Coffee's Ready, Come and Sit on the Porch

[farmerjan]

Congrats on the calves... so no waiting and worrying now... you need to consider banding the bull calves at this point... alot easier to handle at a couple days... and then there is not the worry of later banding and possible problems and infections... and you need to consider when you want to have calves next year and take the bull out for a couple months... put back in with them in Nov for late summer/early fall calves... like this time next year... and make sure you get the heifer calf out of there before she is 6 months or so... she can come in heat and you do NOT want an OOPS baby with her getting pregnant and calving before 20-24 months...and yes, it has happened to ALL OF US.....not fair to the heifer and it will stunt her growth some also.... as well as possible calving problems because she could be calving at 16-18 months.... that is like a 14 yr old girl having a baby when her body is not really mature... they can do it... but definitely LESS THAN OPTIMAL.....
With all the grass you have they will get back to normal inside and should breed back from having good nutrition... they need 60-90 days of not being pregnant to just get a rest....

 

[murphysranch]

I posted this on my FB, but I thought I'd share with those here. I'm excited.

"The below mentioned 18 yr old is now 32. He resigned after 11 years at Tesla, and will be moving up to the PNW to be nearer his parents, sister, niece and nephew. How life changes over the years!!"




2009:
"18 yr old up for adoption. Expectations: don't ask him to work, have lots of food available along with comfy couch, clear out yer things so he can spread out his, must be able to tolerate zits in your line of vision, have dogs available to play with instead of his other impt tasks, hearing aids advised due to mumbling diction. Available immediately. Inquire within. Free shipping."

 

[Mini Horses]

Slept late. Enjoyed it!! Tired from 2 long work days and needed the rest. Beautiful weather out. Just a catch up and rest day. Got dishwasher & laundry both working -- lounging a bit, lunch soon. Need to plan for dinner. Chickens & cats fed at get up, so only milking chore is late. 🤔

Tomorrow I leave early for Gilmanor swap, meeting with @farmerjan for our 2x yrly visit. It's about half way between us. It's our vacay date.👍 Truly, neither of us gets to go far or often. Again, the weather has blessed us with "perfect"!

 

[CrealCritter]

Since I'm not allowed to name animals around here. I issued a self proclamation, I get to name the group of them. Cattle are now called the Moo Crew.

Here are a few pictures from this evening.

Oreo's calf is the biggest, but born last. His belt does not cross his back. Daisy's calf is the smallest but birthed first. Bessey calved second and her calf's size is in-between oreo's and daisy's. This sounds so familiar... The first shall be last and the last shall be first.

This calving business is all new to me, but I've read heifer first calves are smaller than cow calves. I can now see that is true... but they are all cows now, so what's next? bigger calves, I reckon. Still amazed how fully developed they are at birth, quite the experience for me.

Here's the Moo Crew boss Oreo, with the baby moos. Left to right Oreo's, Bessey's and Daisy's. All three cows surrogate, so can't tell who's is who's by who is nursing from who 🤷‍♂️ looks like Oreos baby moo is discovering mud around the water trough for the first time, typical, if there's mud jump in it. 😂

Here's a picture of the momma's and their baby moos. momma's and babies all look good and healthy to me. I don't see any momma with a degraded body condition at all, all still have good shinny coats also. Only difference I see is, that that the momma moos don't look like walking barrels any longer. Tomorrow bessy's and oreo's calves will be 1 week old and daisy's 11 days old. The days in earth sure fly by, don't they?

Jesus is Lord and Christ 🙏❤️🇺🇸

 

[Hinotori]

Oh and it's not cold enough above Heppner Oregon for snow yet. Mom and Dad were up at their cabin in Blake Ranch earlier this week to meet a State guy who's part of a team assessing fire danger of properties and what can be done to lessen it. It includes a grant of up to $600 to help get the properties safe.

Since my parents actually have insurance, they've done as the insurance company asked. Trees limbed to at least 20 ft up and no brush around the cabin.

Guy said it was one of the best properties he's seen. They just need to move their woodpile about 25' farther from the cabin. No wood on the deck. Wicker furniture stored inside if not there. Put a door of some sort on their wood shed to prevent embers from getting in.

Rake the pine needles out from under deck and put something up to block them. He said many people use wood lattice but it doesn't work the best. I told Mom to get some hardware cloth and screw it to the deck as a skirting. Cheapest way and will block the needles. It's not something my parents have used or actually knew what was. So I found some 2 foot stuff on Amazon and ordered it for them. $40 for 100' will do the whole deck and have some left over if needed elsewhere. Cheaper than other solutions and quicker. Just a drill, washers, and screws.

 

[murphysranch]

I was looking at the long term forecast for So WA. We're supposed to hit 80 by next Friday!! Holey moley!! I don't want to half to turn on the irrigation system again. UGH to the price! (which is a fraction of what we've paid elsewhere in every other home!) So bite the bullet Murph, and keep your hard work foundation plants alive!!

 

[farmerjan]

Nice weather this week in the western part of Va also... but temps are going to drop for the weekend into the low 40's and possibly the 30's by Sat night... maybe a little rain Fri eve, more hit and miss as the temps drop and the cooler air comes in from the west, but not much. We are in moderate to severe drought conditions according to the drought monitor...It is very dry here.

Beautiful for the next 4-5 days. Have 10 acres of sorghum/sudan on the ground and 10 acres of orchard grass that DS mowed yesterday. I will probably rake it on Tues or Wed... he will round bale the sorghum and sq bale most of the orchard grass...

Been weed eating off the garden and started digging potatoes... the red pontiacs have produced some HUGE potatoes... never seen pontiacs that big... Going to do more weedeating and get all the big weeds cut off and cut up so I can find the rows easier to dig. Have alot to dig. Plus I am weighing all the ones since I planted 15 varieties and wanted to do comparisons.... Did 2 lbs of each kind except the Pontiacs and the Austrian Crescents which were 4 lbs of each... 1 lb of seed potatoes, plants approx 6-10 ft row, all according to how many eyes you can cut up the pieces into....should be an average yield of 10 lbs per 1 lb planted.
This was just a fun experiment and I hope to sell enough to pay for the cost of the seed potatoes I bought and then have plenty for eating etc. Some are pretty neat... the fingerlings are not commonly grown so hope they will sell as a "novelty" for eating.

 

[baymule]

Thanks for the coffee! I slept later than I wanted to this morning. Going to the feed store an hour away. Good to see you @Messybun i hope you hear from your boyfriend soon.
My Daddy was in the navy for all of WW2, was not allowed to tell family where he was. Of course his mom worried about him. He sent her a man’s tie with a hula girl on it. She was puzzling over why would he send her a man’s tie, with a hula girl on it no less. His cousin finally got it and exclaimed, “ I know where he is! He’s in Hawaii!!”

Loose lips sink ships.

With today’s technology, that saying no longer applies.

 

[Messybun]

Got three days of dinner in the works (I don’t want to cook for a few days) and sourdough ready to be put in the fridge for the week.
How are y’all doing?

 

[murphysranch]

I've been sorting and cleaning out my side of the garage. Also arranging my deep pantry. I think I have tooooooo much food. I get alot of it from estate sales, along with drug store stuff, for usually 50 cents or a buck. Full unopened things.

There was a call out on FB for the local school district for some hygiene items. Who knew that they have a small stock of things to give to students who have NOTHING. So when I was cleaning out my part of the garage, I found some scrounged DWasher pods, some shampoo and conditioner from estate sales, some Downey which I don't use, and some other things. I dropped them off at the designated place on Tuesday. Their little room was full of students (5 or 6) who turned and stared at me. I piped up and said that I saw on FB that these things were needed, so here they are!! All of the students broke into smiles as did the coordinator!!

Since I've never heard back from my local little town food bank, I think in November I'll go volunteer with FISH. Its a Vancouver place, about 25 min away sadly, but I need to do this for my sanity.

"FISH of Vancouver started more than 50 years ago when the urgent need for food and community spirit and will came together. We operated from a garage then a rented church space staffed entirely by volunteers. We now have a full-time staff of three, hundreds of volunteers and serve thousands of individuals each year from our own large food pantry and warehouse at 906 Harney Street in downtown Vancouver."