Halftime Show

Farmer Excitement #4: When you deliver a calf during halftime.

Farm Milestone: Complete!

A very important milestone happened yesterday.

Flipping over?
Old news.

Crawling?
Not yet.

Walking?
God help us...he's not even four months old.

What is every little boy's dream come true? Yep...riding a tractor. Or a firetruck...or a bus...or a bulldozer...

But around here, what we have are tractors. And guess who rode sat on one?

He looks (kinda) excited.

Now he's not so sure..."I might be tipping!"

"Look who joined me on my tractor!"

"I guess I'll let him borrow it sometimes..."

Herdsman Excitement #68: The USDA Farm Survey

Falling asleep while completing the latest USDA farm survey...

A Walk In The Country (Farming Style)

Hey! Look who it is! The Farmer is meeting me for a walk!

Wait...why is he bringing a shovel?

Oh. Yeah. We live on a farm. And a romantic walk in the country usually involves a non-romantic task.

Such as digging up tansy. 

Tansy is a noxious weed that needs killing. Apparently it needed killing today while on our walk.

But Bonus #1, this walk was better than the one we took a few years ago that was ill-timed with the spraying of the adjoining field. And spraying on a dairy farm does not mean spraying water. It's a more ... organic ... material.

And Bonus #2, we had this beautiful day...

Hello ladies!

And Bonus #3, I had a view like this...

Finally, Bonus #4 included The Herdsman. He looked like this for most of the walk.

Don't worry...we had him covered up with the stroller hood for most of the ride. He didn't like the sun in his eyes. 

But then this happened...

He doesn't like tansy either.

From The Tractor Seat

One of The Farmer's favorite things about farming is driving his tractor. Besides the obvious boys-and-their-toys reason for enjoying the driving in circles the tractor brings him, the tractor seat provides a time to think, imagine, and plan. Often after a day of tractor driving, dinner includes a conversation that begins, "So as I was driving, I had a thought..."

Driving tractor also provides The Farmer scenery that most of us never see, or rarely appreciate. If those dinner conversations don't begin with a plan devised from the tractor seat, they frequently begin with commentary about what he saw during the day. And to the locals...The Farmer has said on more than one occasion that the neighbors have no secrets with him around. You are forewarned.

As silage season drew to a close two weeks ago, The Farmer took his camera along for the ride to provide a glimpse into his life on the tractor seat.

Enjoy the view...

During the mornings of silage, The Farmer cuts the grass with a large mower. Don't we all wish we had a mower this big?

After mowing, The Farmer comes back over each neat and tidy row of cut grass with the forage chopper. Here you can see the forage chopper and silage wagon, as seen when The Farmer looks backwards while chopping silage (yes, he was driving, looking backwards, and taking photos). The grass is chopped from a size of 2-3 feet to 1/2 inch pieces, then shot through the red arm-thingy (technical term of The Brunette) into the wagon towed behind his tractor.

And the view looking forward (though I am amazed at how much The Farmer is glancing backwards while driving tractor...then again, he is driving a mere quarter of a mile per hour)...

As you can see, The Farmer has a ways to go to finish this field. He also knows how to drive in straight lines and make right angles with his tractor. I'm impressed.

The Farmer has two silage wagons, allowing for a continuous flow of silage to be chopped and then delivered to the silo. OK, almost continuous...I often get a lot of 5-6 minute phone calls during silage as The Farmer waits for the empty wagon.

Here comes the second wagon.

The hand-off.

Often The Farmer sees wildlife from the tractor seat. Sometimes that wildlife is a bald eagle...just hangin' out. 

These guys aren't quite as majestic. These ravens are searching for mice.

Bambi!

She didn't leave the field because she had a fawn in the brush she was protecting. So more accurately...Bambi's mom!

And these gals aren't quite wildlife, but they sure are cute.

When The Farmer comes in for lunch, he drives past the silo. The dozer is pushing and compacting the silage to begin the fermentation process.

The silo as seen from the field.

And as seen from a farther-out field. And that hillside? That's Oregon.

And the "I can see Oregon from my front yard" is even more spectacular of a statement when a ship goes by.

This was one of the naval ships that was a part of the Rose Festival fleet.

This is a bulk freighter headed upriver. The green doors are the cargo hatches.

This is a container ship headed downriver. 

And an oil tanker. And yes, these all went by in a single afternoon.

And finally, it was time for the last wagon to leave the field. 

And this is The Farmer taking one more glance before departing. 

The day - and silage season - is done.

Cow Parades

Spring and summer afternoons on the farm include bringing the cows in from the field. It has been sunny around the farm recently, so The Herdsman and I decided we would venture out recently and help with the herding duties. Really, we just wanted to go for a walk and say "hi" to some cows. They are cute, aren't they?

It also helps that the cute handsome Farmer also participates in the herding process.

As we are still counting the Herdsman's age in weeks, he and I stayed behind the gate and really just watched the cow parade and enjoyed the scenery.

We also were the object of curiosity.

Despite it being a beautiful day and we were able to say hello to all our cow friends up close and personal (see above photo), The Herdsman slept through his duties once again.

And so while The Herdsman slept, The Farmer and I watched the cow parade. 

The Farmer insisted on taking a few photos, and I think these next three are payback for all my a**less chaps comments. 

Yeah, this one especially...definitely payback for the multiple a**less chaps posts.

Now you may notice it is a bit muddy in the cow parade lane.

I normally wear my boots for herding duties, but I decided on this day it would be OK to wear my ankle slip-on boots. 

This was a poor decision on my part. 

These ankle boots were purchased when I was eight months pregnant as I was having tough time getting my boots on. We purchased the ankle version one size too big so I could just slip them on without much difficulty.

However, now these ankle boots feel like clown shoes. They are just a tad too big and my ankles, well, they are no longer swollen. As such they are a bit too easy to slip on - and off.

Case in point...

Yes, that is my footprint in the mud after my right clown boot got stuck in the mud.

And this is my bare sock-foot after my left foot followed suit and stepped right out of the clown boots.

This reminded me of the first time I helped bring the cows in with The Farmer. I was nervous, hoping to pass this very important test of farm life. I was wearing appropriate foot attire - knee-high rubber boots - but as we walked through a huge mud bog near the front gate (there's no way around it), my boot sank...up to mid-calf.

I was stuck.

While we have no photos of the incident, imagine me standing there in a huge vat of mud with one foot buried a good 12 inches in the sloppy, sticky, gooey tar-like substance. And since this was my first time herding the cows I had a lot to prove I was up to the task. Instead I was motionless, teetering on the brink of falling head-first into this pile of muck. And just to be clear, it's not all mud when you are on a dairy farm.

And despite my impending self-inflicted mud-pie face all I could think was "The hat!" Because yes, I had accidentally worn one of The Farmer's good hats out into the field. Who knew that amongst his 834 baseball caps he had good ones and bad ones? But yes, he does! I had forgotten my hat that trip and thus naively picked one out of The Farmer's closet. And yes, I picked a cute one. If I'm going to wear a hat and try to impress The Farmer with my rookie herding skills I'm gonna look cute! However, it turns out this particular cute hat was The Farmer's new/nice/going-to-town hat. 

Oops.

When The Farmer saw said hat on my head he gave a stern warning..."Just don't get it dirty."

So as The Farmer pulled me out of the mud bog - yes, I needed rescuing and the fairy-tale-damsel-in-distress sort of rescuing is not really be-still-my-heart-inducing, but rather borders on mortification - all I could think was how to prevent the hat from impending mud-bog doom. I was sure I would not be invited back to the farm should a minute speck of brown goo appear on the hat upon post-herding inspection. Farming is messy business but there is no excuse for  ruining the going-to-town hat.

Fortunately, the cute/new/nice/going-to-town hat survived intact. My boot was rescued from the mud. I was invited back. 

And The Farmer bought me my own hat.