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.