In the 20° F. weather, I got thoroughly chilled.

We moved four older calves today.  They traveled from the calf yard to the big barnyard.  We took three weaned calves to another shed.

Holstein calves in their separate pens

The calves have lived in separate calf pens since they were a day or  two old.  From bottle-feeding, they advanced to drinking from a pail.  Rations ranged from warm, whole milk to half and half, a tepid half water and half milk mixture.   At the proper age, they learned to drink cold water and to thrive on hay and grain.  All of that happened in the confines of the small individual pens they knew as home.

Calves Being Loaded in Wagon

These weaned calves experienced a big life-change today.  They stepped into a little wagon we use for transporting calves.   The tractor pulled the wagon to their new quarters with their own private yard and shelter.

As we unloaded them, they felt the freedom of unconfined movement.  Kicking

Running in Wide-Open Space in the New Calf Shed

up their hind legs, they skipped around the calf yard and barreled into their new calf shed.  One calf kicked around in the shed and onto the slightly frozen yard.  As he did, he slid all the way across the yard to the manger.  I enjoyed watching their antics at their first feelings of freedom.  All too soon the novelty will wear off.  They will learn to complain even in this new setting.

I wonder if we people tend to be like them, that is, enjoying the new changes of life and, with time, forgetting the blessing they are.  It is reminiscent of the anticipation of Christmas and the gifts of the season that give us delight.  As we become accustomed to them and the newness wears off, and we find reasons to complain.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a super-change in life or super-gift that did not grow old?

We can have just that.  It comes through a relationship with God through knowing Jesus Christ.  The Bible says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!  In His great mercy He has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you.” I Peter 1:3, 4(NIV)

I got tired of doing the chores with uncertain steps shrouded in the darkness of night.  Even though I went to feed calves at 6:30, the blackness overtook in the shadows.  “Wouldn’t it be a grand thing,” I thought, “to have a light with me that I did not have to carry in my hand?”

Head-lamp Similar to the One I Used

Then, I remembered a trinket I had bought during my Vacation Bible School days many summers ago.  That year our class had a cave-type theme.  Since spelunkers use lights mounted on their heads, I used a similar one while teaching the children.  “That would work,” I thought.  So I traipsed off to the attic room upstairs.  Sure enough…it was there!  All it needed was a new battery.

I fixed it up and stretched its elastic straps over my head and turned it on.  It worked.  Great!!  What a find.

I stepped out into the blackness of the night and could see the path ahead.  To my delight, I did not have to step out onto the barnyard slab and feel my way to the stairs as I hefted the milk pails up to the calf shed.

That is one item I am glad I did not toss when the kids left the roost.  It still has hours of use left.

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Sometimes to cope with a chore one needs to watch for the unusual to diminish the mundanity and drudgery of a task.

After getting the routine of my calf chores figured out, I set out on my early morning chores.  The cold night temperatures and the darkness of before dawn light gave proof that nothing out of the ordinary had taken place.  As I left the barn carrying my milk pails across the cement slab of the barnyard, I looked up at the calf shed.  The light was on.

“Hmph, that’s curious,” I thought.  “Maybe my husband was showing me a special courtesy.  Or, on the other hand, he could have gone into the calf shed and forgotten to turn the lights off.  All I know is that I did not leave the switch on.”

With that, I ascended the stairs, one snowy step  at a time, raising up the milk pails carefully to avoid spills.

The cats howled their hungry meows.

The calves voiced their approval that breakfast was on the way.  The cats were fed.  Some calves sucked their bottle of milk.  Others gulped from their calf pails.  Some of those being weaned slurped up their water.  I fed them all a slice of hay.

I carried out the emptied pails and shut off the lights.  I did, really.  I shut the door till the next time when I would feed them.

That evening, once again, as I left the barn, I could plainly see the lights shining in the night.  “Wow!” I thought.  “My husband must have decided to light my way.  What a sweetheart!”   I did my chores and shut off the light.

Next day, I commented at breakfast, ” How nice of you to leave the calf shed lights on for me during my chores.”

“Oh, that wasn’t me,” he said.

With incredulity hanging in my voice I replied, “Well, it has happened several times now.  What is happening?”

 A smile stretched broadly across his face.  “It’s the cats.”

“What?  How do they do it?’ I queried.

“Simple,” he went on. “They shimmy down from the loft along a stud.  As one passes the switch, he bumps it and turns on the lights.”

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phpto credit: Wenda Grabau
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In the blackness of the early hours of a frigid January day, I tred down the snow-covered hill to the milkhouse and the barn.  My rubber snow boots crunch through the icy blanket.  Though my nose gets bit by Jack Frost, I am feeling toasty in my down-filled chore jacket.  My ears carefully covered by my blaze-orange snow cap hardly sense the cold.

As I reach the bottom of the hill, I cast my eyes up onto the disk on the nearby calf shed wall.  The circular dial tells me that it is ten degrees below zero.

Chores stretch out from November till March during our calving season.  I bottle-feed and pail-feed the calves.  I see to it that they have satisfying amounts of hay.  Calves need to be fed twice daily, every day.  I am watchful to see that the calves are eating well and not showing signs of illness.

This new responsibility and schedule takes some time in which to adjust.  I have been doing these chores since late November.  Knowing that I have to do this morning and evening every day for 5 whole months straight can be overwhelming.  After all, March is still 60 and more days away.  So, I reject pondering that thought and do the chores one day at a time.

Being responsible for doing daily chores for these calves has given me a greater respect for my husband who has carried the responsibility for his herd these past thirty-some years.

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Fresh Milk from the Milker

Since our kids have left the nest we built here on the farm, I have graduated to be the calf chore crew for my husband.

When daylight savings time ends, calf chores have to be done in the dark.

The calf shed is on the east side of the barn.  My house is on the west side of it.  So my path takes me down the hill, into the barn.  There my husband supplies me with the milk that I am to use for feeding the baby calves in the shed.

Moonlight for the Wintry World

I carry the pails of milk to the barn door.  I unlatch it and one of the barn cats scoots out the door in front of me.  I can see the barnyard from the lights in the barn.  But when the door shuts, my eyes adjust to the moonlight on the ground.  I slowly maneuvre to the stairway that will lead me up out of the barnyard to the calf shed door.

Just inside the door is a light switch.  As soon as the lights are on, calves beller.  They know what comes next…Lunch!

Cats Getting Their Share

Barn cats know what that means, too.  They greedily gather around to glean the leftovers that I can give to them when the calves have had their share.

photo credit:Wenda Grabau
photo credit:Bretta Grabau
photo credit:Bretta Grabau

Usually in the springtime, you may enjoy seeing lots of young calves in the pastures with their mothers close by.

Yet, on this farm, we plan to have the young born in the fall and winter.  The reason we do this is for our convenience.

In the spring, the “Do List” includes:

• plowing
• disking
• planting 
• fencing 
• manure spreading 
• cleaning the chicken house for the new chicks

The summertime “Do List” is similarly busy:

• cut, rake, bale and store hay
• cultivate corn
• combine oats
• bale straw

In the autumn:

• shell corn, if room is needed for the harvest in the corn crib
• pick the corn
• store the corn in the cribs
• spread manure
• take down fencing in the pastures that is not needed over the winter
• cut wood for next year’s firewood supply
• plow any fields possible before the snows come

Any time all year the machinery must be maintained and the cows must be milked and cared for.  So by now, you can tell, that there is a lot to coordinate on a dairy farm. 

Fast forward to late fall.  Dairy cattle are not like beef cows or horses, in that they can calve all alone and manage just fine. Dairy cattle sometimes need  to be helped with the delivery of their young.

Our income comes from healthy cows.  Our future income will come from healthy calves.   Therefore, my husband is actively on maternity duty. 

He is a good record keeper.  He knows the day each cow was bred.  Hence, he knows when to expect the offspring to come.  He checks on them during the night and watches then during the day.  Some nights he spends napping in the barn, so he can be nearby to help the cow when the calf comes.

All of this attention to birthing mixed in with spring and summer duties would be difficult.  My husband arranges the calving to occur when most of the crop work is done.  As it is, he becomes weary.  Doing all of this along with the time pressure of spring and summer jobs would be overwhelming.  Therefore, you understand management’s decision to calve in the fall and winter.

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Just after we married,  we had to choose how to spend the cash we received for our wedding.  At that time in our lives, a new sewing machine seemed to be the best buy.  I enjoyed sewing.  Little did I know how practical a tool it would be.

I have made flannel shirts, children’ s night caps and night gowns, satin fancy dresses, bath robes and costumes.  But the big job is sewing on patches.

My husband wears jeans every day.  He recycles some of his dress shirts to wear around the farm.  He wears a billed cap every day almost all day and work shoes.  He uses jackets and rubbers when needed.

It is the shirts and jeans that seem to break down and need repair.  That is how I can help him.  The shirts mainly need a seam mended or a button sewed on.  But it is the jeans that need most of the attention.

Since he milks cows with a milk machine without a parlor, he must squat to clean the udder and place the milker on his cows.  That squatting dictates that when he gets a hole in the knee or on the front of the leg, the whole front of the jean leg needs to be patched.  Otherwise, the seams irritate the knee.

Where do I get patches that size?  Eventually the jeans get too bad that I have to throw them away.  But I don’t toss out the whole thing.  Before I do, I cut out the back side of each leg.  Hence I have a piece of denim that will cover the front of a leg that needs patching.

I have done a bunch of them over the years.  Thus, I have collected a lot of denim.  I have visualized other projects I could make from denim.   I hope one day to have time to make them.  Till then, I have a lot of patching to do.

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