New Roof- Bad Bull

Well, what can I say? The bull is no longer seeing me in a favorable light. After making sure my poor non-cow dog was securely in the barn, I went out to gather a few needed fence posts- the deer are decimating our corn silage bag. That goofy Jersey bull started following me again and when I turned around he was close enough that I poked him in the nose with a fence post. That, of course ticked him off and he decided I was the enemy. I had not yet realized this because the heifers had gathered up to me at that point and just getting to another post was difficult. As I was setting up the post puller (yes, there is a tool for pulling posts out of the ground) I realized the bull was after me and not in a warm and fuzzy, isn't he cute kind of way. He put his head down and came running. I moved the first time and then deliberately slugged him with the fence post. Just so you know, that isn't entirely an intelligent move. It just made him more mad. I got the post up and here he came again. Now, I was truly surprised when one of my Holsteins pulled a move straight out of his book. She ran in between us and knocked him on his butt. Hmmmm. Good girl. I think she gets a special treat. I always did like number 18. She actually stayed between me and the bull as I walked backwards to the gate back into the barn. I told my husband the next time that bull came after me, I was going to shoot him. He said I couldn't do that because we needed him to breed back the cows after they calved. Then he'd send him to market. We'll see. If he hurts me, my husband will shoot him. He said he'd be too gamey to put in the freezer because of the testosterone in his system. I'd enjoy the first bite anyway.

                         Sure he looks all innocent here. Jersey cows good- Jersey bulls, not so much.

                                          How would you like this coming at you?

                                                            Good girl! My protector.

  With all the corn still standing in the fields, why do they have to destroy the silage bag? Pretty sure I didn't bag it for the deer.


In other news... the barn roof that was causing a hold up on finishing the milk-house is finally done. Yay! The Roof Doctors out of Phillips, Wisconsin did a really good job and will most likely get the job for the other side next year. We also got a lot of the interior board done in the parlor. It's coming along, but too slow. Our son came last weekend and helped. This week the ceiling material (white tin) should be in so we can work on that next weekend. Help! I don't do heights and that parlor ceiling is really high up.

        

                                                                 Roof in progress

                                                   Roof done. It's a thing of beauty!

                    One of the walls. Still need to clean and paint some posts, but that won't take long.

Cow Punching and Barn Update

Cow Punching- Literally

My husband decided that since the cows I hand raised had been outside for a year and only come near him if he has feed (even then they stand back and wait until he dumps it out to go near it) that I needed to reacquaint the heifers with people.  I talk to them through the barn gate all the time, although for the most part they just ignore me, except for a couple of them. But that darn Jersey bull is a royal pain. He has taken to butting the ladies away from the barn and anyone who gets near them. So, I made friends with the bull.

First, I unloaded about fifteen bags (plastic burlap type) of feed into the feed bins (a/k/a metal trash cans with lids), and then I stuck my feed scented gloved hand out the gate as I scolded him for running off the other cows. He came at the smell and stayed for the scratching of the ears. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but now he sticks his head over a gate at the silo room when he hears my voice with an expression my husband describes as love struck. I told him I wasn't a cow, but he doesn't seem to care. I almost gave his nose ring a yank just to get him a little scared of me.

Flash forward a week and Chaos (the awesome companion Labrador retriever- not cattle dog) are out in the woods which are part of the cow's field marking dead trees before the leaves all fall off so we can make fire wood. She is wandering off and being older, she is going deaf and blind, and also having a penchant for chasing skunks, I was busy trying to get her to stay with me in case one was holed up out there somewhere. Next thing I know, I am surrounded by the cows and one love-struck bull. Everywhere I moved, there was that stupid bull! I kept a small tree between me and him in case he suddenly decided to charge and always moved backwards in order to keep an eye on him. Chaos finally decided to come to mama and she for some weird reason decided she was a cattle dog. Now, if she had been trained to move cattle I wouldn't have worried about it, but she isn't - she's a hunting dog, so I told her to get behind me when the bull pawed the dirt at her. She actually minded me and did it (trust me- there was a reason this amazed me). He wanted that dog bad. I finally reached out and just smacked him on the nose. "No dog! No dog!" I yelled at him. He actually looked disappointed. Hmmm.

I told Chaos to go home and she started that way, but hesitated when I didn't follow. I was keeping an eye on that bull as I walked slowly backward. There are a lot of holes out there and other cows, and I didn't think falling was a good idea. I was still taller than the bull and being on the ground could be dangerous. The cows finally meandered off, losing interest, I thought, and I was able to get to the pasture part of the field and we headed for the gate, not running because that could be trouble. Almost there and I hear the sound of hooves running. I turned around and those silly cows were running to beat the band to catch up. I held up my arms and yelled 'stop' and to my surprise, they did. Feet splayed out in front of them, they literally skidded to a stop- every last one of them. After I finished laughing at that ridiculous sight I backed up again, very slowly, because I was coming up on that very hot electric fence. I was too low for the dog to go under (and as stated before- I was not getting on the ground to do it either) and too high for me to go over. I got out my cell phone and called the husband. "Please turn off the fence for a minute so the dog and I can get out of the field. The cows won't leave us alone and the bull really wants Chaos." He asked what only once when he heard me belt that bull right in the nose. "I told you to leave that dog alone! Now leave us alone!" I yelled. He was crowding us to the fence. I heard my husband say real loud it was unplugged. I left the line open and pushed the wire down enough to get over it and then raised it for Chaos and then told him to plug it up quick. I knew when he did it because that bull hollered when he hit it.

I really don't think I want to go out there for a while. Maybe I'll carry a ball bat or something. I apparently am too good at making friends with the cows.

Now, onto the barn!

We finally have the siding up! I helped even though it like to have scared me to death once we got to the higher up part on the front. Heights and I do not get along. I got dizzy and nauseated. Yuk! But, it came out nice. We haven't quite finished the inside as we have to re-roof the barn first (it leaks into the new part- dang!) We are getting along on the parlor though. All the concrete work is done and we got the concrete sealer (garage floor coating) done yesterday. We still have to clear coat both the milk house floor and walls and floor of the parlor pit. I learned how to lay concrete block (foundation for the walls so the wood doesn't sit directly in water when we clean) and how to run a cutting torch (the steel grating for the guttering where the cows stand while being milked). I have epoxy in my hair, though nail polish remover got it off my hands and arms. I think I'll just let it wear off my hair; I just don't think acetone belongs on hair.

Pictures!

                                                        Siding going up- partially done

                                  Siding done! Yay! We had to push the bulk tank out to do the floor.

                          Some of my friendly cows! The bull cannot be disturbed for photographs.

Barn Update

We have made some progress on our barn project. The concrete is almost all poured. Some of it has to wait until other steps are completed. It is going way too slow, however, as my husband has done the majority of the work by himself. The help he had hoped to have is by necessity busy with their own farm work and I am at my factory job nine to ten hours a day. He doesn’t have the heart to bring me out there to help after being on my feet that long, but sometimes I don’t give him the choice and he doesn’t have a choice. He has to have help. We also have our own farm work that has to be done, like baling hay and putting up silage, building fence so the cows can go to other pastures, etc. As a result, he has lost about twenty or thirty pounds. At his old job he had become pretty sedentary and needed to lose that weight, but not all at once like that. He works in rain and in extreme heat. I’m not home to make him sit down in the cooler areas and rest and drink something so he is getting over heated. Is that a man thing?

We got the plastic sheeting on yesterday. The blew it all around me. Did I ever mention I'm claustrophobic. This was a problem!

(I did notice this morning that since he isn’t working that stressful job he retired from his hair that had gone almost all white is actually turning black again. He isn’t using any hair products either. How fair is that? I’m going grey and he’s going back to normal! Ugh!)

The weather has also been a factor. At first, we couldn’t buy rain, and the crops really needed it, even if it did interfere with building. At this point there isn’t anything he can do alone inside the barn (the parlor) by himself when it rains, so we need it to stop so he can do the outside stuff. We also really need to dry-in the milk house. We are going to put one of those chemical resistant garage floor finishing kits on the floor of both the milk house and the parlor pit (walls too in there) but the temperature has to be above a certain point and the humidity below a certain point. Now that the concrete that will be coated has reached the curing time needed, the rest is not cooperating. Some days it’s hot and others it’s too cool, but it keeps raining and the humidity is too high.

I helped put the underlayment on the outer walls and the plastic sheeting (to stop wind from getting through) on the walls and put the windows in yesterday. My brother-in-law came today so the tin is going up, albeit with difficulty because that wind is really cooking out there. Next will be the vinyl siding and the doors. Then, we can get down to the inside of the milk house and finishing that parlor. Yeah. Still, we at least a month behind schedule. That’s one more month for me at that factory I loathe. All I can say is it is a job. 

I’m taking a break to get some laundry done, so don’t worry; I’ll be back out in a few minutes!

In spite of severe vertigo in high places, I am going up and down a very tall ladder to hand tools and whatever is needed. I’m the gopher! 

 

Putting on the roof.

I also take cold beverages to the guys, because they won’t take a break when they need to, so I have to enforce some sort of safety. Speaking of safety…Yes, there is a reason I told my husband to keep track of all the nails that got pulled out during destruction of the old building and ones they drop or that get bent. I don’t want anyone to step on them, much less the dog who has no sense of danger until she lands on something that goes through her paw and that would just about kill me if she got hurt. Yesterday my husband comes in the house and declares he needs my help in the bathroom. I raised an eyebrow. Something was up. Yep, he stepped on one of those 16 penny common nails. It went right through the boot and into the bottom of his foot. Boot and all went right into the bathtub. He is on blood thinners due to three stress related heart attacks so I am panicking, even though I am trying to remain calm on the outside. Ever see arterial spray on one of those crime shows on T.V.? That nail hit a vein and it squirted something awful. His boot had about a cup of blood in it. We applied pressure using a clean but old (a/k/a didn’t mind throwing out) wash cloth and then I put a cotton ball treated with antibiotic ointment on it and taped it six ways from Sunday. A simple bandage wouldn’t do the trick, and it was right up where two toes meet the foot. After making sure it wasn’t soaking through the cotton ball, he actually put on a different boot and went back to work. *Writer shakes head* He is a tough old goat! He wouldn’t go to the ER of course, but we got it to stop bleeding. I would have really appreciated him getting a tetanus shot though. I’m going to keep a close eye on him, although I think once they show signs of the illness; it’s pretty much too late. This is why I’m so fussy (we’ll be nice and call it that) about safety. I even wear ear plugs when he’s running the power equipment or hammering on things- it makes my ears ring. We wear steel-toe shoes in case we drop something. They are awful evil things to wear, but necessary. Are you being safe while working on household projects?

 There used to be a grain bin here, but it rusted out and was in the way, so it had to go.

                           The old feed bin and a peek at the pile from the tear down. Gonna be a heck of fire one of these days.

Yes, I did brave the ladder and go as far as the trusses to get these shots. Hard to believe my kids used to sit on top of that old feed bin just look out at the countryside. They aren't afraid of much.

Darn Weeds

Weeds are persistent little buggers. I mulched my garden to within an inch of its life with several inches of old corn silage. We hadn’t used it in years and there were no weeds growing in it at all; not even corn. It should be free of weeds now; I should be sitting pretty with my huge garden and nary a weed – right? Wrong!

My gardens have always had a particular penchant for growing weeds in spite of many back-breaking hours pulling them up and spraying deterrents between the rows being careful not to hit the veggies I wanted. Of course you can’t get anywhere near tomatoes with weed killer, such as Round Up™ because it is related to a family of weeds it kills and they will be dead just being near it. I spent days working the soil, amending fertilizing nutrients into the soil, planting the garden (three times in some places that still didn’t come up- writer growls) and mulching the plants after they came up. I tilled fervently between the rows until the plants were big enough to mulch and hoed weeds between plants. I plotted where everything had been planted so I could identify the plants from the weeds. We got too much rain at first, hence the replanting, and not enough warmth, and then the rain pretty well dried up, but there is enough moisture to hold out for a few weeks before I have to irrigate. We had a couple of hot days where the plants really took off. And then it happened.

We began a building project that took most of the weekend every weekend when I had off work to do any real time consuming work. I couldn’t even get the lawn mowed until a couple of our nephews came to help on the project so that I had a few hours to at least mow the hay field, I mean the lawn. It rained every day, which made the grass and the weeds take off they were part of a race and within two weeks there were so many weeds I couldn’t find the garden. They came up primarily in the rows with the vegetables. They still did an excellent job of invading the mulch, but mostly they turned my vegetables into a jungle. I told my husband the lamb’s quarter (most prevalent) was edible; I should just harvest it and call it a day. He said he wasn’t a cow and would not eat it. Well, darn.

I spent hours pulling weeds and not making much progress. I filled bucket after bucket on the tractor and dumped them on what will be a burn pile from the tear out of the old building materials from the barn. I looked at the carnage that had once been my garden. They take as many good plants as they do other weeds because they have intertwined their roots with the good plants and their branches with the other plants’ branches. 

The weeds are still there, waving their leaves hello. If they could talk, they would be taunting me, “I thought you were getting rid of me! Hey, where’s the vegetables?”

Renovating a Barn

Several years ago we milked cows under a pipeline system. Let me tell you, while that is much better than hand milking and even what was once referred to as a step-saver system, it is still hard on the body. You have to squat between cows and attach the milkers to the cow's teats. This allowed for the cows to kick you if they wanted to, sometimes right in the head. A series of circumstances, including growing children who did not want to farm caused us to stop milking.

We opted to raise beef and dairy heifers which required bottle feeding powdered milk replacer and training them to eat feed and hay and drink water, just like we did with the dairy cows' calves. We also planted crops for sale.

Now we have decided to renovate that old barn and where was once a calf-raising room into a milking parlor. We had changed to using the milking cow's stalls and abandoned that section of the barn long ago. In the parlor we are building there is a central pit between two rows of cows where four cows can be milked on each side at the same time. More importantly, there is no getting kicked in the head or squatting under a cow. That is better on the knees and the old brain bucket!

In the years of non-use the milk house had been ruined from hard winters of heaving frozen ground that broke the concrete. We later discovered that someone had no only built it without a proper foundation, but on sand! This means the building will be razed, the original foundation broken the rest of the way and hauled away and all new concrete poured and a new building. Fun!

                                          Trying to pull up broken concrete pad outside the milk house.

                                           A large slab moved just to discover another one underneath.

                                                              The building coming down.

                                     It's gone! Now to demo the rest of that concrete and start over.
I rented a jack hammer this weekend. The guys at the rental center laughed asking if I was going to run it. Guess what! Yes, I did, and I broke a lot of concrete. Hopefully, weather permitting, we get the new foundation next week. Wish us luck.

                                                   Our ever present helper supervisor.