Bittersweet Endings

I know it's almost pointless to begin blogging again a week and a half from the end of my internship but I will anyway...

Everything has been flying by. We've finished first cut hay making which is a long process to learn. You have to mow with the discbines first. Then you Tett the hay to spread it all out behind you. After it dries then we rake it into wind-rows, bail it, and pick it up with the stinger. It takes about 2-3 days if the weather cooperates, and if it doesn't sometimes the bails have to be wrapped because the moisture content is too high. If you make dry bails like this they can overheat and start a fire once their stacked.

Cows have been hectic. Before we started breeding we were moving camps around at least every 2 weeks. As soon as July hit the pink eye started to be a problem. We treat with a cream, a powder, and cod liver oil. Sometimes we have to patch them.

5G has been having health issues lately. She loses weight like crazy, and has a problem foot so she has trouble going for water. Her baby's hanging on, but it's a little rough. Sometimes we have to pick her up with a crane to get her up for water. Today I even got to give her a jugular IV. It was kind of tricky but pretty cool.

Yesterday and Today

Yesterday I spent the majority of my day pulling weeds out of Barbara's patio. I know - exciting work for a horticulturist, no? Well, I know friends working for botanical gardens where that's pretty much all they do. I guess I can't feel so bad about it.

We moved the big herd of cows in the morning and then Emily and I continued to work on the patio and she mowed the lawn.

Today I was with Nikki to work with cows. She taught me a lot of the grasses and common weeds and we moved a bunch of the dry cows to new homes. After lunch we bushwacked through the dry cows' new home to try to find them some water. We were, however, unsuccessful so we had to begin the long and complicated journey of getting them some water. Long story short, it ended with me soaked sitting on top of her pick-up. The cows got water in the end.

I also am beginning to pick out my project topic. Marco said that each intern has to do a project or long paper by the end of the summer. I think that I'm going to do something on the weeds and grasses on our farm and what they indicate about the soil and/or environment that their in. It'll be a kind of weed identification and analysis paper or powerpoint. I think it'll be interesting, and it will allow me to walk the fields which is something that I like doing.

(a wild hemp that grows in random ditches)

Failure at Blogging

So I realize that it has been almost a week since I have updated this blog.

The middle of last week rolled past with blazing heat and muggy days. I spent an excruciatingly hot day cleaning up the grape patch. I didn't see it then, but boy do they look a lot better now. I learned how to ride the zero turn mower and it was a lot of fun. I really like working in the vineyard and with the orchards.

Later on in the week I spent a lot of time working with machines, and some time moving cows. None of it was particularly exciting - but hey, that's life.

This weekend I brought Emily to the beach with me. We had a really good time, and it was relaxing but the drive would not be worth it just for a two day weekend.

It poured today at work. We ended up getting out at 3:30 because the weather was so crummy. I almost felt guilty for leaving early because I felt like I could have still found work to do. Scott told me not to feel guilty, because we won't later in the summer when we're working extra hours just to get everything finished.

I spent a good majority of the day working on the New Holland diskbine. I windexed the whole thing and then we grease gunned both discbines after that. We tightened some of the nuts under the turtles and then Scott taught me how to drive it and then we realized it was broken. Whoops. It was a long day and everyone was dead tired. The smoke alarm went off at like 3am and everyone seemed to have issues sleeping. Oh well. Whatever happens happens.

It'll be bed early tonight to compensate!

Pickin' Stones

Today I was with Ed and Scott all day. First me and Ed filled up the service truck with 200 gallons of diesel. 

Then we went down to the barn plaza and he showed me how to drive the backhoe and the telehandler. Ed took a bunch of pictures of me. 

Field 52 had to be picked so that we can plant it tomorrow. I learned how to drive the telehandler and put the stone bucket on it so that scott could drive around and put all his huge rocks in my bucket. I'm just happy that my tractor had a radio in it. 

After we finished up with that we moved a whole bunch of grass seed from the machine it was in into the broadcaster to be used tomorrow. I filled up the whole thing by scooping it with a 5 gallon bucket. It felt like a long day. 

After work we all went down to the quarry and took a bit of a dip. It was a great way to unwind and cool down after work. 

Weekend

This weekend was pretty fun. We did cow check on Saturday morning with Scott and his girlfriend. She was really nice and the check was pretty uneventful. Unfortunately, even though Scott didn't come to get us until around 9 I still woke up at 6 out of habit. After we got back, Isaiah, Emily, and I went to the wrong dump to get rid of our trash. For a moment I half understood why Sandy mutters about inbreds. We finally figured out where the right dump was - this one was a little less sketchy. After that great adventure we went up to Plattsburgh to see Robin Hood and go to Wal-mart. I spent way too much money on food, and we bought 3 gallons of milk between the 3 of us (1/2 of one already gone). We even watched a movie last night when we got home. It was super productive day. 

Cow check this morning went well. Summer didn't get up for it, but Emily and I went like we had planned to. LP35, LP23, and H510 all had sore feet this morning when we checked and  water basin was completely empty/broken so we had to fix that. Sandy flagged us down on the way and asked us to have a meeting afterwards. He pretty much just wanted to check in and chat with us. Afterwards, Emily and I drove about 5 miles up the road to go tubing. We went down the river for awhile and then came up on a bunch of people. What we stumbled on was Little Falls. Everyone was cliff jumping and hanging around and it looked like a ton of fun. Emily and I both jumped off of one of the cliffs a few times. It was probably the most fun part of the day. It took us 4 hours to get down the river - but it was well worth it to get out and do something instead of sit around outside. 

It most definitely does NOT feel like Sunday. Saturday felt like Sunday, and Sunday feels like Saturday. Go figure!

Another Cow Day

Today was another cow day for me. 

Emily, Summer, and myself were with TJ for the whole day moving and treating cows. We moved the steers (big and small) from the fields that they were in to 2 fields right across the gravel road. We had to do some running around to get them there, but that was okay. They were happier in the tall grass for it. 

We moved all the weeners into their perspective fields. My favorite little girl, TH15, managed to escape almost as soon as we put her in the field with Barbara's ladies. We had to chase her twice before we could to drop off the little boys. That took most of the morning.

After lunch we made a fence line for the bulls and trailered them up and brought them over to their new home. T-bone, however, did not want to go in the trailer. We spent the better part of an hour chasing this bull around. He must have jumped the electric fence at least 6 times. Finally we had to call in reinforcements and we got them in. 

Lastly, we treated the usual suspects down in the 5 acres. 5G and S29 are doing much better. S25 is walking better as well so that is all well and good. I'm getting better at sticking the tube down the cows throats to give pills. However, poor S10 is probably going to die on us tonight. She came down with a bad case of pneumonia a couple of days ago and is only getting worse. We gave her an IV of glucose, banamine, and B complex, but when we left she could barely prop herself up laying down. I guess we'll see in the morning. 

This is Emily kissing 5G, her cow!

Almost There

It's almost weekend! 

Today didn't seem long at all. In the morning Isaiah and I went down to the river (field 64 with the reject cows if you remember) and planted the rest of those dogwoods and bayberries. All in all we planted about 200 trees to help the hill from eroding into the river. It was a good couple hours work in the dew and the mud but it was pretty fun. I almost got sucked into a huge mud bog but luckily Isaiah pulled me out!

After that, Isaiah went to help TJ and Summer change out the windows for screens in the Grandview house. While they did that Marco let me play around in the vineyard. He told me that all 300 of their grape plants are Table Grapes. They have reliants, a sweet, pink grape; Canadice, a very cold hardy black grape; and Concords for jams and jellies and juices. He showed me how to prune them and then how to use the tape gun to train them to go on the little cordy thingies the right way. After lunch I continued to work on it with Isaiah until the day was almost over. Granted, I broke the tape guns like 60 times so it took forever, but oh well. It happens. 

Later, we treated the usual suspects. 5G had a pretty high temp today, but was good and cleaned out. S29 was fairly clean. She got her uterus sewn shut and her infected udder cleaned out, too. S25 is walking a little bit better today and she's not running a fever at all and the (ex) bull is just... well-himself. 

It was overall a pretty good day.