Since National Agriculture Day was this week, I thought I'd post our farming pictures from last week while we were in South Dakota for spring break. It is 'calving season' for my dad. What this means is he is watching the cows 24/7. He quickly brings newborn calves into the barn once they are born or helps new moms by pulling their calf. One morning last week, I will admit, I slept-in until 8:30am....he had already put in half a days work! In between all of that last week, he played with Evan, Jaden and Kylie. THANK YOU, Dad, for all of your hard work.
Evan's cow had a calf the morning we arrived. Evan was so excited!
He named her Evan the Girl and even got to make an ear tag for the calf #134.
Jaden's calf was a few days older, so we couldn't get quite as close. Jaden Edward Schumacher The Calf has the recessive genotype so he is red and sure stands out with the other Angus calves.
Once the calves are a day or two old, they are moved to another barn to make room for the new(er) ones. Here Evan and Jaden are helping block the driveway while Evan's cow and calf walk/prance/is carried to the other barn. Some calves are more cooperative than others in actual forward movement. (Don't worry, the boys were mostly hidden from the mom and were safe--they just liked to act out the role from afar!)
If you remember from the summer pictures, Jaden especially cannot get enough of the water hose at the farm. Here it is winter/spring and that's still a highlight.
It can't be all work and no play! Just the first day or two there was still plenty of snow to go sledding. Grandpa even made a mountain of snow that the boys could have played in for hours. Each boy easily went through two pairs of boots every day.
The last day we were there a cow delivered twin calves!!
The 5-year-old boys were sure excited to see these 5-hour-old baby calves!
THANK YOU to all farmers who literally help feed the world!
