Pics from the farm.

Sooo kruser wants to know what we have been up to, well here we go!


With everybody in pasture we spend quite a bit of time checking on everybody. Seems like these girls found a nice spot on a hot day.


We have taken four steers to the Farmington Locker plant. They were good size as one calf had a hanging weight over 1000 lbs.


We lost this little guys mom on tuesday morning. She was maybe our oldest cow and she had been going downhill since a year ago but after he was born no matter what we tried she lost ground. She went down and we were unable to get her up and going again. Now we are trying to get a two month old calf started on a bottle. He has several names at this point depending on his level of cooperation!



Nick has been busy mowing and spraying pasture recently while Travis and myself were busy doing the much needed job of hauling manure. I think we must have ran 4 tanks of fuel in the 4230 just hauling manure. When we got that done we moved home our first cutting of hay from the fields to the Higgs farm.


This morning one of the crew froms Thompson grain bins showed up and started forming up the new grain bin.



They will be back in the morning and get ready to pour the floor then they are heading down the road a couple of miles to do a bin for a neighbor.
Everyday here is the same but everyday is different. We are keeping busy and enjoying every minute!
Hope everyone else is enjoying the summer as well.
bill

The bin forms look very familiar.We put one up last fall.How big is yours gonna be?

thanks

Sorry ya lost that youngns Mother
Other than that thanks for the pics .

You have California Cows ?

I think they got rudders and udders mixed up--- LOL

Wriggly OK ? ya didn't mention him.

Enjoyed the pics as always.

One of our neighbors has black angus and they are always chest deep in the pond. I've seen them do this even on cool days. Guess they just like the water.

Black cows get hotter than white cows, in the same sunlight, so they probably feel more of a need to cool down. I know how hot black leather gets in a car on a sunny day........ especially if you're wearing shorts......

Too bad about losing the old momma cow; calf looks like he's doing fine.

Bottle feeding can be a real challenge; raised 10 calves on a "bucket" when I was a kid.

Mixed milk/formula in a 1 gallon bucket with warm water using a wooden spoon.

Very messy at first until they got the idea to drink instead of suck.

Once they got "hooked" on feeding from the bucket, all I had to do was mix it and put the bucket on the ground.

Always a sight to see when I banged on the aluminum bucket with the wooden spoon; those calves started running as fast as they could into the back yard.

As the milk/formula got low in the bucket, they would get down on their front end and continue to drink.

Once the bucket was empty, they would "nudge" naturally for more milk.

This launched the empty bucket into the air to various altitudes.

When the bucket landed on the ground, the calf would run over to the bucket and start the same event again.

Always looked forward to feeding those calves; never considered it a chore.

Wrigley is a smart dog; set out a bucket of milk next to the calf and let Wrigley show him how its done.

Be sure to pat Wrigley on the head for me and tell him he's a good dog.

Always enjoy your photos; thank you for sharing them with us.

Wellll nowwww,
The glennster and the Howell's have been talking about a rodeo with Texas Bar-B-Que in central Illinois. Think we found the place - ring might be a little small tho!
Kinda like the idea of the swimming hole too. Will have to coordinate dates with the Yorkville Rock Chuckin Festival. Travis M/B gonna pull the hayracks?

Jim

PS: Will bring dogs for Wrigley to play with.