It’s been awhile since we shared a bit of our life on the farm. The kids are growing, the chores keep on coming and the seasons continue to pass by. I think that’s just another way of saying that time is marching on.

The boys are counting down the days until the end of the school year. Our school calendar does not follow traditional dates. We began our school days in July this past year and should wrap things up at the end of March. This schedule helps us to be able to handle the long summer days in the hay fields. We should begin cutting spring grasses in April. In a way, we look forward to the change in work. We will go from feeding cattle, which we are doing now, to harvesting haylage for next winter. We truly are always either feeding cattle or preparing to feed cattle.

Don’t believe that we are all work and no play, though. We spend our fair share of time goofing off. The boys enjoy fishing and have had plenty of recent success catching bass. Titus and Samuel especially love to fish.

This winter, Nathan ran his first 5k with me. You might remember that he was diagnosed with type one diabetes in late 2020. We have all been adjusting to his new life and I’m relieved to say that I think we have an understanding of how to balance his care with our busy lives. He began using an insulin pump this past spring and it has been tremendously beneficial for him. We ran the Galaxy of Lights 5k at the Huntsville Botanical Gardens. It was a special memory for both of us.

We added to our family in 2021. This is Lulu. She keeps us entertained. And exhausted most days. But we love her very much. She particularly enjoys riding in the feed truck.

Lately, we’ve been trying to get ahead on working our calves. This means we wean the calves that are old enough to leave the cow. These calves either get put into our pasture that contains future beef calves, or taken to the local stockyard. We also tag, castrate and vaccinate the younger calves before retuning them to their mothers. This helps them to grow in a healthy and safe manner. The boys are really enjoying being able to help with this work. I’ve been thinking lately how nice it is to watch them learn and enjoy the process. It’s not exactly a “light bulb” moment for them, but more of a slow building of knowledge.

Hopefully in the future I can do a bit better job with updating the blog. After all, spring is coming and it will provide me with plenty of motivation to keep getting my job done. I’m especially looking forward to garden planting and watching my seedlings mature into plants in the greenhouse. Will keep you updated on that!

Thanks for reading,

Ashley