A day of sunshine and repairs

Our weather is finally getting better.  Today the temp was near 60 and the sun was shining nice & bright. 

This morning I took a 4 wheeler ride out among some of our cattle.  Mark had rolled out a big bale of hay.  This photo shows the calves even have an interest in hay - except for those looking at the dogs!

 

This afternoon I helped Mark & Brett "play" mechanic. 

 

Mark was UNDER a pickup changing oil.  I didn't help with that in fact I was probably more of an annoyance to the guys!

 

Brett was UNDER his high wheel sprayer.  He had to get the hydraulic wheel motors repaired.  Here he is hooking up the hydraulic lines.  I did help with this project.  The guys did the heavy lifting and I put the bolts in place when things were lined up.  This sprayer sits up so high & wide that we are sure someone could drive a small sports car under it!  This is the first project of many to get machinery ready for the spring planting season.

 

 

 

 

We had to JUMP  the batteries to get the swather started (moved) so we could get the sprayer out of the machine shed.  Well, technically we charged the battery but I need a photo of jump and this was as close to a 'jump start' as I got this week.

 

We need to hope the sun keeps shining so we can get the air seeder out of the snowbank/mud and get that ready too.  Planting will begin before we know it!!

 

 

As you may have noticed the words UNDER and JUMP have links.  They are both parts of a couple of photography groups that I am in.  Under is for the Saturday Photo Hunt.  Jump is for Fotos by Friends.  One of the main reasons I started this blog was so I'd have a place to post photos that I wanted to enter in various photo challenges/contests.  Andy is a part of a weekly challenge plus the two I mentioned here.  There are others too that I sometimes participate in.  I just enjoy the challenge of finding a photo to fit the various topics!

 

COLD

We are having quite a cold snap here in northern Dakota.  Last night the overnight low was something near minus 35 degrees.  Today's high was about minus 5 degrees.  Tonight it could be about minus 20.  Now these are air temps, any bit of wind makes the wind chill (feels like temp) worse.  Last night they said the wind chill was about minus 55-60 degrees Fahrenheit.

Since we are calving now we need to be walking through the cattle herd occasionally.  When it is this cold we are checking every two hours.  What are we checking for?  Well, we are looking for newborn calves or females showing signs of labor.  If there is a fresh calf we need to get the cow/calf pair into the barn and put the calf in a specially built box with a heater so we can warm the little "guy" up.  If they are too cold they could freeze off part or all of their ears or tail or even have damage to their hooves/feet  OR  they could die.  If a female is showing signs of labor then we try to get her into the barn so she has her calf inside (saving moving a calf and it is warmer).  If anything is calving (in labor), then we check on them more frequently until they have their calf.

During the average temps, we will check every 3-4 hours and I take the middle of the night check (about 3 AM).  With this weather, we are taking turns checking.  Tonight (rather tomorrow AM) I will be checking at 3 & 5.  I usually take the night shift because it is easier for me to get back to sleep AND because the men are busy with other chores during the day while I can (hopefully) catch a nap.

I have written about my night checks before in case you are interested in my experience/thoughts from a previous year.

The Fotos by Friends group that I am in has a photo topic of  'Cold' this week.  I thought I would share a couple of the photos that I took that fit the topic.

Here are a bunch of horses.  Some of them have moved here from southern USA so they are not yet accustomed to the cold.  Paige will put a coat on them to help keep them warm.  The ones without coats have lived in the north country forever so they are already toughened up!!

I like the turtle shell coat on this one!  It makes me smile every time I see it.  You can see we have been getting snow during this cold snap too as it has settled onto the backs of the horses.

Week 7/52: Valentine Andy

Since it is Valentine Week, Andy needed to get some chocolate.  I suppose it should be for Raggedy Ann, but we don't have her so then it could be for me, Annette!!

 

See, he even has the embroidered heart.  Grandma stitched "I LOVE YOU" in Andy's heart. 

 

 

The theme on my Fotos by Friends Facebook Page is "hearts"

so here is an additional photo for the week.

Yellow wild flowers

One benefit of traveling around for harvest is that I get out on some prairie trails and find new photography subjects.  This week it happens to be flowers.  Our Fotos by Friends group this week is looking for photos with sun or moon light.  I tried to snap a few photos of flowers with the sun shining through them.  I took a few others too as the sun (and the flexibility of my body) don't always cooperate!!

Sunlit Wild Sunflower

Butter-and-eggs  or  Yellow Toadflax

 Prairie Tickseed  or  Stiff Tickseed

Linking to:  Fresh from the Farm Linky Party

Farmgirl Friday Blog Hop

Sunday Stills

Nature Walk

My little photo group on Facebook , Fotos by Friends, had a theme of spiderwebs this week so it was time to go for a walk. (Heaven forbid I take photos of the webs in the house!!)

I found a couple of spiderwebs:

This is in the corner of a grain bin that two of my guys were emptying out,

so it had a bit of grain dust on it to help it show up nicely.

But while looking for other things to "shoot", I noticed some wild sunflowers.  As I got closer I noticed a honey bee on it.  The bonus:  a lacewing!

The bee about has it's Pollen Buckets full.

There are so many titles one could use for this one, but I will let you use your imagination! 

(Perhaps in the Comment section)

Linking to:  Farm Photo Friday

Black & White theme

My Facebook Fotos by Friends group has the theme of "Black & White" this week.  So I will share the photos here too!  When I selected the theme, I stated that it did not have to be traditional b&w as I realize not all of our FbF might be able to take b&w or edit it.  I said the main subject should be black & white.   Having told you this, here are a couple of my entries:

Meet Sammie...

Sammie is Paige's Austrailian Shepherd.  She's mostly black & white / grey so I thought she fit the FbF theme this week.

Here is a traditional black & white shot:

A wooden grain bin here on the place.

Shared on Farm Chick's Farm Photo Friday

Winter scenes of the ranch

NoDak Herefords - headquarters

Looking toward the yard.  You can see the barn, our shop and some grain bins.  Also, one of the hay bale locations (to the left).  There are some of our cattle in the corrals too.  You can see two of my guys doing chores too - one opening gates and one driving the tractor.  Oops, it looks like a couple of cows are out in the hay too.  Dang!  I took this today while it was snowing and blowing.

This would be some of our cattle.  We roll out the large bale of hay (actually a few of them) and the cattle just "dig in"!  Here you see that we have more than just Hereford cattle (which are red & white).  We also have black and black/white face  (Angus cross).   These are the moms-to-be.  The black cattle are bred Charolais (white cattle).  Their calves will be whitish.  The Herefords are either bred Hereford or Angus.  If they are bred Angus it is likely they will have a black/white face calf.  This was also taken today.   The white blob you see is a snow flake!

If you click on either of these photos you will be able to see it in a larger size.

Photo challenge: A Little Bit of My World

Pets

The topic this week for Fotos by Friends (on Facebook) is Pets (from our past or present).  So I snapped a couple of a couple of our dogs.

Lori (White German Shepherd) thinks she is a lap dog!
She loves to lay in Mark's lap on the chair.

Rufus ( Australian Shepherd )

We have one more dog, Pandora.  I better get a photo of her or she will be jealous!!