Harvest and Halloween

There is a decided lack of pumpkin spice lattes or harvest craft beers at our house. Our sparse fall decorations include the sum of two jack o' lanterns, but neither have been cut and gutted or even given magic marker eyes, nose, and mouth. Are they even jack o' lanterns at this point? More like jacks on their way to execution, perhaps.

Harvesting is still taking place on the farm. Corn silage, that is. Two weeks of heavy and then on off rain got us behind for waiting on muddy fields to dry. A nice crop, albeit a little drier than we'd like, is filling the silos. 

My munchkins are literally dying for next week to arrive and are making last minute costume decisions. Except for the youngest, who decided months ago to be a skeleton. 

The cows are already in the Halloween spirit. I just hope they don't expect candy.

If You Give A Dairy Farmer Some Ice Cream....

If you give a dairy farmer some ice cream...

He'll probably think about milking cows.

And if he thinks about milking cows then he'll probably think about feeding cows.

If he thinks about feeding cows then he'll probably think about harvesting.

Harvesting makes him think about tractors.

When he's riding his tractor he might see his calves. 

That will remind him it is time to feed again.

Feeding baby calves will probably remind him of seeing them being born.

Thinking about cows and baby calves will remind him 

it is time run the cows up and milk again.

And of course, if a dairy farmer thinks about milking he just might think about 

milk being turned into ice cream again.

...And The Cows Were Oblivious

Life can be frustrating sometimes.  Things were running smoothly while we were chopping corn. Then the chain that runs the part of the chopper that blows the silage into the wagon came off.  Instead of coming in and working on it at the shop I thought we should fix in the field.  That didn't work.  

We then brought it in and realized that we needed new sprockets, which are the wheels the chain runs on.  When they finally came in at the parts store we still couldn't get the chain to run.  When we turned it by hand
the chain kept rolling right off.  After tweaking, coaxing, and pleading didn't work we tried another new chain.  A-ha!  That was the final piece of the puzzle and we were able to start chopping again.

Did our "girls" notice the bump in our rode to harvest this week?  No, I think it is safe to say the cows were oblivious.

Sky Blue Sky

After a very dreary and soggy week, the sun came out and dried everything up.  The rain did a lot of good and the grass is finally growing again much to the calves delight.  

Because of the dry weather we had begun to feed more hay to our cows and calves in the fields.  Thanks to
the abundant rain we can save more of the hay for this winter.









The good news is we're back to chopping.  We are over half finished with our corn and still have some sudan sorghum to go after that.  More silage for me to blow up the silos!