It’s been a long, hot summer. We haven’t had much rain, and we haven’t had many calves. 

We also hadn’t seen my family for a little too long.  My parents came to visit in May, but we haven’t been to Illinois since Christmas.  Unfortunately, we still can’t make it to Illinois, but my parents brought my grandma to visit for the holiday weekend.  We had a great time and hopefully they did, too, even if the farm kept David and I pretty busy.

Monday really was just the beginning of the fresh cows. We had five more by Friday. Then it got busy: three Saturday, three more Sunday, one Monday and two Tuesday. Of all those calves, 6 were heifers and 9 were bulls, but most importantly we have 15 fresh cows that we’ll be able to introduce into the milk herd over the next few days.

As if baby calves aren’t exciting enough…In the last two weeks, we’ve had over 3″ of rain! That’s a lot for two weeks, especially in a drought. David and I spent much of Sunday morning walking through a pasture and hay field looking for a cow that needed to come home to have her calf (she had it Monday). We found her, but you wouldn’t believe what else we found: GREEN GRASS!!  There is actually quite a bit of grass growing in the pastures, and the lawn needs mowed. Tuesday morning, after almost an inch of rain overnight, there were even puddles in dry ponds.

The rain really couldn’t have come at a better time, either. Well, at least not better than much earlier this summer might have been.  The moisture should help our soybeans fill in their pods, and last week we planted oats and rye in between rains.  We plan to harvest the oats this fall and the rye next spring; both will be used for feed.  Hopefully, the rain was just what they needed to get started growing.

Thank you to my family for coming to visit.  It was an exciting weekend catching up on the things we’ve been lacking this summer.  September is off to a great start!