Farm Blog

Winter weather has come to Mulberry Grove Family Farm and it has hit hard and fast.  November was mild and relatively precipitation free which allowed most everyone in our area to wrap-up their field work and winter prep.  I'm still working on my winter prep because I was working for others getting their field work done.  Little did we know that the weather switch would be thrown from mild to harsh over night.  I've been working on moving hay and corn stalk bales from around the farm to around the paddock so that the cows have a wind break and also to make sure that the bales are close enough to the paddock that I don't have to dig to the bales every time I need to take one to the cows.  We've been getting snow for the past 2 days in the form of a blizzard and I'm only about halfway done moving the bales.  We have a nice drift that's running down the lane by the house that's about 3' high.  It should only take me a couple of hours to clear that with the skid loader since my tractor won't start.  Another winter prep item on the list that was to get done before bad weather hits!  On a more somber note, we lost a calf last night.  Sara found the calf laying with the other cows in the paddock.  The calf had been walked on.  She was one of the sickly twins that had survived her bout with a bad fever right after birth and had to also survive bad mothering from a first time mama.  We're not sure exactly what happened to the calf yesterday but when George and I came back from deer hunting on the back of the farm yesterday evening Sharon and Sara were trying to get the calf out of the paddock.  We brought the calf into the barn, cleaned her up, dried and warmed her, but the outcome was not positive.  Sara had become so attached to this little calf we called "Baby".  Sara's chore was to bottle feed the calf everyday and the calf would run to Sara when ever she called Baby!  Some tears were shed by Sharon and Sara but these are the lessons that we hope will give our kids added strength in later years.  The boys helped me with the final details of the calf.  This too we hope gives them added strength.