BACK TO NORMAL

Finally, a normal Saturday morning. And a beautiful one, at that! Glen is off to work this morning - the oil patch is up and running again after the break they take over the holidays. He hasn't been called in too much yet and that has been good as he has a lot of chores to do around here.

Now that we finally have the 2007 calf crop weaned the chores doubled as the adult herd has to be fed one place and the juveniles are somewhere else. The cows are easy to feed as they have the rest of the standing corn to finish off and their bale feeders are all spread out and easy to access with the tractor. The young ones are a different story. They are in the red barn pen. This gives them extra shelter from the weather, access to lots of water, and a big feeding of oats every morning and night. What it isn't is spacious. They are not crowded, but when Glen pulls in with the tractor to feed bales or spread straw for bedding, there is not a lot of room to maneuver- it's not a job that's easy to do after work in the dark. To add to the situation, these young animals are just kids and think everything is a game. With the slightest stimuli (the tractor does it for them) they race around the pen like a bunch of elementary students at recess. Glen has never run over one of them, but I really don't know how he has managed it.

He fed them their pails of oats before he left this morning, but I had said that I would do the rest of the chores. This means bottle feeding our orphan, Charlie, and carrying pails of chop to the feeders. I also filled the 18 pails of oats for the night feeding. I haven't ventured into the pen with the freshly weaned calves yet. If the tractor gets them excited, you should see what they do when Glen walks in with food! Eventually they will settle down - until then I will stay away. I have this theory that a broken leg from a 300 pound calf kicking up its heels in fun is going to hurt every bit as bad as a kick from an angry animal. They are more used to Glen's scent and aren't quite as crazy when he's in the pen as when there are strangers nearby.

So, with barn chores done, I'm back to the housewife duties I tend to every week. I also dug out our humidifier and filled it up. I know that a trip to the tropics works wonders on dry Canadian winter skin, but if you can't go to the moisture, then the moisture will have to come to us!