many great and helping people. Father also added that it is easy to go to a shelter and feed the poor. The hard part is loving, caring and helping those who annoy, anger, or frustrate you. It is in that moment when we need to show more kindness. I also, besides being a farmer, work at a group home for mentally challenged adults. This makes me feel better about what I do, but also makes me realize that I need to do better, and be kinder to the other people in my life. My co-workers, my husband, my parents and family, and to my friends. I don't always have as much time to show them kindness by helping them with a project around the house or cooking a meal for them, but I do have the time to listen and be understanding when I am with them. Sometimes that may be more important anyway.

Hunting Season

Noel has been an avid gun deer season hunter for as long as I can remember. His Grandpa owns some land about 45 min. away from us. He loves going out there. It is so peaceful. It has no electricity or running water, but you don't really mind it. When you are surrounded by so much peace and beauty it is hard to care about inconveniences.

Every year that we just had beef it was not a problem to go. Beef are easy to take care of. He made sure that they all had hay and I filled their water tanks. Our first year as dairy farmers he only did the bare necessities. He went out in between chores. The second year, he really wanted to go and stay over night there. We couldn't really afford to pay someone to milk the cows for us. That's when I decided, against my better judgment, to learn how to milk. Even now that is hard for me to say, because I really, really, really did not want to milk cows. They are big and can kick you. Not my idea of a good time. I had several farm girls tell that once I start it will forever be my job.

That first milking I was so nervous. It seemed to take me 2 times longer to milk then it took Noel. Well I started to get a rhythm, started to learn the cows, started to learn what a full vs empty utter felt like, and started to do it by myself. It was a hard pill to swallow. When things went wrong i got mad. I yelled. I have learned that the cows don't like it when you yell. It scares them. One of the hardest things, for me, to learn is how to stay calm when things aren't working out. I have gotten better but I am still working on it. Now my main job, one year later, is milking the cows. I can't say I didn't see that coming.

This year is the 3rd year we have been milking cows during hunting season. I have been milking for just over a year! Crazy to think of the things in my life that I never thought I would do. Turns out I'm good at it too. The cows have white blood cells, like us, and when they are fighting of sickness their white blood cells increase. this is called their somatic cell count, and we get paid more if it is low. This means we have healthy cows. The cell count is the lowest its been sence I took over milking! I am very proud of myself for being able to do this.

In this 3rd year, we have worked really hard to get the farm breaking even and cash flowing. This year we could afford to pay someone to milk for us! I am loving the time off. I hardly know what to do with myself and our dog, buddy, seems really confused too. he keeps looking at me like he wants to go out it the field to get the cows. When I don't go he just sits next to me, looking at me. cute really.

I have been able to go our with friends, sit for hours on the couch, and get some cleaning done too. What a blessing!

Children

As I mentioned in an earlier post, there has been a lot of beginnings for me. When we got married I knew that I wanted children but I wanted to wait about one year. After that we started trying to have kids. After 6 years of things not working as we planned, we decided to adopt. This is that journey.

We had really wanted to have our own children so we went through fertility treatments. After months of pills, one month of shots, a lot of tests, a lot of money for the shots, and only a 3% success rate...all of that failed. We still didn't have a child. The nurse to me, when it was all said and done, "next month we'll do something different." I said "Next month!? There will not be a next month! Not unless you make it cheaper or can increase the odds." And that was that. We knew we wanted children and that more treatments were not the way we were going to get the family we have always wanted. So we looked into adoption.

We had A LOT to think about. International or domestic, white or a different race, what agency, who can we trust to not just take our money and run, how do we find someone who is pregnant that wants to let us parent their child? So many questions. It was VERY overwhelming. We put it off and put it off. Just didn't know were to start.

We knew one couple that had adopted. We met with them one day at their home and asked them all kinds of questions. They said they had gone through Lutheran Social Services. That was it, we were going to go through them too. Turns out LSS had a office about 30 min. from our house.

We met with the social worker, went to a seminar, and decided that this was definitely who were going to deal with. They help with all kinds of adoptions. They said that if we wanted to adopt within the USA, we would have to put in our application and could go into the program to adopt a different race right away. If we wanted a Caucasian baby we would be entered into a lottery, where we might be picked. They turn all the applications for that program upside down and pick some. WE GOT PICKED! What a blessing! We were now in the running for a Caucasian baby!

We went though parenting classes. Those were hard. There was a lot of reading, a lot of homework, we had to drive to their office and sit there for 8 hours a day. Noel never liked school and had a hard time just sitting there. We trudged through. After the classes were done we both thought that all high school kids should go through them and carry one of those electronic babies around for a week. High schoolers would probably never have kids. The classes really make you think about how good of a parent you would be. Noel and I, even after 7 years of a pretty strong and loving marriage,were questioning if we would be good parents!
We had our home study done. this is were the social worker comes into your home and makes sure that it suitable for a child. We passed that but had to make some improvements, then she would be back.
That is were we sit. I will be talking to our social worker on Monday to set a date for her to come back.

Some of our Texas Longhorns

 We have fallen in love with this breed. They are so calm. All of these cattle are girls. We love everything about them. The meat is leaner than anything else you can buy. They can live off of any kind off feed. They seem to wait till we are gone to have their babies, and they never need help. I love the spring time when all the babies are arrriving. They are so fun to watch. Our herd is small, compaired to some, but we don't have them to make alot of money off of them. We do sell them to other people that are interested in breeding. We also sell quarters to people that like the meat. It has taken a few years but,we finally gota web site up and going. Check it out at http://www.apllonghorns.com/ or follow us on Facebook at American Pride Livestock.

The Beginning...

Well it seems like there have been so many beginnings for me. Noel and I got married when we were 23 and 24 years old. He trimmed horses and worked other jobs to help pay the bills. I was in school for business and was starting a new job at a group home for mentally handicapped adults. We thought we could breed, raise, and train horses for an income. We had no idea that everyone else in our area was doing the same thing. So, we thought we could raise beef. We bought some Angus calf's. we quickly learned that we didn't have enough land, and sold all of the beef. Noel has always liked the look of the Texas Longhorn. We got in contact with the Wisconsin Longhorn Association (GNTLA), and bought a few cows and one bull from one of the members. In the winters, horse trimming would slow way down and Noel would go and work for a local dairy farmer for $8/hour. One day he asked me what i thought about joining the crowd, and becoming a dairy farmer. "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." After all we do live in the dairy state. He said, to the city girl that has never been on a farm, "it's going to be a lot of work." I simply said "OK". I had no idea what he was REALLY talking about.

We planned for about two years. Talking to all the government Ag people we could. FSA, USDA, UW extension and research, other farmers, and many other people. Neither one of us grew up on a farm. We had no one "giving" us a farm. We knew we wanted to get most of the cows feed from grass by rotationally grazing them. We needed LOTS of help. We went to other farms pasture walks, to learn how they did things.

Finally we started construction on the existing poll shed we had bought with the house. We poured concrete, we took apart 2 other barns milking systems to make our one, we bought a tractor and some cows. On November 3, 2008 we started milking our cows.

(I noticed that the date on the pictures has the wrong year. Opps)



Construction



Construction

 



Noel milking our first cow

                       

Our first milk going into the bulk tank