The weather this fall has been very nice. The wind has been cold at times, but we really couldn’t complain about the temperatures.
I gave the foals a few days to settle down after weaning and then started refreshing their halter training. We try to work with them to introduce the halter a few days after they are born. They learn the basics of leading and tying and are touched all over and have their feet handled. After weaning, we repeat the process and add trailer training to the program. It doesn’t take long before they are easy to catch and quite respectful and trusting on the halter.
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We dug our potatoes Oct. 18 and 19. We always try to have more potatoes than we need in case things don’t go as planned and so that we can have a few extra to give away to friends and neighbours. This year, thanks to the well that John had dug last year, we could water the potatoes enough so they were quite good. The temperatures were quite pleasant and the boys had lots of fun digging for worms and playing in the garden dirt.
Horses easy to handle
Oct. 25 Gregory and I brought home the six horses that were on one of the Landis pastures. Most are the young mares that will eventually join the brood mare band. They were all very nice to catch, and even the young ones loaded in the trailer like old professionals. We brought them home to join the rest of the herd on the home half where they can clean up the fence lines and work in the stubble field.
A few days later, we brought home our replacement heifers. They were still with the cows, so we needed them to be weaned for the cows’ sake. It is easier to manage everything if we split the two groups, with the cows left at pasture and the calves in the corral at home. Once everything is at home there should be no issues with the cows trying to climb through fences to get back to the calves.
Later, Gregory was able to take the Mack and bale trailer to our good friend and neighbour Ken Reiniger’s place to get a load of nice slough hay bales. Ken was able to load them, which was very helpful.
Gregory and John worked at cleaning manure from the corrals Nov. 3 and 4. The bull pen hasn’t been properly cleaned since our good friend Chris Birn, who sadly passed away last year, was able to help us out two years ago. Unfortunately, they were not able to finish the main corral as the manure spreader broke down. Gregory hopes to find some parts from a wrecker but he is also on the hunt for a newer spreader as well.
The nice weather made hauling the ditch and slough bales home much easier and quicker. There is quite a distance between the ditch bales this year but as we get them home, we are grateful for every one. By Nov. 17 we had all of the bales home except for the barley straw bales off of one of John’s fields. Gregory was quite excited about the prospect of having all of the bales home before the American Thanksgiving on Nov. 23.
