December has been CRAZY!

Wow, I can't believe its almost Christmas. This month has flown by. We have had a rough month. We have not had a bed time before midnight all month, and its not looking better till the new year comes. But we have gotten a lot done. Here are some pictures of what we have been up to.


Went to our Longhorn Associations winter meeting




Got alot of snow on the 10th. (most of it is gone now)



Not the best picture but, I got a new hat, that keeps me warm and makes me laugh.



Pounded posts for what seemed like 3 weeks




With the help of my dad and our farm helper, we pounded 33 of these 10ft tall posts





Put in enough feed bunk so ALL of our cows can eat at the same time




With more help from my dad and farm helper, we put up a winter wind block for the Longhorns and Heifers




The black thing on the left is our 12ft high wind block; on the right, 2 years worth of bed pack from our milk cows!




Got someone to haul out the bed pack (aka.. poop)




Every month we test our cows output and cell count. This is how we get the sample for those numbers.




Some of our Longhorns coming up to the barn for food and water.





This girl has grown alot of horn from when we got her!

 With all this extra stuff getting done, we are very tired but glad it all got done. Every year things seem to get a little better, but we are never ready for winter and frozen ground. We have been very lucky this year with the average temp in December being about 30 degrees and the ground not freezing. The regular chores have been averaging 4 hours a day to milk, 4 hours to run feed out of the silo we bought from another farmer, an hour to run that feed home and unload it, 2 hours a day to feed the cows, 15 min per bale to bed the cows (on average we have been doing 4 bails a day because the ground is soft), we have had some of our young stock get sick so we spend about 2 hours a day helping them, and we have young stock at another farmers place that we have to drive over to them to take care of, that takes about another hour. Wow, even just reading this makes me tired.

I didn't take pictures, but I also went up into the silo to help Noel chisel away frozen feed from the inside wall. That was a lot of work and realized that I love buying feed from a bag better. I can't believe that that is how ALL farmers stored their feed back in the day. Now farmers have seemed to get away from silos and put their feed in bags or in a concrete bunker, although some still use silos.

Even with all this I still found time to join the church choir and have been going to practices once a week. I also have been still working 40 hours a week at the group home. I can't wait till my next weekend off. I think we will be finding someone to milk the cows and we will be sleeping.

Now you may be asking, "Why would someone want to put themselves through that?" The awnser is simple and the main one for why we started farming...money. There is alot of money that flows though dairy farms and there is a lot of potential to make more. The big farms, that have been handed down through generations of family, will think nothing of spending $100,000 on one piece of machinery, and pay cash for it. They make enough to pull that kind of money out of their milk checks! They have a lot of costs too though. I am always amazed at the money that flows though our 52 milking farm. We spend more to feed our cows then we do to feed us. In 2012 we will finally be making money. In fact, we will be making more in one month on the farm then I will in an entire year at the group home! This is the main reason why we do what we do. Yes it is a lot of work, but no one ever got anywhere if they didn't work for it.

It has become about more than just money though. We both love taking care of things. We, most of the time, love working together. I have grown so much as a person and have learned to do things I never thought I would. I have seen and done things I never thought I would. We have actually been fortunate enough in 2011 to find some great helpers and been able to travel away from the farm without having to worry too much. We also have made enough money to allow us to pay for traveling. Most of our "vacations" have been going to Longhorn events, but we love doing that and mingling with those people. We have gone to Indiana, Virgina, Texas, and Oregon all in one year. There are many other reasons but this post is already pretty long.

With it being this close to Christmas I would like to wish everyone a very merry Christmas. I hope you are able to spend it with the people you care about the most and take a little time to remember the true reason for the season. Not the stress of a big meal, what to get everyone on your list, lights and other decorations being up or not, or cards getting out in time. It is about Jesus being born to save us. Let that resonate in your heart. Let it really sink in. Then you will know that we all really are truly blessed. Merry Christmas to you and yours.