I enjoy a clean home. Truly, I do. Every day I sweep, scrub, vacuum, and tidy. But here’s the thing about ranch life: it is dirty. Not only do I fight a constant battle against the dirt and manure that we all track into the house on a daily basis, but, well, there are a lot of animals around here. And sometimes they end up inside my house.

This calf’s mama had a tough time calving; he was cold and tired when he entered the world. It was also about 2 o’clock in the morning and fairly cold. Fortunately, our home is only steps away from the barn and corral. This calf spent a few hours on the floor in our utility bathroom.

We plug in either a heat lamp or a space heater to raise the calf’s core temperature. After a few hours they realize they are hungry and start calling for their mama. This is a great sign! We haul them back outside and make sure the mama cow understands her role in getting milk into the calf’s belly and soon this little calf starts thriving.

It really is only a few steps from the back door of our house to the calving pen, but when you are carrying a 90 pound calf who is warm and hungry and kicking around, it can be a LONG walk across the driveway. To make this task a little easier, we have re-purposed one of the kids’ toy wagons. It works perfectly.

Now if only I could re-purpose one of the cowboys around here to clean the utility bathroom I’d be a happy woman!

The winner of the Cuisinart Coffeemaker is Rusty! Here is his comment:

Congratulations Rusty! (and thanks for your kind words!)

Thank you everyone for entering. I, too, enjoyed the Olympics and I don't think I could pick a favorite event. My husband's favorite was the aerials and the kids all loved bobsledding. Great fun!

Loading hay is a relatively simple process. Remove a bale from the stack and place it on the back of the feed truck. Repeat until the truck is loaded.

(Normally, we use a John Deere tractor to load hay. But it broke down last week, so in the meantime we are using the backhoe.)

Occasionally, though, things don’t go as planned.

At this point the kids are yelling “Avalanche!” That was quickly followed by the chant, “Dad broke a bale. Dad broke a bale.” (Ahhh…just one of the many lessons learned at recess.)

A broken bale isn’t uncommon, but it does make a bit of a mess. Fortunately, my husband seems to have had some experience in this area. He knows exactly what to do. Tie the broken strings together, wrap them around the bale and hope they hold.

Then, gingerly pick up the bale with the backhoe again and cross your fingers that it doesn’t fall off before you reach the cows. Crossing your fingers is the most important part of the process. The kids kept all of their fingers crossed while we drove out of the stack yard and into the field AND IT WORKED! The bale didn’t fall off!

If nothing else, we learned that our kids cannot cross their fingers and chant at the same time. Sweet (and silent) success!

During calving season, everyone around here is trying to function on less sleep. Getting up throughout the night to check on the heifers and still trying to get our regular work done during the day can make our normally even-tempered cowboys a bit cranky! Needless to say, we are drinking a lot coffee around here these days!

So, in honor of calving season, I’m giving away this 12-Cup Programmable Cuisinart Coffeemaker!

To enter leave a comment on this post by 11:59 pm on Friday, March 5^th, answering the question: 

Winner chosen at random and announced on Saturday, March 6^th!

It was Sunday, so Charlie was given the day off.

The calving crew was given the afternoon off.

That left me and the kids to help my husband keep an eye on the heifers and do the afternoon feeding.

My husband loaded two 850 pound bales on the back of his flatbed pick-up. We were off to give the heifers their bedtime snack.

Yes, they get a bedtime snack. The heifers are checked each night at 10 p.m., at 1 a.m. and again at 4 a.m. During the 4 a.m. check they were following the pick-up around in the hopes of getting fed. So, we have started giving them a snack in the evenings. Now I don’t know about you, but I can completely understand where these heifers are coming from. In those final days of pregnancy when I wanted a snack I wanted one NOW!

The most coveted job during feeding is that of driver.

It took three different drivers for us to get those two bales fed. This is serious work, I tell you.

Look at the intense concentration on his face. Completely ignoring any comments from his brother and sister. Also ignoring his mother walking next to him. (yes, walking, top speed is about 3 mph!)

We believe that working together as a family is important. Even when that means the 8 and under crowd are allowed to show off their driving skills.

I'd like to introduce you to Calf #413.

He is about 30 hours old and doing great. Yesterday was a cold, miserable day to be born and his mama needed a little help during calving. They have both recovered quickly and the weather cooperated; it was much warmer today. We will keep both of them in the corral for another day, then we will turn them back out with the rest of the herd.

Heifers, particularly those that are having their first calf, sometimes have trouble during calving and need assistance. These heifers are in a field next to the barn making it easy for us to check them throughout the day and night.

This calf's ear tag is #413 simply because that is the number on the heifer's ear tag. We only tag the calves from our first-calf-heifers. Sometimes these heifers have a tough time adjusting to motherhood. They aren't used to taking a calf with them everywhere they go. The matching ear tag numbers allow us to pair up each calf with his mama, just in case they can't find each other.

This heifer is one that we bought last fall and was bred to calve in February or March. The majority of our cows start calving in April, so we are having an extended calving season this year. Although calving heifers is more work than older cows who have more calving experience, it is rewarding when we get good looking calves like #413.

After my Five O’Clock Charlie post last week I received a few emails asking about our feed truck.

Here’s the run down. It’s a Ford F-600.

At one point, I believe it was a lovely shade of turquoise.

The horn has a cool thunderbolt emblem on it.

The gauges are intact, although not all are functioning.

I love the turn signal lever! That little green knob is great; I want one in my pick-up.

Okay, I’ll be honest with you. This gauge had me stumped for a minute. Do you know what it’s for?

Yep! It’s the AM radio.

Here is the gear shift with a high-low splitter.

We bought this truck at a farm sale last year. After getting it home, we replaced the carburetor. (By “we” I mean the mechanically-inclined people around here, which definitely does not include someone who couldn’t figure out what the radio was!) Although it runs relatively well now, I still say it sounds like Five O'Clock Charlie.

While visiting with a friend of mine last week, I mentioned that my husband wishes I’d request flowers or candy for Valentine’s Day. It would be so simple. A quick trip to town, lay down some cash, and the entire holiday would be taken care of for him. Nope. Sorry. Flowers and candy are nice, don’t get me wrong. But if given a choice, I would much prefer he operate a little heavy equipment for me! Romantic, eh?

This year I requested top soil for my flower beds and vegetable gardens. (I can’t help it, in January and February I am convinced I could be a Master Gardener. By mid-summer, reality sets in and I am overwhelmed with watering, weeding and deadheading. Suddenly, I remember I am NOT a Master Gardener and promise I won’t do this to myself again next year. I repeat this every, single year.)

The great thing about this type of Valentine request? My husband loves it, too. He pretends to grumble and complain, but in reality he is just like any other guy, he loves to play in the dirt.

I’m already planning what I am going to need for Mother’s Day this year. Hmmm...possibly a little rototilling. There’s a chance I may need a few extra garden plots around here.

I was walking down the hallway of my son’s school this morning, when a teacher (and friend) stopped me. She said, “You look, umm...tired?” No, I assured her, it wasn’t fatigue she was seeing in my face. It’s the shell-shocked look of someone who has endured the past two weeks trapped in the confines of her own home caring for four sick children. For the past two weeks we have been in survival mode around here. Each day we were tending to the kids that were not feeling well, distributing medications, forcing them to drink liquids, reading many stories and holding each of them as often as possible. Today everyone is somewhere on the road to recovery. Thank Goodness.

Thank you for bearing with me over the past couple of weeks. Now let’s get back to our regularly scheduled programming and posts that are hopefully worth the time you take to read them. (Five O’Clock Charlie, indeed!)

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My husband I recently spent a couple of days involved in cattle industry meetings. We attended meetings about various parts of our industry. It was an awesome feeling to be in a large room with many, many other people who are involved in various segments of the cattle industry. At home we spend so much time focused on our community, that it is easy to forget we are part of a much larger whole. It’s exciting to be reminded that there are families all over the United States who devote their lives to cattle ranching.

I came away from these meetings with a deeper understanding of the commitment these families have to caring for their animals and their land. I came home feeling energized about the future of the cattle industry. Most importantly, I came home with some fun ideas to share with you over the next few weeks!

Coming up tomorrow: a delicious steak dinner for your Valentine!

Don’t forget to enter the giveaway! There’s still time to enter. Winner will be announced tomorrow.