Ok, first an apology to any and all who were looking for my how to build fence blogging I promised way back when snow was still covering the ground ! Life does have a way of moving way too quickly, and I confess, my spring and summer have moved pretty fast.
First the farm news. Lets see; we had a beautiful little heifer calf, Sprite, born in April. With much anticipation I looked forward to my second calf to be born in July. Unfortunately, the calf was found dead in the pasture, even though I had checked momma that very morning to see if she was close to calving. Within a 12 hour time span, she had calved, but apparently not quickly enough....thankfully the mother was OK, although I had the task of digging a hole back behind the fence and burying the little guy as momma wandered around, nose to the ground, calling for her baby that never took a breath...sad; I was pretty devastated as I pride myself in keeping close watch on my animals (at least twice a day) for goodness sake they are literally surrounding our house; out front, along side and out back. She happened to be on the side, with the firewood stacks hiding her; I never checked till evening and I'm not sure if I could have done anything to save the little guy, but beat myself up for it anyway for a couple days as it were.
That being said, my other two were pregnancy checked last month; one I expected to be just bred, but the other I was expecting a calf from this fall...turns out both are pregnant, but for NEXT spring instead!! Arrrrgh! Good and bad news. So no over crowding issues in the barn this winter! But I have to wonder what was so different to affect my breeding program when nothing had changed as far as pasture, hay, minerals, water, etc. Just cant figure, unless it was my new bull; but he did breed all the cattle eventually. Who knows, but looking forward to babies next spring for sure; and, I will have everyone pregnancy checked this fall as well.
So that's the farm news, and I still haven't gotten the back pasture wire up, but it has been mowed and tended to, so that's next, along with hanging two new gates. I must say we've had alot of rain this summer, and the pastures are in fine shape, so that's a good thing. One pasture I had worried about; I had grazed it hard late last fall, and was worried it was too short to winter over. Well I completely covered that pasture early spring with the barn and barnyard clean out manure and bedding, so much so one could not see the grass...it looked awful and I though "what did I do? they'll never graze through all that poop!" But spring came and rain; it was mowed hard as the grass began to grow, the manure got chopped up with the bedding, the rains came, the grass grew and grew and by June it was so lush I was amazed at the recovery!! So if you take care of your land and give it some rest and nutrients, it can come back; but I was a bit worried!
