ON EAGLE'S WINGS

Friday was nice and warm for a change and I decided to go for a walk in the pasture with my  camera and my new big lens. I wanted to take some  pictures of the eagle's nest way way up on the very top of an old pine tree in the lane.

A pair of eagles have been living in that nest for about 7 or 8 years or so. The nest has grown every year and it's incredibly large this year. It's hard to get a perspective on how large it is but my guess is that it's about the size of a car and my son agrees.

Here is my first shot with my telescopic lens. I was quite a distance from the tree. This shot is from the pasture behind the barn.

A closer view by zooming in, as viewed from the pasture.

This shot was taken in the field on the other side of the lane.

I wanted to show how tall the trees are and I had to go as far as the fence and I still  I could not get the whole trees from top to bottom with my telescopic lens. I'm learning....

So I walked pretty far to almost the end of the field on the other side of the lane to get far enough away from the trees to show the whole length of the trees. I should have taken my regular stabilizer lens with me as well and it would have saved me a lot of walking. Oh well, it was a nice day. You can see  a trace of snow along the shade of the trees. I'm still learning how to use my telescopic lens. I have so much to learn.

Just to give you a bit of perspective, the silos are 60 feet high and the pine trees near the silos are taller than the silos. The grass isn't green yet and the trees are still bare but spring is in the air.

Unfortunately, only one of the eagles was in sight and kept circling high in the air and this wasn't a great shot. I'll try again to get a better shot at some other time when one of them is closer. It's difficult to see them in the lens when they fly so fast.

While I was near the farm with my camera, I stopped in to take a few shots of the new calves. This one
 was camera shy and didn't even gave me her best side. She had a bit of scour but is on the mend.

This  little bull was getting excited to have his picture taken.

This newly born calf was  born in the dry cow area and was due on April 14. He got a bit dirty and the mother was put in a pen by herself because one of her quarter got mastitis. We didn't want the little bull to suckle on the bad quarter. He was still a bit wobbly.

Here is a new litter of 5 kittens. They were born in a calf pen  right in the open before we even got the chance to clean that pen  after the older calf was moved to the larger pen. Here two other cats are caring for the babies while the  mother is taking a break from nursing. Their eyes are starting to open.

I hope that you had a nice weekend.
Thanks for stopping by. I so appreciate the interaction of your comments, even if it's only a one word comment.  It means that you came by.   :-)
JB

THE BATTLE OF THE WEEDS CONTINUES

The weeds are winning the war and my Irises are in desperate need to be divided. This is the before picture.  I made the mistake of planting a small potted Bugleweed perennial plant a few years ago because I love the blue color in the spring but it was a mistake. Even though I pulled all the small plants that seeded everywhere, they keep coming even on the lawn...

This is a view from the left side.  Dandelions and Blackeye Susan are sprouting everywhere, yes even on the lawn also and Creeping Charlies aren't shy either.

I raged through that flowerbed like a mad woman on a mission.. I stuck some Bearded Irises in but I want to change them location because they are so tall for this flower bed.

This is another nightmare of a flower bed gone wild. Chickweeds  and dandelions have definitely taken over  and even Creeping Charlies weren't far behind in the invasion.

Here's a better view of my invaded territory.

I'm reclaiming what's mine and I'm stepping on any toes that gets in the way. I'll show them weeds that I mean business.

These  Blackeye Susan I pulled out of the tier bed and stuck them in an old plastic pot. I have to dead head them before they self seed like crazy again.

Some of my bearded Irises that I divided from the tier flower bed. I had taken the trouble of cutting some plastic labels and written on them with what said was a permanent ink for plant marker  when they were in bloom this past spring  but the sun faded every trace of ink. That's what I get for buying it at the Dollar Store.  Now I have no idea what colors they are. Serves me right for trusting labels...

Another flower bed weeded and I decided to pull my clump of old fashion Daylilies and you can see them by one of the compost bins. That was a hard job to divide that big clump. I want to pull the serendipity lungwort that self seeded there and is getting bigger. but had to go to the farm and it's been raining ever since.

Now here is a fine piece of work if I ever saw one. I had weeded one section of my vegetable garden and cut the excess of the melon vines as they seemed to have been drying up and had to quit because of the rain and the next day my son Vaughan called me to tell me that I better check my garden as something had eaten my watermelons.  I can se that they were ripe even though they were rather small and they left the larger one for me with a few bite on the rind.

What ever ate my melon also dragged some of my cucumbers and ate part of them too.

This week has been a busy one for me and especially on Friday.  Saturday, I worked most of the day at the barn  had to clean calf pens too and my son help which was good.

 I have 5 new calves to bottle feed and all this milk to deal  with and carry to the other end of the barn.

Friday everything was happening at once. We had herd health with the vet checking all the cows and heifers that were bred in the past month to see if any were pregnant and one of the cow was calving and the feed truck arrived and I had to go round up some heifers because the truck driver needed the gate open so he could drive in the back of the barn to unload the feed in the big feed tank.  The heifers didn't all want to go in the barn so I had to stay in the back to watch that they didn't escape until the truck driver was done.

I called my son to come help this poor groaning cow who was calving and he pulled out the heifer calf and she was all yellow since she had a bowel movement in the placenta.  The mother cleaned her up pretty good but she still is a bit yellowy. The calf is doing well, the cow had to be pumped some medicated solution that I pumped into her with my husband holding the tube in her mouth this morning.

Friday I had breakfast at 11:35 am and I was pretty hungry since I was up since 6:30 am. Saturday I had breakfast at 10:15 am.  Today, Sunday I had breakfast sometimes after 9: am. I can't gain weight that way and most of my pants are getting loose on me.
I'll fatten up this winter I hope or the wind will go right through me, lol.

Have a nice week and thanks for reading my ramblings.
JB

IT'S COMING TO THE END

I'm so glad that it's nearing the end of calving for this month. I'm beginning to feel like a cow. We have two more to calve and I hope that I can take a break for a little while.

There was a big bull calf born yesterday morning and another big heifer calf born this morning. I was running out of room to put them as the nursery has only 10 pens and I had one pen with two occupancy,    ( a bull calf and a heifer calf). These tow in the pen together were born on Monday.

 The bull calf is on the left and the heifer is on the right. Now she has the pen to herself. She turned around and wanted her picture taken,

 I had to make a bed for the bull that was born yesterday morning by putting some barricade in a corner to keep him from wandering. I'm not showing the barricade here, only the bull calf.

 I used a small wagon and a sheet of plywood as a gate and lots of hay on the floor and he slept there most of the day.

Then the other one I had to put hay in the alleyway and keep her mother there with her until we had a place to put her.  The newborn was shivering so I put a calf jacket to keep her warm. In no time the mother had made a mess and more hay was needed to keep the calf clean.

The buyer came this afternoon and took three bull calves and again tomorrow another bull calf will go.  So I will have a vacancy, until the other cow calves.

Whenever we have a cow in the alleyway, she makes a terrible mess on the floor. Everything has been cleaned up and the babies all have been fed and put to in their own bed for the night, the rest of the big calves and the cows in the calving pens also were looked after.

Today has been overcast and gray but mild and it started to rain this afternoon and it's still raining. These are old pine trees in the lane where a pair of eagles lives by our farm.

Here is the lane that goes up to the main road.  In the summer there is a tunnel effect with all the tree branches on each side.  It looks very pretty.

Now the day is coming to the end and I realize that I am exactly where I should be at this particular moment in time because God called me to this place.   Stay safe everyone.  JB