Working Man

Sorry about the great length of time it has been since posting. There was not a lot of things going on to report about for a time then everything started moving all at once. Since the end of January, I have been elected to the Township Trustees (we most oversee several thousand dollars in tax revenue and use it in the maintenance of the public cemeteries (there is basically one) and the community park in the Elk Creek Township), I am now church council president (I did not seek this office, especially since we have to deal with issues with our pastors call), and lastly I started work with the federal government on a part-time temporary basis. I am working three days a week for the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) as a Soil Conservationist. Admittedly, I have not done much more then push paper as things have been so busy in the office that it has been hard to get trained. As I get trained, I will be dealing with an alphabet soup of programs that deal with farm conservation.

Back at the farm, we have had a few more lambs and lost one so we are at 18 lambs out in the building. The vast majority of the lambs are male so that bodes well for sales in the fall. We had about a week here where all the snow melted off and I let the chickens run outside during the day. One of those days cracked 50 degrees and Hazel and I sat on the front step outside and watched the birds in the front yard.

Several chickens are out for a late winter run

I made a decision to get rid of our three turkeys (the big Tom and his two ladies). They were not producing fertile eggs and we not performing guard duty to younger birds like they did in 2009, so I decided it was past time to see them re-homed. They have gone to a quail farm outside of Grinnell.

Turkeys just before we loaded them to leave

Other then this, a little more tree work has been done in the timber behind the house. I think about three to four more days of cutting and that project will be done for the winter. At the rate we are going at it, this will take about 4 weeks to finish. At that point, the ground should be workable again and I can start building sheep and cattle handling facilities. I got the tractor running yesterday and moved six bales from the neighbors place over to mine. That should feed the cattle and sheep for the next two weeks. Up the road from us, there are some old hog buildings being dozed and I talked with the landowner and he is letting me take the metal roof off a building. Jim and I got half the roof off in a day before the snow returned and made that task much harder to do.

Hazel drawn to the colorful night light

Needless to say, we have been keeping pretty busy. Hazel is doing well and adapting to being at the babysitter more. Based on her measurements at her most recent doctors check-up, she is still a tall and skinny child compared to her peers. She is a blast to be around and she is making new sounds every week in her efforts to communicate with us. Stay tuned her for updates as we approach the production season.