Never finished

A farmer/rancher's work is never done. But there are some perks to that.

Tonight my dad called me while he was on his way to go bale oats. He asked if I had seen the sunset. I hadn't looked outside recently, but after hearing him and how excited he was about it, I went outside with my camera.

I managed to get a few photos of him in the tractor in front of the sunset. Thought that was kind of cool.

Then I just took some more of the awesome clouds.

But what is the best part of this whole story? I love that my dad is still excited to call me and tell me to look at a beautiful sunset. It's great to have a father who still appreciates the beauty and wonder of what God creates.

Doing a little raking

I was hanging out (and by hanging out, I mean working...we joked that our "dates" have gotten really boring now that we're older) with one of my cousins yesterday, and I told her that I would be doing some raking in the afternoon. She had no idea what I was talking about.

Like me, my cousin has lived on a farm for nearly all of her life. However, our families do some things a bit differently. I'm extremely proud of her and her family for the large-scale operation they have built up. Ours seems kind of like a hobby farm compared to their acreage. But it still neat when I mention something to her that she doesn't know about and I'm still very proud of the work our farm does.

Our family does a lot of hay for our cattle. This year we will be baling up feed, oats and alfalfa.

I was specifically raking oats yesterday so I'll explain it a bit.

Obviously this is the view from in front of the tractor. These are what we call windrows. It is how the swather neatly lays down the oats in a row after they are cut. Unlike a combine, it doesn't thresh anything, it simply cuts and lays it down.

(FUNNY SIDE NOTE: I just typed the word "swather" and my computer doesn't recognize it as a word. I guess next time I should buy a farm computer ;-)

I know this isn't the best photo, but this is what the rake that I'm pulling behind the tractor looks like from the side. It is really wide and what it does is rakes two rows of oats into one bigger row. It also turns over the oats so that they will dry out better for baling. Baling wet oats can result in moldy bales and can also result in a fire. If they are packed together while too wet, it creates heat and can actually catch on fire.

This is the view behind the tractor. Those spinning wheels work a bit like a conveyor belt and transport the row of oats to the center where it is joined with the other row. Because it is in a bigger row, and there are now less rows, it means the tractor and baler don't have to travel near as far to create one bale. There is more of the crop in a smaller area so it is much more efficient.

Hopefully we will get the oats baled soon as we are hitting a very busy time of year. We will have a very small wheat harvest, but at the same time we are harvesting wheat, we will also be cutting and baling alfalfa.

My main job will probably be to keep the pig-weeds under control with the mower around the farm. Some were just mowed about four days ago and are nearing mid-shin height again. And places that haven't been mowed for a week have some weeds that are nearing mid-thigh to hip height. Gonna be a busy, but very blessed, week for our farm!

Look to the skies

In the past three weeks we have had around 5 inches of blessed, blessed, rain. Today we received just a bit more. But I marveled at God's artistic way of sending us such needed rain. Any direction I looked today, I just looked in awe at the beautiful clouds he created. At one point I was on the phone with my sister and tried to explain to her how you could look in any given direction and see a totally different type of cloud in each direction.

Here are a few photos I took, but they don't do it justice at all.

Never too busy

You can never be too busy to enjoy a little rain. And that's exactly what we have been doing lately!

Today we did some work in the morning that got cut short by a rain shower. And then the same thing happened this afternoon. But we certainly won't complain! Check out what kind of work the rain has been bringing our way.

First things first....we got the pick-up stuck while trying to go where we were cutting up a tree that had blown over. Good thing the tractor was already there!

Nothing like working in close quarters. This tree was blown down during a storm a week or so ago. Thank goodness it landed so it got wedged in another tree. The garage is what you see just to the right of it.

Dad kept bragging to me about our mulberry trees. We have two mulberry trees that grow in what we call the "river pasture". It is a highlight of our summer to go park the Mule under it and climb around to eat mulberries. Usually you have to hunt a little bit, but not this year. I hadn't been down there until today. Holy mulberries! There were a ton! On one tree there are literally more mulberries than leaves. I thought the tree was partially dead. But when I got closer, that third of it was just covered with unripened mulberries and no leaves. I have to say...this was some good eatin'!

After the storm Sunday night, these little guys made an appearance. I have never been around puppies from birth and they have already stolen my heart. I can't wait until their eyes open and they are waddling about and giving me puppy kisses all over!

Lord, we praise you for all of this abundant life-giving rain you have been blessing us with. Thank you for trusting us to be good stewards of these blessings and we pray that we treat your land and those blessings with the utmost respect and care. Amen!

And......

this is what you look like when your hand slips off the bucket (causing it to fling stuff back at you) while cleaning black muck out of the tank. We got an inch and a half of rain last night, so I had to bucket more water out of the tank.

My arm took the brunt of it, but I still managed to get some on my face and ear. At least my farmgirl instinct reminded me to close my mouth before it got in there! Let's just say...I smell awesome! But if this is what I have to do in order for us to have rain, then I will gladly take it.

Just some fun

Most of the people at our farm don't really enjoy the task of cleaning out a tank. For some reason I don't mind it all that much. Maybe it is because I'm used to the stench of rotting stuff in a tank/pool. When we were younger we had to help clean out our above-ground pool every summer. It was a pretty raunchy job.


Anyway, I had a little fun today. Makes it seem much easier ;-) It actually took about an hour. Now we have to let it dry out and then we will try to clean some more out before filling it back up with water.