A Farm Journal: A Day In The Life
My husband secretly loves being followed around by the "wife paparazzi". Today I went to work with him. I woke up with the intention of staying home to do average housewife stuff. Clean, organize, do paperwork, do household inventory. But my husband told me to go with him. I didn't fight him on it. I grabbed my camera and headed out for the day's adventures. It began in the pastures. My cows were out of feed so The Farmer had to grind some cow feed. It's a family recipe so it's a secret. 😉 He has to wear a mask to keep his allergies from flaring up as bad. We both have bad allergies with it and tonight we are still battling the allergies from the cow feed. He pulls on his mask and begins to make the feed. When the feed is made and our babies fed, they move on to the next task on the day's checklist. Loading Cows. Wednesdays are cow sales. In my view, they're a social event for farmers and people who want to buy or sell cows. We had a big load of yearlings to sell and they were in the big pasture with all the mama cows and the bull that stay here on the farm year-round. The farmer had already placed the catch pen in the pasture so they could get used to seeing it but today was the day. We moved down to the pasture and lured them into the pen. We caught most of the ones we need to sell along with some that needed to stay. So The Farmer began to grade them out, running the ones who aren't going to the sale out of the pen. I was watching intently to make sure he didn't get hurt while he and his dad cornered and ran them out. I heard a young moo coming from near the truck. I began to look around because it was a "distress moo". I saw a mama cow, but this wasn't her. I kept looking and I saw who it was, a newborn baby calf. He/She, whatever it may be, was born yesterday evening and had been led to the tall grass here by the pen by its mama. It was the most precious little thing with a small white face and the most hilarious facial expressions. The Farmer finally got his load corraled in the pen and he backed the trailer up. I stayed in the truck and watched as the cows walked around the truck knowing something was happening. The truck shook and rocked as the yearlings began to get on the trailer.  This part is just the heartbreaking side of it. The side no one wants to really think about or talk about. The mamas crying at night wanting their babies to come to them. I get it. But new babies are being born now and the yearlings in the pasture and the newborns were not a good mix. Some were trying to breed, others trying to still fight the newborns for milk. Not a good mix. This is just something that has to happen to make room for the new babies. Once they were loaded up, we headed to the stockyard. It's a Georgia Trail 41 Stop and is a whole new world to me that I am just now getting really used to. I finally gained the courage to ask for the bathroom key, yay me! (They realized we will stay here all night so they eventually just showed me where the key is. They probably also realized my anxiety is super bad when asking them for anything.) We unloaded the cattle and headed out. When we finally got home we had our niece's birthday party and then we came home. Now we wait for tomorrow to come. That is cow sale day.
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