Dusting Off The Cobwebs
Whoops! Where did the time go?! Although we had been updating the website on a regular bases writing for the blog had seemed to slip my mind.
To get you caught up here is what we have been up to since you had last heard from us.
Things had been running like a well greased chain for the most part, up until August 2018 I guess you could say. We were going through the motions and getting into quite a routine until then. August 8, 2018 changed things for us. We were just finishing up haying season with just two rows of timothy hay left to bale for the year when the baler caught fire on Matt. I had been at home getting flowers processed for a wedding at the time when I received the dreaded phone call that every farmer's wife hopes she never hear. "It's all gone, all of it.", Matt said between breaths. My heart sank not knowing what exactly had happened, but by the tone in his voice I knew it wasn't good. I rushed over to where he was baling with a million thoughts going through my head, he was baling about 20 km away, south of our place. As I neared, turning off of the highway I could see the smoke. Thick, black as night smoke. It was terrifying pulling into the field, assessing the damages I drove in. The fire department was on scene, RCMP were pulling in behind me, and a neighbor had a water truck drenching the flames. the baler looked like a giant toaster, nothing left but the shell. The tractor cab had been engulfed, the seat and padding in the cab completely gone, the front end looked to be in alright shape. Upon inspection it was torched by the flames that danced in the swath underneath the tractor. But all that mattered was that my husband was safe, no major burns, he was all in one piece. The tractor and baled were wrote off and haying season was over for us. It could have been a lot worse, but it wasn't, so I will count my blessings. The pin connecting the tractor to the baler was too tight to pull and drive away, Matt had pounded on the bottom and drove trying to wiggle it loose to unhook the flaming baler but it just wouldn't let up, and the rest was history. November came along and we finally signed the papers for a new to us tractor, the baler was also replaced and most importantly I was still farming with my husband.
We were blessed. Blessed that Matt was fine, that we replaced the equipment and were able to feed the cows. And blessed to be expecting a baby to be joining our family in May of 2019. We found out we were expecting about a week after coming to a deal on 30 bred heifers also due in April/May. Yes, we were going to be busy. Calving season went great and began to slow down by the middle of May and our baby was a week late allowing for a smooth transition into parenthood. Elliotte was born on May 16, 2019. Life was a little busier but we were adjusting quite well. She was a couple weeks old and we began to resume life as normal, building about 3 miles of fence while the post pounder rocked our little baby to sleep. 2019 was a very wet year, we battled mud, mud and more mud. The result of the mud was some footrot issues that kept us on our toes. The rain also made for a challenging haying season, it didn't allow for enough days to completely dry the crops properly resulting in sub-par forage for the winter. We finally finished haying at the end of September (yes, you read that right, September). 2/3 of our forage this year was put up and into a plastic wrapped tube called haylage. Haylage is hay that is baled on the damper side, usually between 30-50% and put into the plastic to ferment. We were thrilled when we finished haying and are crossing our fingers that next year runs a tad smoother than the last two years. Between haying and waiting for the water to soak into the ground, we got our well dug and routed into the ground for an automatic waterer. (YAY!) This has been in the process for a couple years now. We are in the final stages of hook-ups so I will let you know how it works once it's going.
Other than all the fun above, things are running like clock work. We kept back 10 replacement heifers this year and culled (sold) our open (not bred) cows this fall. We recently drove 7 hrs to pick up 2 registered purebred heifers that we plan to breed for bull prospects in the coming years. I'm sure I'll make a post about them later on because they are some very well put together ladies.
In the next few weeks I hope to put together a Vlog type deal, although I have never done this so I'm a little nervous about it. But I figured if I wrote about it on here, I might hold myself accountable!
That's all for now, Thanks for catching up!