#86 Twisty And Helix

April 18, 2021April 17, 2021 / Susan Schmidlin / Leave a comment

Read this story in its entirety on the new farm site, SchmidlinAngusFarms.com.

Dairy Scale

April 13, 2021April 12, 2021 / Susan Schmidlin / Leave a comment

You gotta see the pictures! They are posted with this story on SchmidlinAngusFarms.com. While you are there, if there is any online shopping you plan on doing, please go through my picture links. By doing so, I may make a small commission without a charge to you! The commissions help pay for my user charges for this site, Thank You for supporting the farm

A Run Up The Hill

April 11, 2021April 10, 2021 / Susan Schmidlin / Leave a comment

Friends and family have been reporting back about the forests between our farm and the highways to both Seaside and Tillamook. The devastation from the snow/ice event last month shows large swaths of alder and fir trees that have been snapped off. Large tops are hanging precariously above the ground. While we did not see that much damage here at the farm level, Mike was anxious to get up the hill to inspect our roads and look for damaged trees… Full Story Can Be Found At SchmidlinAngusFarms.com.

Supervising From Home Base

April 10, 2021April 9, 2021 / Susan Schmidlin / Leave a comment

#5 Segway And Vespa

April 9, 2021April 8, 2021 / Susan Schmidlin / Leave a comment

We could have named this calf ‘None Too Soon’ since #5 Segway barely waited to be moved into the nursery field along with the rest of the main herd. Mike noticed her acting funny while we were making small repairs to the fence line. Segway had slowly walked away from the main herd, but when she saw us she turned around and meandered the other direction. She was not grazing or looking for food so we were not surprised that she was actually looking for a quiet corner to deliver her baby.

It was the morning after the move that we found Segway with her new calf by her side. The pair were hanging out along the far end of the big field along the fence line. The baby just been born, it was barely twelve hours earlier that we had moved all the critters together in the nursery field.

We fed the rest of the herd well up from the new family and while the rest were eating got close to determine that it is a healthy female. We gave Segway a good bunch of hay to munch on while the baby learned all the business about eating.

Welcome to the farm, Vespa, born 4/3/21. She is a good sized heifer weighing in at 78 lbs.

Lime Time

April 8, 2021April 7, 2021 / Susan Schmidlin / Leave a comment

If you are seeing this post your are missing out on all the daily farm stories. This is the old website where I learned the journaling of the life we are forging with the strides and the stumbles.

I have lost the capability of including pictures to go with the stories on this site because of the data load, and for the last week have lost most of the ability to get a daily story posted.

Since I don’t want to lose a single reader, I urge you to go to the new site with all the stories including pictures at Schmidlin Angus Farms.

Hope to see you there!

Spring Green

April 7, 2021April 6, 2021 / Susan Schmidlin / Leave a comment

If you are seeing this post your are missing out on all the daily farm stories. This is the old website where I learned the journaling of the life we are forging with the strides and the stumbles.

I have lost the capability of including pictures to go with the stories on this site because of the data load, and for the last week have lost most of the ability to get a daily story posted.

Since I don’t want to lose a single reader, I urge you to go to the new site with all the stories including pictures at Schmidlin Angus Farms.

Hope to see you there!

Nearly Released

April 5, 2021April 3, 2021 / Susan Schmidlin / Leave a comment

The day has come for ByGosh and ByGolly to get their ear tags and be joined with the rest of the cow/calf pairs in the nursery field. ByGolly had an extra procedure to slip a rubber band around his scrotum to castrate him. The banding is a simple process and only takes a few seconds, the calf will feel a bit of discomfort until he gets used to the pressure but it only lasts a few hours before the blood supply is completely cut off and the sack deadens. It will dry up and fall from his body in a week or two (depending on weather).

The two calves went through their procedures. The ear tags feel floppy and they tend to shake their heads a while until they get used to the weight on their left ear. We gave the heifer ByGosh, #16 and steer ByGolly, #18.

ByGosh had to stop at her mother to get a squirt of milk for comfort before the gate was opened and the trio headed out into the nursery field. The mother #8 has been anxious to get out into the big field and has been yearning for the gate to open as she watched the rest of the critters enjoying the wide open pasture, so she moved quickly out of the barn yard pen. I had to round up the two calves to escort them through the gate.

Especially at this stage, Mike and I need the ear tags so we can monitor that the calves stay together and hopefully with their mother as all the calf and cow activity that is so different than the quiet solitude of the barn and small pastures afforded the family bonding time. We can move them back into the smaller pens if they need a little more time to get used to new ideas. ByGosh and ByGolly are finding their voices quickly to find each other and their mother each time they get separated, so far the three of them are getting along nicely with the rest of the cow/calf pairs.

#50 Pente And Farkle

April 4, 2021April 2, 2021 / Susan Schmidlin / Leave a comment

There is just something alluring about the other side of the river when it comes to cows calving this year.

#50 Pente decided it was time to have her baby and she trouped across the river and down along the small field where she ended up only about a 1000 yards from where Shadow had her calf. #50 is one of the cows that had twins last year, so we were happy that she only delivered on this year.

We found the new family in the thick brush of the riparian zone. Pente had her head in a clump of blackberry briars and the baby was having a hard time fighting her way through all the brush, and she was hungry. We encouraged Pente to move out into the pasture and bumped the calf along to follow, but when Pente backed out of the briars, she had a twenty five foot loop of prickly vine wrapped around her neck and trailing along both sides of her. It was very discouraging for the calf when she tried to get close enough to nurse.

I kept the cow busy on the front end by talking to her and moving around while Mike snuck up from behind and grabbed one end of the briar with his gloves on. As she backed up, he was able to un-loop the tangle and get the whole thing off her. We were able to get the baby back up where she needed to be and before long there was a whole lot of smacking going on as she latched onto a teat.

After a couple of hours we moved the pair down to the crossing and again I had the privilege on climbing on top of the calf that we put on the pallet of the front loader and while Mike backed the tractor through the river. Pente was not pleased with the move and was quite noisy as we made our way across. The calf was much more active than the last baby we moved this way and it was all I could do to stay on the pallet and hold the calf from getting up and jumping off.

We got the baby and Pente to the nursery field where we fed hay for the cow while the baby nursed again. By the next feeding Pente had the baby mixed in with the rest of the cow/calf pairs in the field.

Welcome to the farm, Farkle (had to do it, it was a Farkle winter in this household, it has been our go-to evening wind-down. If you don’t know Farkle, grab six dice along with the rules on-line). Born 3/30/2021 weighing in at 71 lbs.

Speaking Of Sunshine

April 3, 2021April 1, 2021 / Susan Schmidlin / Leave a comment

The heifers that have been spending their time in the pastures and show barn with my complainer cow have been acting spring-like.

They have been taking turns standing on the old stumps around the barn yard in order to get a good view of the pasture beyond the fence and the traffic as it goes by on the county road. One heifer may spend only a few minutes in this pose, but once she leaves it seems like another will take up the post to get a stint at being a lookie-loo for a while.

At this point I do not think they are plotting anything, just enjoying the sunshine and all that the good weather has brought.