Spring on the Farm

For the long Easter weekend we drove to Iowa and spent time "ranchin", prairie burning, hiking and exploring.  Leif donned his cowboy hat and boots and went out every day 3-4 times with Craig to check on any new calves and to feed the 2 whose mothers were not being very attentive.  They would arrive back at the house and Leif would give us a run down on all the happenings.... i.e. "134 just isn't taking to her calf, we found #67 down in by the pond, #164 is a huge calf, and #162 her bag isn't looking full."

We burned a small patch of prairie and the kids had a fun time stomping out the edges with their boots.  It was a little wet, so the burn moved slowly and didn't go past the field, so it stayed well under control.  We had wet towels, shovels and also did a back burn to make sure it didn't spread into the neighbors pasture.

We also hiked around on our land and looked at the small patch of grasses and the soybean stubble. It should be ready to go for planting grasses and forbes on it this year as we work on turning it into more of a natural prairie.  We found a deer trail through the wet marshy area and we even have our very own appliance dump!

The first pictures in the album are of Elisabet riding her two-wheeler and Jens at Mattocks park near our house.

Life on the Farm