by Mary Anne
Barton County WIFE

November 1, 2001

Today is one of those days when everybody is going every which way.  It’s hard to tell at the end of the day just what’s gotten done and what’s been left for tomorrow.  The morning started with Dean and John putting in cattle.  It is getting really dry and the pasture grass is almost gone.  We have fenced off milo and corn stalks for the cattle but the deer often run thru the electric fences at night.  The calves are still crawling thru fences – even though we’ve fixed fence constantly all summer long.  After tomorrow, it should be better.  We’re bringing all the 2001 calves home and weaning them, leaving the cows to graze the stalks and grain left in the milo and corn fields until December or January, depending on the weather.

Cows in, it’s time to finish up some haying.  John is raking south of town until the hay gets so dry the leaves begin falling off when the rake picks it up to turn it over.  The wind is really starting to blow so that doesn’t help.  Dean is baling over west – making big round bales that weigh 1800-2000 pounds each.  This is the last alfalfa cutting for the year. 

Since it’s the first day of the month, there are paychecks to write and bookkeeping to get done.  Our blind house cat is missing the orphaned kittens.  We took them to the machine shed Tuesday afternoon after we had taken them to the veterinarian for their shots.  They’re happy out there but our house cat doesn’t know where they went.  It’s in and out all morning! 

Brad stops by with the 4-H club’s treasurer’s stuff.  His daughter has been the club’s treasurer for 2 years and now it’s someone else’s turn.  Dean and I are Community Leaders for the 4-H Club and both our kids are active in 4-H.  In fact, Julie was re-elected as President of the County 4-H Council at the meeting on Monday night.

Dean finished baling and brings the tractor and baler home.  Now he’s taking big round bales of wheat straw into the corral and unrolling it.  It’s really dusty in the corral but the straw should help keep the dust down as the calves mill around.  When they’re first weaned, they’re prone to get respiratory infections, esp. since they have to be kept in a smaller area where they can’t get out and go searching for their mamas. 

Lunchtime!  Dean gets a couple of phone calls – one from a landlord who is surprised by the check from the elevator she got from selling her share of the milo and corn from her land.  After several years of hailed out crops, it’s nice to have decent crops (except for the corn, which would have done much better with more timely rains). 

Dean, John, and Dean’s dad are moving calves home after lunch.  First, they have to catch the cows and calves in a corral made of portable panels.  Then, they sort out the cows.  Finally, they load the calves up and bring them home to the corral.  It’s a noisy affair!  Dean’s on the 4-wheeler without a radio and I can hear John and Wayne talking about some calves that are back outside the fences that Dean can’t see.  I guess they get them all in as I’m talking on the phone with another landlord about which grain elevator her milo was taken to. 

The Co-op is here with feed for the calves and unloads it into a grain bin between the house and machine shed.  We’ll get the calves started eating grain before we sell them.  They’ll gain some more weight and, hopefully, bring more at the sale barn when it’s time to sell them. 

I have deposits to run to the bank but I need to call Michelle, another Community Leader from our 4-H Club, with some information from the club’s checkbook.  She’s filling out a yearend report that’s due today so I call her at the school where she works and give her the information. 

Just as I’m pulling out to drive to town to do the banking and run some other errands, Dean pulls in the driveway with a trailer load of calves.  The first load of calves averaged 593 pounds – pretty good for calves born after February 1^st.  To get the weights, Dean took the empty cattle trailer to the grain elevator in Susank and weighed it on the scales.  Then, when he has a load of calves, he runs by the elevator and weighs again.  Since the elevator scales have 20 pound breaks, it’s not an exact weight but it’s pretty close.  Anyway, I stop and talk to him for a minute and then head out. 

Dean’s headed out the driveway first, with the pickup pulling the cattle trailer.  Kevin pulls in to come to work after school.  I assume he’s being sent down south to finish raking hay.  Dean leaves, headed north, and I head south into town, with Kevin following me thru town.

As I pull into town, I realize that walls are going up on both the Town & Country Supermarket and the Dairy Queen.  Both were destroyed by the April 21^st tornado and are being replaced with new stores.  We are so ready to have both businesses up and going, as well as others that are also being replaced. 

Since it’s after 3 p.m., I have to use the drive-thru to do my banking.  Kevin must be cashing his paycheck, too, as he pulls in behind me.  Errands done, I’m headed home and meet Dean and John in the pickup on the road.  They don’t have the trailer hooked up behind them anymore so they must be thru hauling calves for the afternoon.  However, when I get home, the gate to the corral is still open so I don’t know exactly what’s going on!  Later, I figure out that they’re still hauling wheat straw bales into the corral to keep the dust down.

Julie’s home from her dentist’s appointment and tries taking our blind house cat to the machine shed to play with the kittens.  The cat freaks out – not knowing her way around the shed anymore – so Julie brings the kittens in the house.  Big mistake!  They’re shed cats now and have forgotten where the litter box is! 

While I’m setting up a meeting via e-mail to hand off CyberSpace Farm web site additions to Connie next week, Dean and Julie are out checking out the calves that are in the corral.  One is so tame that Julie can even touch its nose!  The kids start thinking about which calves they will pick for their 4-H market beef projects back in February and March as the calves are being born.  They’ll have to have it narrowed down by the time Dean sells calves so they’ll spend lots of time walking thru the corral the next few weeks.  Julie has had the Reserve Grand Champion at the county fair the last two years with a calf from our own cowherd.  The first year, the Reserve Grand Champion was even the calf of Julie’s own cow – one she first showed at the fair as a 4-H bucket calf.  It’s hard to predict what the calves will look like in 8 months – how much they’ll grow and what their temperament will be like. 

After a quick look in the corral, Dean takes off to get Wayne from basketball practice and Julie is helping me get things ready for the High School Cross Country Banquet tonight.  Wayne barely has time to catch his breath at home before we head back into the Middle School for the Cross Country potluck supper and awards presentations.  Cross Country is a great sport but it takes a lot of hard work.  The girls’ team finished 8^th in the state last Saturday and we’re really proud of Julie.  Great coaches, great kids on the team, and a super group of parents and family members to be around all season!

When we get home from the Cross Country Banquet, the kittens follow us up to the house from the machine shed but they’re not coming back inside!  Can’t blame them for not wanting to stay in the machine shed, though, as the calves are bawling all night long and it’s hard for any of us to get any sleep!