Farming--why bother?

I've been so overwhelmed with farming this past month and it's not only me. Comments like, "That's why people get out of cattle," or "Why doesn't it just warm up?" or "Will YOU please go check the cows?" are common place with nearly 200 head of cattle to calve out plus 2 grain cleaners running long days and the weather being so gloomy..............................

This morning everyone was OUT of little patience and every one was walking around mumbling to themselves or each other if someone would listen and I asked myself again, "Why am I doing this?  Why are WE doing this?"

What I'm saying is that the concept that there are hungry people in the world who need the beef that we're trying to keep alive just doesn't cut it today. Then God led me to this video. I thought, "If only city people could grasp how much we go through to bring them their food, then maybe somebody would appreciate us a bit."

So I share this with the hopes that at least one person will really listen to it--I mean REALLY listen to it.  In case you think this is an exaggeration, it is NOT.  This is the life of the farmer!  I know because I'm the daughter of a farmer; I'm the wife of a farmer; I'm the mother of 3 farmers; PLUS I am a farmer.  This is my life and sometimes it's a plain old pain in the rear.

I'm praying that you'll think about it and say a prayer for farmers who, besides all that he mentions in this video, risk their lives to deal with mad mamas as we try to help their helpless newborns get out of the mud..........................

I guess, if you haven't lived through calving season, you probably can't grasp the despair that sets in after seeing one or two dead bodies in the mud and snow.  All I ask is that you think of us once in awhile, when you're eating your burgers or your steaks or your roasts, and thank God that some farmer somewhere did the work that brought you that beef because sometimes it's pure hell out here--pure hell!

Weary,

Dawn

BIG NEWS

I realize that this is probably the slowest posting in the universe! I have been meaning to finish this post about our trip to Georgia this summer for months!! However, I've been so busy with the farm; the garden; building LINKS TO HEALING; the animals (both ours and those who call for advice) and now home schooling. However, something has happened recently that has inspired me to return to the joyous days that Jacob and I spent there. That something is BIG NEWS to me so finally I will finish the story.

"Look fast, or you'll miss it," came to be our joke as we drove through downtown Lakemont, Georgia on our way to class at the dome 3 times a day. This picturesque little town is so small that you could miss it if you blink and yet unforgettable for it's historic appeal.

One of the most memorable rooms that I have ever been privileged to enter was the library at Kelly Research Technologies. This is the room where our class was held. Not only was it crammed with books on all sorts of natural healing modalities, it held radionic treasures from the past that one cannot find anywhere else on earth. If you ever get within a thousand miles of the dome, take the chance to go and check out this library! This is about 1/4 of it.

Viewing the class from the second layer, Jacob took this picture of me during one of our breaks. Jacob loved going upstairs to visit Cathie in her office or Ed in the BETAR room.

Even though I had taken a one day class on radionics up here several years back, I still was lost most of the time. What a blessing it was to have Jacob sitting next to me as my brain tried to wrap itself around this technological wonder. I was so glad that I had developed my intuition through the upper level modules in BodyTalk before I took the class so that I wasn't completely lost during our 4 days spent at the dome.

You cannot imagine Jacob's joy to find himself so welcome at the dome. He is a natural radionics operator and a favorite of both the instructor and the owner of Kelly Research Technologies. At the end of the class, the instructor remarked, "How I wish that I had gotten started at age 14!" It made Jacob realize what a gift he's been given.

Oh, what would an office be without an efficient, capable, friendly, helpful, intelligent... secretary holding the place together? This is now my friend and advisor, CJ. Cathie was open to receiving a free BodyTalk session as my love gift for all that she had done to pull the class off. She left that night with far less pain in her arm and she was impressed with BT. Later we traded one of her machines for BT sessions and we BOTH have been very blessed as a result. Jacob is already saving his money to go to the dome again next year and so am I. I am eager to see this smiling face again!

Using my radionics machine on a daily basis has removed my doubts about it's effectiveness. Many nights I put my picture in the input well, when I have that aching pain in my neck and shoulders. I set the machine to the rates that I need; go to sleep; and wake up refreshed and pain free! Now that is the life for me!!!!! Thanks so much, CJ, for the trade!!!

Choosing to take care of my needs, instead of ignoring them, has been a wonderful change of thinking. Each session that I do on myself makes it easier to do as I get rid of those old thoughts from childhood that I don't deserve to be happy. My continual healing has led to a new view on life. Things that used to seem insurmountable, now seem like opportunities--most of the time anyway.

Here is an example. Last week we received the newsletter from KRT (Kelly Research Technologies). In it I read that they are producing a product which repeats the affects of the BETAR machine for a fraction of the cost. I got all excited. You may recall my sharing how wonderful I felt after Ed had given me a free ride on their Master Edition BETAR machine. Now I can give this effect to my clients!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ready to share my "New" discovery, I found Jacob and told him excitedly, "Now they're making BETAR in a box," and showed him the article. He stared at me and said, "Mom, I told you about them when we were in Georgia! We stood right there while they were making them." WHAT? How could I have missed this information completely?

Intrigued by the idea of sharing these with everyone I know, I sent Ed an email. I asked him if I might purchase the products in bulk. Everyone I know is over-stressed and has a hard time relaxing. Many of my clients tell me that they can't sleep without a sleeping pill. These little boxes help reduce people's stress by emitting sound waves that help them to relax or sleep. You must imagine my surprise when Ed wrote back offering me the opportunity to become a BETAR dealer!

Surely you can imagine how a home school mom, who has "ALWAYS" been determined to stay at home and let the world go on without me, would feel when this opportunity came along. A thousand reasons popped into my head why it is just impossible for me to take on "One more thing."

Still, when I pondered that for only $125 a person can have a tool to help them relax or sleep for the rest of their life. I know well enough that stress is what almost killed me in 2006 and how many of my clients are very ill because of their inability to cope with all of the stressors in their lives. How much is it worth to be able to rest thoroughly each and every night?

Can you guess what I decided to do? Yes, I wrote to Ed after a lengthy discussion with my family and told him that I would like to know the details of what it takes to be a BETAR dealer. When he sent over the contract, I at once knew that this is what I wanted to do. I had been nervous that I may have to buy X dollars worth of product to get started, or so much per month, but there was nothing of that.

I gladly wrote back to Ed and told him that I accept and THAT is my BIG NEWS! Now I have to get a sales tax number and then I'll be ready to start. Being I'm now writing on Andrew's computer, I can't get the website address to share with you, but I'll do it soon. I can hardly wait to get one of these stress-reducers for myself and I just know that there is not a person on the planet who wouldn't benefit from owning one. If you're already wanting one, please let me know so that I can order one for you right away when I put in my first order.

God is so amazing how He leads me and I am happy to share my other big news now too. You who read my children's blogs, though, already know that God has blessed me and I have been able to move into a much larger office in Bismarck. I loved my first office but it was a bit crowded when family members came along or when clients came early for their sessions.

Little is nice but big is better in this case. Soon I will post a picture-full epistle of the move and the wonderful new wall the men are building for me so that I can have complete privacy when I'm working with my clients. It's going to be so nice when it's finished as I picked out the most lovely upholstery for the wall on Tuesday.

I had thought about including all of the pictures that I've saved up from that project but this is getting long already. Please pray for me to know exactly how to furnish the room as I want it to be a sanctuary of peace for all who enter within it. Yesterday we spotted some awesome chairs for the waiting room on Bis-Man online but I haven't heard back from the man yet so they may not be the right ones.

Another big news item for our family is that we recently completed a month-long project. In order to direct market our grains, we needed to design a logo and a label which summarizes how we feel about our grains. Did you ever try to put 5 people's ideas into one small picture? One person would like SEEDS OF HONOR (the name of our organic farm) in red; another in blue; another in brown. One wanted a combine to symbolize our farming operation; another a wheat field; another a bag bull of grain.... Finally we settled on a grain bag and then on to designing our label.

Nobody seemed to have any strong ideas about what to put on our labels. We knew that we needed to have our logo on the label along with many other things which our certifying agency insists upon. We were stumped by this for several days until Robert hit upon the idea of using the picture of our farm as the background. He had taken this picture from the airplane on our trip home from San Francisco. After that everything fell into place and we submitted our very own label to International Certification Services for approval.

Only another family farmer could know the joy and pride that filled our hearts yesterday morning when we received the email stating, "YOUR LABEL IS APPROVED FOR USE!" We're going to sell our wheat in my office, you see, along with everything else that the Lord brings to me to share with folks to build up their health. It's all such a wonderful dream come true!!!!! So you see, I really DO have big news to share with all you whom I love tonight! I hope that you were encouraged to know that the Lord has been doing wonderful things in the Bornemann family.

Good night now everyone! Keep checking back for pictures of my new office and our new label! Behold God maketh all things new!!

Dawn

PS. Have I mentioned about how wonderful I've been feeling since I got my SunSplash from Dr. Mercola? Many who have seen me since I started using it 2 weeks ago has commented how much more health and vibrantly happy I look. Isn't sunshine wonderful?

Headed South

On Tuesday Robert and I headed south for a long drive in the country. We were heading for Organic Pastures Diary Company who market raw milk to their local grocery stores. It's a totally awesome concept for us to ponder people selling raw milk to their grocery stores but it was wonderful to think that SOME people have this freedom. Who knows, maybe thousands of North Dakotans will some day demand their right to drink the kind of milk that they want and insist that our legislators give it to us too!



I took a couple of pictures of the highway system on our way out of town. It absolutely amazes us how much traffic moves around out here and how quickly. :) Like Robert says, "It's built to handle lots of traffic," but sometimes it's piled up 3 layers deep!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

An overhead layer.

Finally, after about an hour, traffic thinned down to this. We started driving through foothills which Cora had labeled on our map, "Beautiful country." It was beautiful but it was very sad to see how dry everything was.

Eventually we entered the rich, fertile farm ground of the San Juaquin Valley. It was a different kind of agriculture than we have ever seen as everything is flood irrigated. If they didn't irrigate, the crops would look like the foothills did and everything would shrivel up.

I had never seen cotton growing before so I asked Robert if we could stop and I could get a closer look. I was amazed at how much cotton one plant could produce. There was one bowl that filled my hand and each plant had up to 50 of them of various stages of development. That's a whole lot of cotton from one little seed. Praise the Lord for His magnificent ways of caring for the needs of people.

We were amazed to see almond farms and miles upon miles of grape vines. These are things that we had only read about in books, but now here they were--totally awesome.

We were puzzled as there were many of these trucks with pups moving all over the countryside. At first we thought that they were full of red potatoes but, on closer inspection, we were sure that the produce was too red for potatoes. Then we thought that they were apples but, finally we got close enough to see that the trucks were bringing in the abundant harvest of TOMATOES. Further along we saw the massive plant were they were taken to and I said to Robert, "It's the Enderlin of tomatoes."

Finally after 3 and half hours, we made it to the dairy. We got a tour of their processing plant which is made out 2 old reefers. We actually burst out laughing when we saw their huge separator disks so I had to get a picture of them for you children.

Here is our tour guide, Callie. She's the daughter of the owner and this is their portable milking system. As you can see, the great outdoors is just outside of these walls. They milk 20 cows, out of their 400, at a time and have portable milk tanks to haul the milk back to the farm.

After drinking some of their fine milk, and buying some colostrum, we started the long journey back to the city. I took this picture of Robert, as I had taken one of him 30 years ago on our honeymoon, and I wanted a repeat. I don't think he's changed a bit.

We stopped at a farmer's market out in the country. He bought grapes and I bought almonds. We couldn't resist taking a picture of this sign but we COULD resist buying some.

We stopped at a Wall Mart before we came home. We needed some warm jackets for when we go whaling and also picked up another piece of luggage for our trip home. We're picking up some things out here, to remember this wonderful time with for years to come, and it's clear to see that we won't get everything back in the same bags that we came out here with.

It was the first time that we drove in the dark out here so we were pretty pleased with ourselves when we arrived back home safely. We've been telling ourselves that we'll have to do it sometime as on Saturday night we're attending the OPERA!!!!!!!!!!!!

Being Robert's tooth had started hurting during the day, and he was pretty wiped out from driving 7 hours, I gave him a BodyTalk session. Yesterday he was up and ready to go again, and I'm gaining on this cold with the help of the colostrum we bought at the dairy, so I'm very happy that we took this loooooooooooooooooooooooong journey out to see some cows. :)

Best take my shower as today will be another day filled with fun and adventure in this gloriously, beautiful place called California. THANKS A MILLION TO CORA, ANDREW, AND JACOB FOR GIVING US THIS TIME TO FOCUS ON US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Two Miracles

As Cora has mentioned on her blog, we are pushing hard to get 360 acres harvested; the ground worked; the drill filled with a special mix of cover crop seeds; and then the ground seeded before September 20th--which was yesterday. As Cora mentioned, the rainy weather has caused lots of problems for us as the 20th approached quickly and tensions mounted around here.

Then late last Friday, as I pushed hard to get the 50 acre field disked up for seeding, it started snowing. Yes that's right, I said, "SNOWING". I was so distraught as I knew that this spelled the end of our goal being met. Further, my heart sank as I thought of all of our wonderful tomatoes back home in our garden meeting their end under snowbanks. ):

I called Cora quick (we were working 30 miles away) to check if it was snowing at home too, hoping that it wasn't. When she said that it was, gloom settled on my heart which is unusual for a Friday night. I love Friday nights, as it is the start of the Sabbath, and it is the night that our family feasts on the feast of Sabbath in our freshly cleaned home.

Well, the gloom continued all weekend with the damp weather although the snow melted off quicly. Yesterday morning we all gave up hope with 2 fields left to do the whole process on--there was no way that we would meet our goals. When I was on the phone with one of my clients, though, she encouraged me. She said, "It'll work out somehow, you just wait and see." I wanted to believe her, but it was just too dark for me to see that at the time.

Then we went out to the garden to pick the tomatoes. On Sabbath I had gone to the garden as soon as chores were over and found that the tomatoes were NOT frozen. I will not ever be able to understand how the Lord sent snow but preserved delicate tomatoes. It's nothing short of a miracle! PRAISE GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So yesterday, because it was too wet to combine, Andrew was doing the disking and I had time to work on my harvest. As Cora, Jacob, and I picked the vine-ripened tomatoes, I marveled at the goodness of God to us. I didn't loose my tomatoes after all--certainly He would make a way for us to meet our deadline! I kept praying for Him to move their hearts to give us an extension on the deadline as considerable money is involved.

After we picked the tomatoes, onions, peppers, and the rest of the apples that had fallen off of the trees, I came into the house and called Robert. That was when he told me that he had talked to someone in the NRCS office and that they had given us a FIVE DAY EXTENSION! PRAISE THE LORD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now for the nice weather to proceed with the work. I covet your prayers for this. Also I covet your prayers for my office day today. I have 2 brand new clients coming in PLUS some of my favorite "Old" ones. It'll be a busy day, and I REALLY need to get moving here, but I just HAD to share the 2 miracles that the Lord blessed us with recently. Being a child of God, and experiencing His miracles on a daily basis, is the most wonderful way to live. I HIGHLY recommend it to all. :)

Hugs to all of my faithful friends out there. Please forgive my heavy post last time, but hopefully you can understand better now why my heart was so burdened. I love you all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dawn

Master Cleanse 4 ~ Day 2

Today was MUCH better. If anyone was praying for me out there, I bless you for it, It's unusual for things to get much better until after the first 3 days. Typically there's some pain as you release toxins through the cleanse. The first 3 days are the most painful as the body adjusts to living without food. It makes me wonder how many of you were praying for me as I was totally not expecting it to be better yet. Now, this does not mean that I'm hoping you won't pray for me tomorrow. :)

I got to turn windrows this morning in the alfalfa field. I JUST LOVE HELPING WITH HAY MAKING!!!!!!!! Being these windrows were rained on, they needed to be turned so that they'd dry out before baling. The smell of freshly mown hay is one of my favorite smells, so I was enjoying myself thoroughly. THEN THE WIND PICKED UP. It started blowing the lighter windrows all over the place, after I turned them with the wheel rack. I had to quit then and I made lunch which was ALSO appreciated.

I did 3 Bodytalk sessions for clients after lunch. I so love helping people in this way and it is healing for me as well. When I can see someone come to peace with something that they've struggled with for decades, it gives me the courage to keep working on myself. Every once in a while I think, "I don't need any more BodyTalk." That's when the Lord shows me some sin in my life, or some weakness, and I realize that He's still working on me. :)

Well, I decided to ask again if anyone would like to go on the Master Cleanse with me. If you're interested, please spend a little time at the website listed on my sidebar. If you decide to do the 10 day cleanse, you'll be a little bit behind me but many people do it for 3 days or more. It would be so nice to know that I am taking care of my health in this way with OTHERS who are feeling called to do so.

Anyway, this is what you do. If you're going to do the cleanse for 10 days, you need to prepare your body for it in this way. One day you eat a full meal and drink the lemonade (recipe to follow) for the other 2 meals. The second day you eat a large salad or veggies or fruit for one meal and drink lemonade for 2 meals. The third day you drink fruit or vegetable juices for one meal and drink lemonade for 2 meals. From there on out, you drink the lemonade for all 3 meals. You eat NOTHING for the 2 days that you are on the cleanse. Then, for 3 more days you come out of the cleanse slowly by reversing what you did going into it.

I have done this 3 times now except that I drank the lemonade for 15 days instead of 10. Keep in mind that I had a major health problem that I was trying to help my body to overcome. Many people only do this for a few days and reap the benefit of overcoming minor troubles that they have struggled with for years. After the third cleanse last year, my brain was almost completely healed from the shingles on it!!! I was soooo happy as I never dreamed, even with BodyTalk, that my brain would be able to recover from the nightmare it endured in 2006--2007.

Now I press on with the hopes that my memory will be completely restored to me. Also I pray that the pain in my neck and shoulders, which have been my constant companions for the past 4 years, will completely disappear. I can tell that the cleanse IS working in that area as there has been some pretty intense pain for a few days. Have I ever mentioned how I stuff clove capsules to deal with the pain?

Anyway, I urge you to ponder coming along with me, if only for a few days. This is a phenomenal healing tool. I would love to have you join me and it would make the days go more quickly for me if I would have someone to talk to about it. PLEASE be in prayer about this and, if you decide to do the cleanse, double please let me know so that we can keep in touch.

Here's the recipe for the lemonade by the pitcher. Fill your blender half full with warm water.

1.Put into it 1/2 of a large or 1 small lemon (organic is best but they're hard to find around here) which you have taken the outer skin off of.

2. Add 3/4 cup grade me organic Grade B maple syrup. I can recommend the place with the best price if anyone is interested. It must be Grade B because Grade A has had another processing which removes the nutrients that the body needs to sustain life for so long without food.

3. Add 1/2 teaspoon of the hottest cayenne pepper you can find. Mind is 140,000 heat units. If you can't find it that hot, then add more.

Blend these together and add warm water up to the top of the blender after it is mixed well. Drink this lemonade every time that you get hungry and the hunger goes away--IT REALLY WORKS!!!!!!

One also takes laxative herbal teas or does a salt flush (out for me now) to help the bowels to clean out all of the old junk which is contributing to poor health and pain. You can also drink any herbal teas to give you some variety, but the main source of nourishment is the lemonade.

As the cleanse progresses, you begin to feel better and better. There are always little bouts of pain or weariness, as the body releases toxins, but gradually these lessen and a pleasant healing sensation takes over your entire body. At one point I find myself thinking, "Why would anyone ever want to eat food?"

The e-book that I bought has great details included. I learned that it is best not to go over 15 days on the full cleanse, if you're trying to loose weight, as the body starts to go into starvation mode then and actually will start to put on weight. WHO WANTS THAT?

Well, I'm going to bed. It does make one more tired to cleanse so deeply. Then one MUST listen to the body and REST! I'm sure that all of you have read SOMETHING about resting for your health's sake--it too is a part of the Master Cleanse. So I bid you, "Good night" and I once again invite you to ponder if the Lord isn't urging you to come with me on this journey--at least part of the way.

Sleep well my dear friends,

Dawn

I DID get stuck

I'm going to start my post with some pictures of my favorite animal friends, although I won't write about them until the end of the post. Call me, "Lazy," but it gets so old dragging a bunch of pictures down the page half a mile. :)

This is our dog, Millie, who has been with us almost 2 years. She tries to help herd the cattle, but ends up in front of them somehow. We're working on it, though, as she has learned to come for a doggie bone almost all the time now.

Cora's aquarium is so aluring as one enters the world of under the water.

Cora's sweet Basset Hound, Millie also, whom she renamed, Lady. We are all in love with her ears.

A few of our turkeys and a chicken greeting each other, "Good morning," as they pass.

My sweet old, Clara, and me in the milking parlor a few weeks ago.

Mama and baby in the calving pen. This one needed a little help getting her calf out. The yellow tag means that she is one of Andrew's animals.

A lovely robin I spied in the tree by the deck.

Our little chicks we're raising after their mom hatched them out for us. We don't seem to have much success with incubators.

My very best friends, the goats!

The Holstein calves that we bottle fed last year. These animals, being they were hand fed, are very tame.

And now for my post.

I REALLY DID GET THE TRACTOR STUCK--and I was NOT very popular around here for it!

It happened late Friday evening. It was so exasperating as I had gone around 3 lakes during the course of the day. At each one of those lakes in the field I was working, I was able to keep moving that 300 horse power tractor less than 20 feet away from standing water. That morning had gone GREAT and I was so happy that I was strong and healthy and able to help with the field work.

I finished that 30+ acre field by noon. I was just in time to see our friend from South Carolina leave with our 1486 which they were renting from us to plant their field plots on their farm 8 miles from here. I waved a, "Glad to see you back in ND, Gaylin," and felt on top of the world.

After lunch I took a nap as I knew the 50+ acre field that I had hoped to finish yet before Sabbath lay ahead of me. I try not to do so much field work as bouncing around out there tends to be hard on my neck. When I awoke, I jumped in my, "Carriage" as Robert calls our 4890 Case "Big" tractor and drove south to do the field around the Kintyre curve. He usually drives the tractor up in front of the house for me; pops his head in the door; and says, "Your carriage awaits." :)

Storm clouds threatened our progress, but I started the field with high hopes of finishing it before dark if I would push hard. Robert was working across the road from me planting corn and I waved at him when our tractors ended up facing each other at the end of our fields. HOW ROMANTIC!

Once I got a big rock stuck in between the disc blades, but Cora and Jacob got it out for me as they were out there picking rocks out of the places where the rock piles were. They had the pry bar so I just let them help me out while I cleaned out the mud between one of the places where the scraper had broken out.

At first I tried loosening up the places where the big excavator had driven, but Robert said that we needed the chisel plow for that. After I gave that up, I did some serious praying that the Lord would send the rain around our field so that I could finish it before the start of Sabbath at sunset. He seemed very obliging too, as the storm moved to the North and I was bathed in Spring sunshine which lifted my hopes that I'd be able to finish the field.

Robert and I REALLY both enjoy finishing big projects before the beginning of Sabbath. However, it wasn't to be this time. You see, I came to this low place that looked rather dampish but there was NOT one drop of visible water standing in the field. I thought, "No problem, there's not even any water standing in this field." I charged through, with little difficulty although I did have to lift the disc a tiny bit. Little did I know that different soil types have different affects on tractor sinkability, but I was about to find out.

I was pushing hard and trying to estimate if I'd be able to finish up before dark. The fact that the field is cut away for the curve in the road, gave me a little hope. I didn't think about it much when I came back to the low spot in the field. I guess I should have. All of a sudden the tires started spinning and, when I lifted up the disc to help me plow through, NOTHING HAPPENED.

I kept going for a little while, unable to accept that I had indeed gotten that big beastly tractor stuck in a place where there was no standing water. "How can this be?" I asked the Lord. Gradually it DAWNED on me that I was REALLY stuck. I gulped hard; put the tractor in neutral; pulled down the throttle; and prayed.

"Now Lord, you don't REALLY mean to leave me sitting here like this, do you?" No answer. So I prayed for wisdom to know how to drive out of there and I put the thing in first gear and was positive that I would be able to drive out of there. Nope.

It took a lot of courage for me to call Robert, knowing how STRONGLY he wanted to finish his field before dark too. I was almost relieved when I got his voice mail as I very weakly left a message, "I'm stuck." Then I called the house but Cora and Jacob were out at chores yet. I left the same message there and called Andrew who told me that he had just left Linton and was 45 minutes away.

To make a VERY long story short, the guys all came out to the field to help their damsel in distress. They ended up having to unhook the disk and pull it out backwards. Without all of that weight behind, Robert was able to drive the tractor out of the slop. Then they re-hooked the disc and Robert drove the tractor and disc home.

But what was I doing during all of that? Well, it had become apparent that I needed to surrender the driver's seat to Robert. When I stepped down off of the tractor, the mud instantly sucked off one of my shoes. The next step I took, the other shoe also was sucked off of my foot by the mud. How lovely. Here I was a foot and a half deep in mud with NO SHOES.

By this time, it was dark outside. I drug myself through the muck over to where Jacob was standing a safe distance from the tow chains. I told him that I'd lost my shoes but we had no time to look for them as Robert and Andrew were trying to get the equipment moved around and we needed to stay away from them as they couldn't see us in the dark. It's kind of terrifying to be standing barefoot in mud with big equipment moving around you in the dark.

All in all, I was standing in the dark with no shoes and my feet and legs covered in mud for about half an hour. There was nothing to do about it as the loader tractor was needed to help pull out the disk and Robert was in the Beast. My feet were so cold and I was so miserable that I couldn't help but sob on Jacob's shoulder.

Finally, the tractor and disc were re-hooked together, on solid ground, so that we could have the loader tractor. Jacob took me home then and I have never been so happy to take a nice, warm shower in my life!!!!!!! I thought about taking a picture of my muddy socks but you can't really see anything but a big glob of mud. Jacob said, "I'd throw those out if I were you, Mom." I haven't wanted to touch them yet, so they're still laying in the entryway where I left them that night. They blend in pretty well with the rest of the entry way, as everyone is dragging in so much mud these days!

We were all VERY thankful that they were able to get the tractor and disc out of the mud hole that night as it's been raining ever since. In fact, we've had 4 1/2 inches of rain since then. When I am tempted to feel sorry for myself for getting a cold out of the deal OR to be mad at myself for not getting the field done that night, I just picture the tractor floating out there with all of this rain, and then I am able to find SOMETHING to be glad about.

So, YES, I DID get the tractor stuck. Thanks to the most ingenious men in the world, though, it now sits in the yard waiting for things to dry out so that I can go finish the field. I wonder if I'll see my shoes floating on the top?

What else is new around here? Well, tomorrow is my last day in my office on South Washington in Bismarck. I am soooooooooo excited to pick up the keys to my new office. I ordered some things for that office but I'm going to save the details until later when I can show you pictures of it. My office will go from a suite of rooms to just one 10 X 12 foot room. However, it is the same price as a fifth of the suite and I CAN HAVE ACCESS TO IT ALL THE TIME!!!! No more sharing the room!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I really do need to go finish my kombucha batch. Have I told you that I am in love with kombucha? I'm in the brain field you know. I mean it helps to have brains when I'm driving tractor but it REALLY helps when I'm doing BodyTalk sessions. Whenever my brain starts getting fuzzy, I drink some kombucha and it gets right back on track within minutes. It's wonderful stuff and I'd be happy to send anybody a free starter kit, but you'll need to pay the postage. Cora just sent 2 of them to her blogging friends and it cost over $9 to ship them.

Anyway, I am wondering if anyone has ever made kombucha with Apple cider tea from Bigelow? I'm going to give it a try as all of the ingrediants are warming and it smells heavenly. I'll let you know how I like it in about 10 days. :)

Other than that, my washing machine died yesterday; Cora's little buckling, Roger, has stolen my heart; everyone is out loading up scrap metal today as the guys are going to take up a load tomorrow and help me move into my new office; and we got an invitation today in the mail to Ben Dagley and Hannah Stover's wedding next month.

My truly BIG news, though, is that I took an animal communication class on Sunday with a bunch of BodyTalkers in Bismarck. It was an incredibly exciting experience to learn how to tune into the thoughts of Kris's 2 gorgeous cats. The Lord had a wonderful surprise in store for me, though, that has made me so happy ever since.

I'm sure all of you know how much I have been grieving the loss of my beautiful, Brown Swiss cow Clara! Well, I shared how I have been grieving Clara when Kris started to smile. You see, I had just assumed that Clara would be in someone's freezer by now so that is why I was totally stunned when she said, "Clara's still alive!"

"REALLY? How do you know?"

Kris smiled, "Because you can't tune into dead animals." DAAAAAAAAAA

She told me that she had tuned into Clara's frequency and found that she is still alive but going backwards with all of the rain and something else. "She's asking you to keep doing BodyTalk on her," Kris said.

I sat dumbfounded for a few moments. WHY HADN'T I EVER THOUGHT OF THAT????? If I can do distance sessions on people, why couldn't I do them on my dear, sweet Clara? Another DAAAAAAA.

That was when my tears of grief turned to tears of joy. Kris smiled at me and said, "You CAN keep in touch with your cow by doing BodyTalk sessions on her just like you did when she lived with you." OH FOR JOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She cautioned me, though with these words, "You will know that she is dead when you can no longer tune into her frequency." That makes sense.

I did a long session for my girl on the way home that night and short ones each day since. She's doing better now! You know how I know? I ask, "Are you feeling better, Clara?" I got a YES through our biofeedback technique that we use in BT.

Then I asked, "How much better? What percent?"

Yesterday she was 42% better than she had been on Sunday. Today I got that she was 92% better than she had been on Sunday. YEAH!!!!!!!!!!! GO, CLARA, GO!!!!!!

So you see, God wanted me to go to that animal communication class because he knew that the grief of thinking she was dead was too much for me to bear right now--especially since she ISN'T. I needed to be with Kris, who has the skills to tune in to all animals (she's been doing this for 6 years), to learn that I really CAN keep in touch with my girl through her daily BT sessions.

My heart is so much happier now as I see that the Lord opened my eyes to see the door that I had been using to care for my girl STILL EXISTS!!! I just have to do it from a distance, but what do I care. As long as I know that my Clara is well, I am happy. I'm not sure why I didn't think of doing that before, but I just assumed that she would be slaughtered immediately.

I do realize that only animal lovers would ever be able to grasp what I am trying to say here, but that's ok. I was with a room-full of animal lovers on Sunday, so I know that I'm not the only one who cares so intensely for our furry friends. Animals have always been the ones who loved me through the rough times in my life. Now I'm just thrilled to be able to return their love on a whole new plane.

Best get to the performance session that I'm doing for a fellow BodyTalker who is graduating tomorrow. It's my gift to her with the hopes that it will help her to be the very best that she can be on her special day.

Thanks for listening to my ramblings!

Dawn

I didn't get stuck

Well, I know that it's time for me to be in bed but I just finished a BT session on a pregnant client of mine who is due any day. My mind isn't quite ready to go from work to sleep so I thought I'd just say that I started driving tractor today.

Everyone is late here getting going with seeding as it's been so wet. I've never actually driven in a field where there was standing water the size of a small lake. Robert was out in the field picking rocks so I gave him a call and said, "I don't mean to sound stupid, but what do you do when you come to the water?"

His reply was, "Well, I wouldn't go driving through it unless you want to get stuck."

HMM. "Well," I asked, "how close can I get to it?"

Very matter-of-factly he responded, "That depends on the tractor driver."

Well, it didn't take long to figure out just how close was too close to the water. I was surprised that I could go right past the standing water when I was one disk width (24 feet) away. The next time I drove by the lake in the field, I was about 10 feet away from the water when suddenly my big wheels started spinning. OOPS

Quickly I lifted the disk out of the ground and prayed like mad. I turned sharply away from the water and rocked like a person does when you're in a stuck vehicle. Why do we do that? As if our little puny bodies could make a difference when a 300 horse power tractor is having trouble.

I'm sure it was the prayers and not my rocking that got me to solid ground after a little while of agony. I didn't go that close again and I finished around 10:00 by going all the way around the lake.

Robert had gone home to feed the cows and then he came back to pick me up. As I walked from the tractor to the van in the dark, I breathed in the wonderful smell of freshly turned organic soil. I was talking to Robert on the phone, as I had called him to ask some questions about shutting down the huge beast for the night. I said to my husband of almost 30 years, "Oh, the farm life is sooooooooo wonderful." He just grunted as he had been picking rocks all evening by hand.

I will be so glad when all of the rocks are picked but I'll tell you one thing. I drove through several places where there used to be rock piles and it was soo wonderful not to have to go around them. The railroad had to quit taking them for now so I did have to go around several in the field, but it's such a joy to know that there are not ANY rock piles in the quarter across the road. PRAISE THE LORD!!!

Well, my brain is starting to unwind now so I guess I'll say, "Good night." I'll try to get some pictures of the 4890 tomorrow. I miss my Andrew as he is off disking for our friend but it kind of tickled me to think that we were both disking today--just about 50 miles apart.

GOODNIGHT ANDREW! GOODNIGHT CORA! GOODNIGHT JACOB! GOODNIGHT ROBERT! GOODNIGHT EVERYBODY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A MIRACLE

Yesterday Robert came into the house with a GIANT grin on his face. Jacob and I had seen the Railroad pickup pull into the yard and Jacob had sent the man down to the Quonset where Robert was working on Andrew's grain cleaner.

Robert joyfully announced, "I think that we got rid of our rock piles!"

My heart skipped a beat for joy and then asked cautiously, "What do you mean?"

Robert laughed, "That man was from the railroad and they DESPERATELY need rocks for rip-rapping across Goose Lake."

Then he told us the details that the lake has risen and isn't safe to cross. The closest farmer who still had unburied rock piles wanted money for his, so they kept looking. Robert told the man that they can have all of the rocks they want with one stipulation--they MUST take ALL of the rocks.

The man told him that they didn't need all of them right now, but he figured they could find a place to stock pile the extras. You see, we don't want them on our property with their big equipment making a mess of our alfalfa fields more than once. They need to come in; take all of the rocks; and then get off so that the alfalfa can come back as much as possible.

Robert told him that he was thinking of burying them this Fall. He said, "Don't you bury those rocks," and they laughed together.

Rock piles are a pain to all farmers as they must be gone around, which takes time and slows you down. Also, it's almost impossible not to get caught up on at least one rock pile per field and then that damages equipment which costs $ to fix.

To the organic farmer, though, they're an even bigger pain. Weeds grow there as no tillage is possible on a rock pile (Jacob would say DA) and, of course, we don't spray. It WILL BE SOOOOOOOOO WONDERFUL TO GET RID OF THIS NUISANCE!!!

Well, the man left yesterday saying that he'd see what could be done about getting rid of ALL of the rocks. He just returned and said that it's a GO. I guess there is a train over by Braddock which they will not allow to pass through Goose Lake with the water level so high on the track. Last Spring one of their trains derailed there, so they're not taking that risk again. You may recall the post I wrote about that with pictures of our menfolk down by the spilt corn on the tracks near Kintyre. Anyway, THEY NEED ROCKS NOW

Robert said, "Go at it" so the man was going to call the boss and have him send the equipment down to our farm TODAY. We are thrilled that it will be so soon as at first he thought it may not be done for a month yet. Well, we need to get into some of those fields to seed them long before a month and they won't be allowed onto the fields after they are seeded.

This is a WIN-WIN situation, so we're all happy here. It would take us a lot of time and expense to bury those rocks. That's why it hasn't been done yet but now the good Lord has kept us from having to stick our energy and money into burying them. PRAISE THE LORD!!! This is a total miracle and we are sooooooooooooooooooooooo happy!!! GOOD JOB, GOD!!!!!

Keep your eyes posted on all of our blogs for pictures of the big railroad equipment working in our fields. It should be on it's very slow way as I write.

Later,

Dawn

Progress

Dear friends,
Our experience with the GMO wheat battle in 2002 was the beginning of our political involvement. I'll always remember that hot day in July, as our crops were drying up, sitting with 3 children all day as we listened to testimony from EVERY realm of life (except Monsanto's of course) how GMO wheat would destroy our farm economy!!!!! How well I recall our education THAT day! How well I recall our subsequent houndings of our congressmen in Bismarck only to hear the same thing over and over, "Republicans are NOT opposed to progress."

This was when Robert got busy and testified in front of the ag committee about how GMO wheat would destroy, not only our organic farm, but also our cleaning business. I am very pleased to announce that OUR REPUBLICAN SENATOR was the only one who voted against the introduction of GMO wheat. WHY? Because Robert took the time out of his very busy schedule to personally sit down with our Senator and show him that HE is representing US.

THAT WAS WHEN I GOT MY FIRST GLIMMER OF HOPE THAT WE DO MAKE A DIFFERENCE TO OUR REPRESENTATIVES.

To make a long story short, all of the other Republicans voted against protecting us from destruction. In other words, they IGNORED all of the expert testimony advising them of the dangers to our state and to our state's farms if they would not act to block Monsanto's moves to force us to accept GMO wheat pollen into our atmoshpere.

What happened then is that the group we were involved with, DAKOTA RESOURCE COUNCIL, got a grass roots campaign going. Through MANY people talking against this, Monsanto withdrew their campaign and WE WON. What this taught us was that a lot of people working together can even stop an international corporation who will use ANY methods to get what they want. What do they think they can take over the whole world and we're just going to lay down and and let them???????????//

So this morning, when I read this new release from Parental Rights.org, I was again greatly encouraged. We hear so much rubbish about big business and big government that it serves to make us feel small and insignificant. Can you see now that this is EXACTLY HOW THEY WANT US TO FEEL????????

Please take a few moments to sign the petition for the PARENTAL RIGHT'S AMENDMENT to pass. EVERY LITTLE PERSON IS A VOICE WHICH, WHEN JOINED TOGETHER, WILL BE HEARD!!!!!!!! Every person who can grasp this concept IS progress.


Turning America Back: What Brown's Election Means
One week ago, the unthinkable happened; the state of Massachusetts elected a Republican senator, and that in an election with a very high voter turn-out. Since then, we’ve heard countless pundits telling us precisely what Senator Brown’s election does and does not say about our nation. As a general rule, of course, no two of these pundits can actually agree.Regardless of what the “experts” say, it’s clear to us that Americans are simply tired of out-of-control government and even more out-of-control spending. We want less government, more respect for our money and our personal rights, and greater control over our elected officials. We’re tired of telling our lawmakers what we want, only to have them ignore us and spend billions of dollars on whatever they feel like anyway.We want to turn back to the days of limited government and strong personal responsibility. We want to get back to respect for the Bill of Rights, which preserves personal liberties by placing specific government limits into the text of the Constitution.

The proposed Parental Rights Amendment does exactly that. Our government federalized banks, then federalized the auto industry; it is in the final throes of a failed attempt (we hope) to federalize health care. But it is still in a position to federalize child rearing through court decisions and the potential ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. By prohibiting the government from intruding on parental liberties except in cases of abuse or neglect, the proposed Parental Rights Amendment mirrors the example of the Bill of Rights and turns back a government bent on control. Please click here to sign the petition to support it.
Action Item
We urge you to help in two concrete ways this week. First, pass the above message on to all of your freedom-loving friends and family members, and urge them to sign the petition at parentalrights.org. Second, pass the message along through Facebook, Twitter, blogs or bulletin boards, especially those you frequent and those connected with freedom organizations or the new freedom/Tea Party movement.
Together, let’s get the word out about parental rights. For many lawmakers, it was the last thing they heard before the din of Health Care drowned everything out. Let’s grow our list toward making it the first thing they hear in the ensuing quiet as well!
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To summarize my thoughts, I decided to share this quote that Jacob just read to me from Marian Wright Edelman,founder of the Children's Defense Fund. What do you think of this thought? "So often we think we have got to make a difference and be a big dog. Let us just try to be little fleas biting. Enough fleas biting strategically can make a big dog very uncomfortable."

GO FOR IT,

Dawn

Snow, Snow, Snow

This is a quick tour of the farmyard before Robert and Andrew cleaned snow yesterday morning. The deck was almost completely buried in snow after the 2 day blizzard on Thursday and Friday of last week.

Robert had to push snow just to get to the bale stack.

Here he's coming with 2 big bales. The stock cow herd gets 3 of these in the morning and 2 at night. The dairy cows and goats get them as needed.

This is my garden--can't you tell?

The wind blew the snow all around the van so that it was easy to get into it--once you got TO it.

Thanks, guys, for pushing all of that snow!

Here's the latest news on my dad. I called down to Eureka to the Assisted Living facility today and peppered the nurse with questions. The most important question I asked was, "Can we put Dad in here just for the Winter?" When she said, "Yes," I breathed the biggest sigh of relief that I've breathed since before mom died.

Well, then I had to run it by Dad and he, quite naturally, wasn't all that pleased. I reminded him that I am getting stressed with wondering if he's eating well and getting his meds on time. I made sure that he understood that it would only be for the Winter months. Finally he said, "Well whatever you children think is best, I'll do." PRAISE THE LORD!!!! It's amazing how things flow when I let HIM do the leading and I just follow in the direction that He is pointing.

So, tomorrow at 1:00, I'll be in Eureka looking over the room and helping dad to get through his assessment. Duard said that the doctor and nurses all think that this will be for the best, so I'm eager now to go down and make it just as homey as possible for Dad. I don't know if we can move him in tomorrow or not, but it won't take much to do so. The nurse told me over the phone today that people just bring the bare necessities, as the rooms are not very large, so we'll see what tomorrow holds. Please keep us in your prayers.

The next most exciting part of my day was that a classmate of mine from Eureka emailed me. She had read my ad in the Eureka paper about BT and is eager to learn more. We had such an encouraging talk just now, so I am glad that I took the time to run the ad. She even set up her first session in the new year, so I rejoice. Like I told Tanya at the Northwest Blade, the ones that I want to help the most are the ones from my home town. May there be many more from Eureka who will open up their hearts to BodyTalk in 2010 and beyond!

Sleepy,

Dawn

Cattle Working

Please note that I wrote another post this morning called, "Victor" which is underneath the "Prayer request" post. It was saved as a draft which I just completed this morning.

Working calves on a farm is something that most people typically dread. It's a LOOONG day for everyone involved and most years somebody ends up getting hurt because it's just tough to deal with so many large animals and have no bumps or scrapes. This year, praise God, we were accident free and the animals were very cooperative.

I suppose that I'll never be able to "Prove" that the Reiki that I did throughout the day had anything to do with the rather pain free experience, but then I couldn't disprove it either. That being the case, I will say that many times throughout the day, I felt the Lord urging me to do the decreasing energy part of Reiki to calm both people and critters down. One time Andrew came up to me chuckling and said, "So are you doing it the right way, Mom?" I laughed and said, "Yes Andrew, I am DECREASING their energy!" Animals get worked up when you start moving them around and especially when you take their babies from them. A little cooling down seemed to come in handy for them and US!!!

Things went pretty well all morning and we had 25 of them worked by the time that Jerome came to help us. Then I went in and made lunch and the guys, plus Cora, had half of the stock calves worked before they stopped for lunch. This is a picture of the operation. In the closest pen are the calves needing to be worked yet and to the left are the ones already worked. Back by the tractor is the head gate that they all had to get caught in so that we could give them their shots; ear tag the later born ones; and band the scrotums of the bull calves. The heifer calves got off easy but they yelled loud enough too when they got caught in the head gate. Isn't that like a girl. :)

A closer view of the calves waiting to be worked. When we started back in cattle about a decade ago, the buyers seemed to want the big boned cattle so we went into Charlais which are white. Then slowly over time, the buyers switched to wanting Angus cattle which are black, so we switched too. We still have quite a few of the light colored calves but are moving towards black as all of our bulls are Angus now. I noticed that when Robert culled the cows, he culled more whites than blacks so in a few years you'll see far fewer white calves in the mix. I like that we have a few red Angus cows too as it seems more colorful to have a variety. :) I can just imagine Robert's comment about that statement! It would go something like this, "As if I breed my cattle just for color!" :) I am entitled to my opinion, am I not?

Jacob had many jobs throughout the day. He kept the big bander filled with bands and he kept the syringes full. He handed us syringes and his dad the bander. Here he's loading the big bander which we use on the bigger calves.

Cora had many responsibilities too. She made the ear tags; put them in the calves' ears if nobody else was doing it; and covered the calves eyes while we gave the shots. We learned this trick from Jerome years ago. If a critter has their eyes covered, they settle right down and you can give them a shot without breaking your needle OR SYRINGE!!

Here Andrew is putting the ear tag in the calves' ear. That is something that I have never learned to do as it just galls me somehow. I can give shots or do the banding with the small bander and I even think that I could do the dehorning if I absolutely HAD to do it, but for some reason it just seems so awful to do the ear tag. One time I saw someone do it and they hit the vein and the calf bled something awful. I suppose that's why I gladly step aside here and let somebody else take the ear tagger in hand. Goodness, even Jacob has given his calves ear tags--come on, Mom, get with it. :)

Good job Andrew--not a drop of blood and he is now identifiable.

One of my jobs, which I learned as a girl at home on my dad's farm, is to keep a steady eye on the worked calves. One time then, I had noticed that a calf wasn't moving and I told my dad and brothers about it but they ignored me until it was too late. That calf had died because of a reaction to the shot and then they yelled at ME. ): One time about 10 years ago when Robert, the children, and I were working our calves the same thing had happened. Then I quickly put a large pinch of cayenne pepper in it's nose and mouth and it shocked his system so much that it brought him out of anaphalaxis. To this day, I keep cayenne pepper around when we work the calves just in case. So what would you think if you came up to this critter who had just had it's shots?

Well, he was ok and he stirred as soon as I got close enough to check to see if he was still breathing. I decided to take his picture to show you how they lay down after the banding is done. They're kind of stiff for a few hours to several days but then they're back at running.

We keep track of what we do with each animal and I am the official record keeper. Cora had the chart all ready to go for me so that was nice. :) We record the tag number; gender; color; size; presence of horns, and anything unusual about the calf. Maybe you can see that I was literally surrounded by animals all around me which I just love. I have always loved animals so I am so glad that I am a farmer/rancher.

Cora covering another calves' eyes so that he would calm down enough for us to do what needed to be done.

Andrew has been our official head gate operator for many years. In my opinion, this is the very WORST job of them all. He must slam the head gate shut at EXACTLY THE RIGHT MOMENT. Too soon of a slam and the calf backs out and slams into Robert who has just brought him up from the back--not greatly appreciated. Too late of a slam and the calf gets out the front without being worked--even worse. One ALMOST escaped but Jerome ran up and caught the calf. Robert and I grabbed the syringes; Cora put in the ear tag; and being it was a heifer (Praise the Lord); she was released in record time. GOOD JOB, ANDREW, for your excellent work on the head gate!!!!!!!!!!!

Here Jerome and Andrew are giving the shots; Jacob is handing the bander to Robert who is in the shoot ready to band this bull calf; and Cora is up in front holding the calves' eyes shut. After I recorded the details, I recorded the moment with Cora's camera.

Did I mention that the Lord gave us an absolutely gorgeous day? I was bent out of shape lots of times because it just wasn't coming together to get these calves worked earlier. We usually do it around the middle of September--not the middle of November!!! But the weather was absolutely wonderful with bright sunshine and NO WIND--a truly miraculous combination in North Dakota!!! Thanks Lord!!!!!!!

I kept trying to get a picture of Robert doing the banding inside the shoot but this was the best that I could get. Basically he slips the big band over the calves' scrotum; gives the bander a push which pinches the band together; then tightens the bander which puts only a little pressure on the skin; and cuts the band off of the bander. Over time this slight pressure cuts off the blood supply to the scrotum. Over a period of 2 months, the scrotum dries up and falls off of the body. This is soooooooooo much nicer than the way we did it when I was a girl. At that time, my dad would take a knife; cut open the scrotum; take out the testicles; squeeze the wound for a few seconds to stop the bleeding; put on some iodine solution; and release the calf. Now THAT was gross but there is no bleeding with the big bander so it makes the whole deal bloodless and much more pleasant. Of course, Robert is the one back there who could get kicked by the calf so Andrew squeezes the shoot so the calf can't kick and Robert squeezes himself into the shoot behind the calf. It's a good thing that he's on the slender side or it would be tough to get in there to do the dastardly job. :)

I kept trying to get a good picture of a calf coming out of the shoot but they're pretty fast which makes for blurry pictures. Here's the best one that I got.

This is a picture of my whole family. Andrew and Cora are working on the front end of the calf and Robert and Jacob on the back end.

Late in the day we finished with the stock calves. It was a happy moment when we were able to release all of the calves back into their mother's care. There was lots of bellering all day while the pairs were separated but there was TONS of bellering when we let the calves out as they all went in search of their mothers. It doesn't matter that some of these calves were half the size of their moms, it was a trying ordeal for them all and THEY WANTED THEIR MAMAS!!!

Note the size of this baby as he comforted himself with a little drink from mom.

After we turned the stock calves loose, we got the baby Holsteins out of the barn. They'd been cooped up inside all day, so that they wouldn't get run over and they were VERY happy to get outside again. I'm not sure if you would call them actually "Happy" to be run into the shoot, but after dealing with wild stock calves all day, they were a pleasant change for us. Here Robert and Jerome were giving a calf it's shots.

Here Jacob is leading one of the Holsteins back to it's pen. When we raise these calves on the bottle, they're just like pets. They would follow a person all over the place so it's an easy task to lead them. Trying to get behind and chase a calf like this is a disaster because he will just turn around and try to follow you and then you're going in the wrong direction. :) Jacob has always loved the baby calves on our farm. He was pointing out to Jerome his various calves. "That's John Wayne over there," he told Jerome. I added, "Yes, but Roy Rogers died." That's the facts of life--we lose some of the animals that God gives to us but most of them are very happy that they came to live at our farm. How do I know? because they wag their tails a lot. :)

We all chuckled when we switched to the Holsteins and Andrew asked Robert, "Say dad, do you mind switching to the front now? I'll do the back end." What this meant was that Andrew didn't mind doing the little calves banding now that dehorning was being done in the front. Typically stock calves are bred to be polled (hornless) whereas almost all Holstein calves have horns which need to be cut off. After Robert dehorned the calves, he put some blood stop powder on the spots on the head where the horns had been. This stuff is gross--if you even happen to be breathing nearby it, you'll be coughing for a few minutes.

Well, that's our calf working day in review. It was a wonderful day in the fresh air and sunshine working with my family and extended family (Jerome). I hope that you enjoyed the pictures and learned just a little bit about what it takes to work calves on a farm.

I thought I'd also mention, before I close, that yesterday I was in Bismarck and was with my dad when they discharged him from the hospital. I took him to his sister Dee's home and got him settled in for a visit there. He'll stay with her until after Thanksgiving. I'm thankful for that as his sister is a nurse, so he'll be in good hands. We're trying to make plans for dad's 80th birthday which is on December 1st too, so there's never a dull moment around here. Sharel and I decided that it will have to be something simple as Dad's not very strong yet.

Oh yes, I should say that he had an infection in the gall bladder area and Dee said that it was most likely in the area where the stints were in his surgery this summer. He looked very weak and tired but he was VERY glad to be out of the hospital. Somehow it seems that farmers don't take too well to being cooped up inside. :)

Blessings,

Dawn