Helping with the calves

Nick's has started working this week where as I'm not needed just yet. It's a little frustrating as I feel at a bit at a loss with what to do with myself but it's seeming like I will back into the swing of it full time next week so I should appreciate the time now. I worked in the cowshed on Monday afternoon logging all the new heifers that have come back onto farm. Heifers being the cows that will be having their first calf this year. They've all been retagged with their new cow tag number so my job was to select each number they had as calves and pick the new cow number for that individual animal. Without doing this the system wouldn't bring up all that cows information as they come into the shed when it reads it's ear tag. It was a rather mind numbing process and I'm pretty sure I spent two days dreaming of numbers worrying if I'd entered any wrong but it all seems to have gone okay. Nick's found doing the calves on his own a little challenging so I'm surprised Candy hasn't started helping yet as the numbers are increasing quite dramatically daily. I decided to go out and help him one afternoon which I think he appreciated because the pump isn't working at the moment so the milk has to be put into the feeders on the pens with buckets. With me there he could stand inside the pen and I could pass the full buckets over the gate to him rather than he try to jump over fences with buckets of milk. I was also able to spend time cleaning all the equipment while he went off and finished doing his other jobs. I'm glad Candy and I will start working soon so that Nick will get some help. Bruce and Candy had a meeting with the farm owner this week so I looked after the girls for one day and took them out to the beach. Despite it not being that warm we had a great time playing in the sand and going to the nearby playground. I've realised how much harder it is to be out with them now that Eliza can walk. At one point both kids ran in opposite directions and when it's the weekend and packed with people it was a little worrying and hard to keep tabs on both of them. It's definitely going to take some getting use to! It's made me realise how awesome it is to come back for another season and look after the same girls. It's another good insight into this stage of their development and definitely some practise for the future.Leia mais