Spring is on the Move

Eggmobile Train

The second egg-mobile is complete and the layers have been moved to the pasture.  It seems early to me, but Sharon has her chickens scheduled with military precision so if she says it's time to move I'm sure it's time to move.  I let the weather tell me when to move the cows, and since the paddock was getting too muddy to get round bales to the hay ring, it was time to move cows to the back nine field.  I checked all of the fences yesterday evening for shorts or lines down and when I found no issues I let the cows move out of their winter paddock and into the pasture.  They spent the night up by the house eating the alfalfa that was on the ground from feeding the calves this winter.  This morning we coaxed the cows to follow us with a round bale of alfalfa and they followed us down to the back nine without a single straggler.  With the changes in location, the chores will take a little more time to complete but that just means that we get to watch the ducks and geese that are all over the farm this time of year.  That's an added bonus.

Driving

How much time have I spent behind the wheel of a vehicle in the last 30 days?  Before coming to Iowa I had a very long commute to work that took several hours out of every day.  In the last 30 days I'm sure I've spent a comparable amount and then some - between the "vacation" traveling from Beaufort, South Carolina where spring was well underway and planting had begun, to the Cape Charles on the Eastern Short of Virginia where the potatoes were already planted and the fields were worked, and finally on to Maryland where they were just starting to think about getting their crops in but the cows were grazing on green grass. Yesterday I spent the day driving to pickup a new-to-me square baler a couple of hours east of our farm.  The owner guaranteed the baler to work 100%, but we won't know until the first bales start coming out whether the investment was worth it or not.  Today it's driving to haul back the certified chemical free chicken feed for Sharon's first batch of Freedom Ranger chickens which are scheduled to come in on Friday.  Exciting time around the farm, if I can just get out from behind the wheel to enjoy it.

Returning from Vacation

We just got back from a very long vacation.  It was the longest vacation that I've ever had!  We had friends, neighbors and my brother lined up to do chores and we're just now finding out the "issues" that our chore help had.  We had some escapes requiring some roundups.  While we were about half way through our vacation my brother Tim texted me to tell me the calves were out in the yard.  Knowing how stressful this can be we had a sinking feeling but it wasn't long until he let us know that the calves followed him right back into the paddock without issue.  Once he put the calves back into the paddock he worked on getting the electric fence that surrounds the paddock back on.  We found out after we returned home that the calves were out several times before Tim saw them and solved the problem by fixing the electric fence!  The Boernsen's who were doing other chores had to run the calves back into the paddock several times and had some near off-farm roundups.  Our neighbor Wendel also had to do a roundup but he had to roundup chickens.  The flight pen where the chickens have access to the outdoors had a major hole that he had to find and impromptu block before getting the chickens to stay in.  While not an escape, we learned that Sara's milk goat was a "stinker" and gave some trouble going to the milking stand.  All those issues.  How many issues haven't we heard of yet?  We tried to make sure that everything was running smoothly before we left.  Good grief!  I guess I'll have another 10 years or so to get things ready for the next vacation...

Egg-mobile Next Phase

Wildlife Sightings

We really enjoy watching the wildlife on the farm, noting their comings and goings and gauging the seasons by them.  In the fall of course we watch the game animals with special interest in hunting, but we also note the migration of owls and hawk, eagles and the small birds that begin to move through the area.  Over winter and in the spring we are watching for changes in wildlife that mark changes as the season warms.  We know that we see the first geese of the year around Valentines day and we watch for other birds to make their way back to the farm beginning around the end of February and into March.  We have a family tradition of noting the first robin sighting.  The rule is that you have to announce it to the family or it doesn't count.  You can't say "well I saw one last week" when someone else announces it, because if you don't announce it first everyone knows that it doesn't count.  This year Dan saw the first robin.  It was a couple of weeks ago while he was out doing his morning chores.  He came in and triumphantly announced that he had seen the first robin of this year!  My standard remark is that he must be mistaken, and when I finally see the first one then I make the "official" announcement. This starts the same banter about earlier mistaken identification and the verbal jousting which somehow Sharon doesn't seem to enjoy as much as we do.  Last week the boys were cutting across the pasture coming back from skating on the wetlands and saw a jackrabbit.  We actually greet jackrabbit sightings with more interest and excitement than bald eagle sightings since we see bald eagles much more often than we see jackrabbits. We only have a jackrabbit sighting every few years. Sometimes we see them in the fall and sometimes in the spring, and when we see them we will see them around for a while after the first sighting and then won't see them again for a couple of years.  I know that jackrabbits used to be very prevalent in our area from talking with some of the old timers who tell of big jackrabbit hunting drives that folks in the area put on, but they are an honest to goodness rarity around here now.  According to the IA DNR, the change in farming practices from small grains and hay of the past to mono-crop today has removed the jackrabbit's preferred habitat.  I'm assuming that before the hay and grain farms that the jackrabbit wasn't as prevalent?  I don't know.  I do know that I'd like to see them more than we do now, but then maybe it wouldn't be as exciting when we spot one.  But I guess I could live with that.

Egg-mobile Runing Gear

The second egg-mobile build has started.  I carried the running gear up to my brothers shop yesterday and we spent the day repairing a broken component that holds the front hub and wheel assembly and allows the running gear to turn when the tongue is moved from side to side.  It didn't seem like we made much progress the first day, but we sure did make piles of metal shavings from all of the drilling and cutting required to get the part off and to drill out the frozen 7" x 7/8" bolt that was the cause of the broken component in the first place.

Race to Spring

The race is now on.  Winter seems to go on for ever, but the calendar says that I'm behind schedule.  Sharon has more layers this year and these new birds need an egg-mobile to call home starting March 31.  Unfortunately I found out that my big goose-neck trailer breaks aren't working properly and I'm trying to get this corrected, but according to my schedule I should be working on the egg-mobile and Sharon is starting to get nervous.  I am too.  Good thing there are 24 hours in a day!