Cranky says.......

Howdy Folks! Looks like there just might be a hint of spring in the air today. I saw a few tulips and daffadils starting to poke through the ground. How have you all been lately? We've been pretty busy here on the farm. The cattle pretty much take up our time in the morning. In the afternoons we've been trying to work on remodeling a fixerupper house we bot 2 years ago. We've also been trying to get ready for an auction to sell some extra equipment, tools, household items, etc..... Lately, all the kids have been practicing their cowboy/girl skills. Here's Claire's attempt:

Below is Preston (Paul Newman's lookalike)

Parker looks the part pretty well:

Here's carson's attempt: notice a wash rag instead of his hat in his hand.

Here's Griffin's little smile under his hat:

As a fun project right now on the farm, we have made a start at least to try to sell some of our home raised beef directly to the public. We have a steer being processed right now that will be cut in quarters. If you are interested, please let me know asap. You don't even have to buy a a whole quarter, but its just a way to divide up all the meat evenly.

I recently found a neat website: http://thepioneerwoman.com/ This lady has some of the funniest posts and best pictures I have ever seen, complete with picture naming contests. She has even been on Fox and Friends and Good Morning America with her cooking demonstrations. Below is a sample of one her pictures I thought was pretty funny.

I'll let you guess what the photo was named in her contest.Go ahead, check out the link to her site. You'll be glad you did.

january on the prairie east of t town

Above: The River Valley looking East from the camp site by the pond we are fixing. It was about 4 degrees this morning.

Hello everyone. Its been a slow week here on the farm. We've been rebuilding a pond dam that washed out, hauling and selling our older cows and calves off the wheat. That pretty well sums up the last week here. Parker has gotten on the habbit of "going hiking". We'll take one this afternoon here in a little bit.

I took a couple pictures of our neighbor's cattle while out checking cattle here lately. Thought we would ride over and give them to him here a little later after everybody gets up from their naps. Here's a beautiful shot of their cows on the river:

And here's one of Eddie's prize long horn cows.

Also, below, here's Rex on a typical day feeding cattle
Notice the calf back towards the open barn door in front of the cow feed bunk. He's our current little bottle baby. Park has taken to calling him "Black Shop". Not sure why and don't think he even knows. Also, notice the yellow 'schwans' feed truck. The most we have had to feed this winter has been 5 tons in one day. This truck will hold about 7 tons of silage. This silage has been a point of controversy on the farm however. It seems we've been feeding more than cows with it because the wild hogs come in at night and eat their fill. We've been trying to get rid of this guys for a while now. I think we'll have to fence the silage pit with some hog panels to keep them out.

al

lazy Sunday afternoon

Greetings everyone. We are at a new chapter in our lives this afternoon. All of our kids are now able to get out of their cribs on their own. What a fast Sunday afternoon we've had.

Much of our farming time this past week has been focused on keeping the animals fed and watered. A cold snap shuffled in two times this past week. Last Sunday evening, we had a great big cold front blow through and then last Wednesday another one came roaring in. We had two nights with temps down into the single digits. Wow. What a shock to the system. This afternoon however its a balmy and windy 67 degrees. Not bad for a Sunday in December.

Here lately, we've been starting to feed our cattle liquid molasses.

This stuff helps them to have more energy and boy does it ever make them eat everything in sight. We'll keep hauling the stuff to them. However, please let us come live with you when they eat of out of house and home. The talk is that if you feed your cattle molasses, they'll eat just about any thing. Well, it sure does make them eat up that wheat straw that they would never eat before. And now, they even have better hair quality. Maybe that is going a bit too far.

Below is a pic of them licking the molasses off of a wheel that rolls down into a tank full of the sticky stuff.

time to take account

Hello farmers at heart. This is it. This is your season to take account of what has been done this past year. The grain is in the silos and the calves are out on the wheat and the cows.....well, who knows where they are. And we farmers are approaching that time when we all become a little more reflective no matter what type of day we've had or how busy we've been. This is a precious time of year. The little children at home looking with hopeful anticipation of dad getting in from the cold and holding them on his knee. Each one reflecting sweetness in their little faces as their time of anticipation draws near. Wouldn't trade that for anything with anyone. And to think, it must be like that with our Heavenly Father and us. Well, on that lingering thought, I'll share a few pics with you and let you be on your way:

Mollie, my faithful companion in her seat on the patio behind the house.

height of the Endurance wheat we fertilized and sprayed for weeds and cheat back on 11-20-09 was about 3" high and looks thick as hair.

#196 (heifer born at Sheldon Payne's place) now she's here in the field by our house waiting to have her first calf. Hopefully sometime in December about Christmas time.

growing

Hello there. We've had a over a weeklong rain delay for our wheat planting. We mulch treaded and packed the Lapel place on Saturday, so we'll be off to the races with drilling there at tomorrow morning at 8 o'clock sharp. A special thanks goes out to Rodney Wheritt for spaying the volunteer wheat with roundup so we can try to get a perfect stand. We'll plant Doans variety that came from Joe Peeper up near Enid. This is a fairly new variety for wheat country as it was only introduced to growers in 2007 and this is the first year for it to be used by farmers other than seed growers.

Yesterday, we bot a new camera to replace the one that got dropped one too many times. Jenn is working out the kinks as I write this.

To encourage your responses, I have a special prize for the person who guesses closest to the correct number of grains of wheat per pound of the Doans Certified wheat seed I mentioned.

Gradually expecting a change.....

FARM UPDATE: Autumn is settling onto the Oklahoma praire where the wheat planting is winding down. Wheat spikelets are popping out of the ground all over. Calves are being weened from their mama's with anticipation of getting a taste of early wheat pasture. I can hear a pen of them bawling just outside the window down at TC & Christy's (our neighbor to the south).

We are getting a little bit of rain today. Maybe we'll finish drilling the wheat this week. Part of the reward is in this effort of planting alone.

Sowing the Seed

Hello farmers at heart. We've been busy planting our wheat. So far, we have finished over half of the farm and used up all of our Endurance Seed Wheat. Now we're starting to use our Duster variety. On Thursday morning early, Daddy and I took our annual trek to see how the first field we sowed was looking. You should have seen it. Beautiful.....Each little spikelet of seedling wheat had its very own diamond dewdrop on top of it. Pop would have been very proud (even if this was on our no-til upland river patches). Every time I think of No-Til Farming, I remember him saying "Don't neglect the seedbed!"

Update: Well, Dallas Crowdis came through. He found us an 8-volt battery for the 1951 Chevy Wheat Truck. Way to go Dallas and everyone at DNA Auto. Truck runs very smooth and we were all happy to see it driving down the road.

Wheat's growing
Cow's lowing
Moon's up
Lights out.