January is a time of new beginnings, new habits, new endeavors. Our January started with Christmas. Since we were all sick over the Christmas holiday, we had to post-pone time with family until New Year’s Eve. It was actually really nice extending the holiday season, so we didn’t feel the after-Christmas-depression as much. We celebrated Christmas morning with Randy’s mom, who was visiting, and had a second Christmas with my family New Year’s Eve…it was perfect!
The weather this January has been very different from past years. We have had ice, a blizzard, and already more snow than in years past…and it’s still early in winter. Lots of sledding days!
Canyon had to have her wisdom teeth taken out which was no fun, but went smoothly. It was just following lots of snow and sledding, so snuggling up through the cold that followed wasn’t too bad either. She’s really good at entertaining herself with sketching, legos, and reading. All cozy winter hobbies.
When you farm you learn to take life as it comes. So many things are out of your control, you have to learn to let go. I have had to do that already this year when my Jersey milk cow ended up not delivering a baby on the day she was supposed to have delivered an AI baby from a miniature Jersey bull. Luckily, we had her out with a bull just incase, but money, time, and effort were all sadly lost. Finding the silver lining-it’s too cold and snowy here that delivering would have been risky for the baby, so we will welcome our Jersey/White Dexter cross a little later in winter instead.
Fortunately, our Jersey heifer appears to have had a successful AI experience and should deliver her “Midi” (half standard, half miniature) toward the end of February.
Probably the biggest heartbreak was processing our Scottish Highland/Jersey steer, Muddy.
I bottle fed him for eight months and then crossed over to bucket feeding him. Took a small break where we used him to detect heat and AI our Jerseys before bucket feeding him a small amount of organic whole corn for 100 days before having to let him go.
We’ve processed chickens, I’ve sold lambs, but this is the first time I have personally grown out a beef to feed our family. I kept waiting for the day when he would get naughty, and I wouldn’t feel so awful. The day came to load him in the trailer and he wouldn’t budge, so I went to the front of the trailer, called his name and patted my legs and he hopped right in and came to me like a dog. I closed up the trailer, went inside, and cried the rest of the afternoon.
It’s also been a great month to can and preserve. In preparing for our beef, I have been canning things out of the freezer to make room.
Lastly, was the unplanned lambing of our old Romanov sheep. Our breeding didn’t go quite as planned, of course, and we had one of our old ewes get through the fence with a ram (for like 5 minutes) and that’s all it took for us to get our little miracle lamb.
After going outside in the middle of the night checking to make sure she wasn’t in labor, she finally had her at 10 o’clock at night with some assistance. We now have a half Romanov, half Finn ewe lamb to love on.
There is nothing like staying home for real comfort.
-Jane Austen
A Simple Prairie Life 