a week makes a lot of difference

Love is sunshine, hate is shadow, life is checkered shade and sunshine....Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha.

The first day of spring has come and gone without me even remembering or noticing. The picture below was taken by our house Saturday afternoon:

From farm headquarters (at fireside): Hello everyone. Spring has sprung with a flurry of fun and games here at the farm. Below is a sample of our activities:

Gretta's observations of the last flury of wintertime activities was done from the safety and warmth of her box in the garage. Keep the box warm G.

We had a very nice week on the farm this past week. Cows are busy trimming the "winter grass" that has started to peek through the leaves and old growth from last year. Fence was built to pasture some native pasture land that we call the "Old Crow" place up by town. This land hasn't been pastured for a while so it has some great old and new growth.

I think this week we'll start with the fertilizer and weed control applications of the bermuda grass down on the river bottom.

Talk to you soon. r

Spring has Sprung

From all of us at the farm headquarters: I think we've officially kicked off spring with bang. This picture was taken by a "storm chaser" out by Hammon back on Monday.

We've been busy this past week on the farm. It seems the weather plays havoc with the schedule board so I'm just going to pencil in "BUSY" everyday for everyone. How's that? We've been moving our electric fences to keep the cows off the wheat that we want to save for grain harvest and keep the cows where they are supposed to be. Not an easy task with green lush wheat on the other side of the fence from you no matter how much those cows mind and listen;)

Now on with something very newsworthy:

Mike Sigg has Officially been here with us as our friend and co-worker for 1 whole year!

WAY TO GO Farmer MIKE!

In other news we (rick, jenn, parker, preston, griffin, carson, and claire) all took a trip to Jenks to see the Oklahoma Aquarium. We went with Jenn's brother Jason and his wife Amy and their 2 kids (William & Alex) Wow, we were impressed. Never before had the kids or us parents seen such great exhibits. We then went for nap time up to the Port of Catoosa. That's where we get to sell some wheat from time to time. After that we checked into the Holiday Inn, complete with swimming pool and trampoline (our bed unfortunately). Griffin complained that he didn't know any better because he had never seen such a big bed.

For supper that night we went to Incredible Pizza. It certainly lived up to its name and we had a blast.

After getting up and enjoying the breakfast at the motel, we headed out west towards Enid. We stopped by Leonardo's Discovery Warehouse. I have never seen such an extensive outdoor jungle gym, maze or whatever you would call that structure. I would have played longer myself. Inside Leonardo's Warehouse we played for a long time too by going "shopping", playing "dress up" and painting masterpieces. Well worth every penny! After getting buckled back in the car, all the kiddies needed a nap and Jenn and I had a great visit on the ride back to home base. Safe!

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.