RUG HOOKING BLOG

About Me

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I'm a mother of four grandmother of seven and great grandmother of three. I live with my husband in the house that we built with the help of my brothers and will have been married for 57 years this February.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

IS IT TIME FOR THIS FARMER TO RETIRE YET?


Here are some pictures of part of the farm. We have lots of land and I wasn't up to taking more pictures after work. I had to go home and cook supper.

Farm life is hard work and the days are long and we work in all type of weather. Up early and dealing with mother nature 365 days a year. The cows are milk  and fed twice a day and when there's grass they are put to pasture and then moved to new pasture as needed.


I couldn't get all the cows in one picture as they were spread far and wide. I think that the white cow was mooning me. hahaha...


This is Big Boy. A bull that I raised from a small calf. We use him to breed the cows that we can't catch in time for the breeding technician. He's happy when he get a girl friend, not so happy when they are taken away from his harem, hahaha...
Big Boy is huge although he appears small here. He's mean when he gets upset and sometimes scary.

This part of the barn is the old barn, it has low ceilings.


These are my bigger calves. The black one in the centre laying down is one of the triplet. It was difficult to photograph them inside the barn as the bars are in the way. I had to hold the camera high and hope for the best. They are all getting big and heavy.


Some more of my bigger calves. There are 13 in these three pens.


Looks can be deceiving as it looks like the heifer calf is knee deep in hay but the hay in the bottom of the  picture is in the manger. They stick their heads in between the larger bars to eat hay from the manger.


This is the one of the old red barns. We store hay up in the loft of the red barn. It's huge and high up there. A big hole was cut in the side of the barn to hoist the big round bales up there. One of the employee last year rip the side of the building with the tractor and didn't bother to repair the damage. It's still  has not  been repaired and the employee is no longer working here.

The cows do not bed in this old barn. It is only used to hold them until they are all milked and their bedding barn is cleaned out and they are let go in the new barn to eat hay and drink and lay down.

 This barn is built in an L shape. You can see the other roof going the other way by the silos. I work in the area by the silo.


This is our new red hay wagon.  It's an amazing piece of equipment. It holds 12 large round bales of hay and it unloads them in a neat double rows. It has taken the place of all the other hay wagons.


Here in the distance, are the 5 big hay wagons that we no longer use since acquiring the new red hay wagon. They were used for small rectangular bales and were labor intensive.


These two silos are out of commission are no longer holding silage. They have deteriorated a lot and need to come down.  I work in that section of the barn. The older heifers are mostly housed in this shelter in the back. They are out during warmer weather and inside in the winter.


All the hay that was in these three piles have been moved into the new tarp building so our hay will stay dry. The low tarp building wasn't big enough to hold all the hay.  So now we have two tarp building full of hay plus the hay that is up in the hay loft in the red barn.

This is our older tarp building full to the brim.


This is grass silage bales all wrapped in white plastic. They look like huge marshmallows. We no longer use the silos to store the hay silage and it would be very expensive to replace.

Here is another shot of the grass silage and you can see the wrap hanging on the side. You can see part of the new bedding barn behind the grass silage bales.


This is the side of our new barn. Not a great shot but it had rain and I didn't want to walk in the mud without my rubber boots on.


This is the lane that runs by the silos and leads to the highway. On the left of the picture is the short cut to my house.



Can you see the path that leads to my house which is hidden behind a big maple tree on the other side of the hedge and a big cedar tree this side of the hedge?  There's an opening in the hedge  to go through.

I haven't showed the big tractors, and other machinery or even the milk house. Maybe when I have more time I'll take some more pictures.

Thank you all for visiting one part of my world.  JB