On April 29 was Joseph’s seventh birthday party. The day before, we had a surprise for him: we loaded up the family, picked up Gregory’s sister, Theresa, and went to the rodeo in North Battleford. It was Joseph’s first rodeo and while his brothers weren’t as interested, he had a lot of fun.
The beginning of May brought rain and even snow. On May 4 we had our first foal of the year; it was cool and wet, so he spent a lot of time under the shelter.
Early May was a very busy time with the cows. On the ninth, Gregory and I set out in the late afternoon to check fence over at Landis. We checked the last quarter mile with very little light left. Thankfully it was the newest fence on the farm and was quite good still.
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The next day we branded our calves — a slow process with just the two of us working at it but we managed to get it done. The following day we hauled cows to pasture and turned out the bulls. We hauled to three different pastures and still had a handful left at home on hay.
On the 13th we went out to fix fence on a pasture we just started renting. The snow had done more damage to the fence than we had expected, so it took the following day as well to stand it all back up. We are very excited for this new pasture as it will take a lot of pressure off our other pastures and allow the grass to grow a bit more.
On the 15th Dan Mitchell brought us our new heifer bull, and he and Gregory went to the native pasture in Landis and turned him out with his new small herd. Later we also hauled the last of the cows out to the new pasture and turned out the last bull. It was much quieter around the farm with the cows off to pasture and they were much happier as well.
While we were busy with fixing fence, branding and hauling cows, we were also busy foaling. On the 10th we had our second foal, a bay roan colt, and on the 14th we had a sorrel filly.
On the 17th we were able to finally start seeding as John seeded his wheat on the home quarter. The rain has been a blessing but the calendar has caused stress. As the days go by and the seeds are not all in the ground, the stress level increases. Every day it was dry enough to do something, John and Gregory were trying to seed.
On the 31st my grandmother and uncle drove up to visit us from Idaho. Grandma hasn’t been able to come visit us for several years, in part due to some health problems. My uncle had never made it up to see us before. Grandma was feeling good and wanted to do some traveling and Uncle Mike was available to travel with her, so we told them to come on up. It is always busy around here, it seems, so the best time to visit was based not on us but on Grandma’s health.
It was a short visit but a very good one. They enjoyed playing with the boys and seeing the new foals. On June 2, we took them for a drive to see our fields and pastures. It was a very good day. They left on Monday afternoon and were headed to see Mount Rushmore before they returned home to Idaho. They hope to come back to see us again soon.
