Sugar Creek Farm

Madeline and Ike have been participating in advanced obedience classes the past 9 weeks. Monday night was the final class and they received their “diploma”.

Everyone always gets a kick out of watching Ike go through the tunnel.

The instructor brought biscuits for the dogs who successfully held the long sit and long down that night. Unfortunately, Ike wasn’t one of them. He sits there awhile, and then it’s like he just makes up his mind that enough is enough and he’s getting up (or laying down, in the case of the sit).

The new puppy arrives Saturday and it will be interesting to see how Madeline juggles training both dogs at once. But this is definitely one of her favorite activities. Once Ava gets older I think Madeline would like to try some AKC events. Anyone have any advice on how to get started? I know she’s interested in the Junior Showmanship and Obedience.

Once Madeline and Ike are done training for the county fair in July I’ll get to have my dog back. I plan to try for Canine Good Citizen and Therapy Dog International with him.

Stevie, Tommy, and SpongeBob

Olivia asked to have some bottle calves this spring. (I think she’s trying to build her case for getting a horse.) These are Holstein bull calves from local dairies, which only keep their heifer calves. We get them at a day or two old.

This year they’re more expensive then we’re used to paying – about $200 each. 5 years ago when we first started doing this they were almost half that. And I’ve heard that not long before that dairy farmers simply disposed of them, because nobody wanted them.

They get a (big) bottle of milk twice a day. Olivia makes the bottles and feeds each calf, and also makes sure they have plenty of water, starter feed, hay and bedding.

They’re penned off from each other because otherwise they would suck on each others navels, which leads to infections and is also just plain annoying. Once they’re weaned they’ll get turned together and have access to pasture. We’ll sell them in the fall, probably to our neighbor who feeds them out to butchering weight. We don’t do Holstein “beef” anymore.

This summer Olivia can halter-break one and take it to the county fair, if she wants. (Halter breaking is an interesting experience, with a great variety of methods for doing so.) They have an open class bucket/bottle calf where kids from kindergarten thru sixth grade can lead their calf into the arena and answer questions from a judge. This gives them some experience before they get into 4-H livestock shows, in a non-competitive setting.

A birdseye view of bottle feeding.

means a new feature article at Farm & Garden. I got the gig this month for an article on Double Digging. These little writing jobs are so much fun, and I always learn a lot doing them!

Last weekend I was able to complete my 4-seasons series of my favorite tree. No matter what the season, this tree puts on a show. Here’s the other three:

Summer

Fall

Winter

Thomas, calf #3. This is as close as I could get to him. He’s the one out in front with his tail curled up in the air. Every time I see him, he’s got his tail curled up in the air. Pretty full of himself, I think.

The first heifer of the year – Dolley. A mini-me of her mother. Hard to see her under there!

And the second heifer of the year – Elizabeth. Such a sweet little thing.

That’s 5 calves on the ground, 2 to go!

I love the piglets at this age. Big enough to explore away from mom, small enough to fit through the fence and free range about the farm. They always move together as a swarm. So much fun to come out of the house and see these guys milling about.

Madeline decided she was ready to try the puppy thing again. So Saturday afternoon we went down and she had her pick of the litter. The puppies were only 4 1/2 weeks old, so it will be a few more weeks before we go back to get her.

This is Ava 🙂

Updated: I was getting ahead of myself with the names!

Internet, meet John Q “Just John” aka “JJ”.

John Q “JJ”, meet the Internet.

Sunday when we left for Easter dinner at my grandma’s, Matt remarked that it was a “perfect” day for calving. Cold and wet. Yes, he was being sarcastic.

Sure enough, when we pulled in the driveway later in the afternoon, I did a doubletake. A black calf standing out there, but even from a distance I could tell he wasn’t George. “Hmm, I think he’s new.”

George and JJ getting acquainted.

On our way back from Iowa City this afternoon we swung by Rudd to pick up our chicks from the hatchery. And we had a nice surprise waiting for us. We got started chicks! Instead of being day-olds, they were 4-day-olds. It definitely makes a difference in the brooder – these guys already know what food is!

As for Olivia’s outcome…more surgery. I think the 4th doctor that looked at her summed it up nicely. As soon as he looked in her ear he exclaimed, “Whoa! Yeah, that’s gonna need to be fixed.” So in May she’ll have reconstructive surgery on her ear drum and ear canal. I feel so sorry for her, and I hope this will finally do the trick.

Finally, temperatures in the 70’s this week. To me, this is jeans and t-shirts weather. My children, however, could not strip off their clothes fast enough after school today. They jumped on the trampoline in their swimsuits, spraying ice cold water from the hose.

I slept with the window open for the first time last night. Love hearing the frog songs coming from the creek at night. Makes for a good night’s sleep.

Matt’s got a carpenter coming tomorrow to look at our corn crib. We want to re-do it into a farrowing/finishing building. We talked about putting up a hoophouse, but we just don’t have a place for one here.

Renovating the corn crib would entail taking out the cribbing, pouring cement on three sides around the outside of the building, adding a lean-to on one or both long sides of the building, and running a water line out there. Buy some bred Chester White gilts, a new Large Black boar, and we’re in business.

Also tomorrow Olivia and I are off bright and early to Iowa City. She had tubes put in her ears when she was 14 months old. They never helped her, she still had constant ear infections. (Whereas Rafe had them at the same age and hasn’t had an ear infection since.) At some point her body started rejecting the tubes, causing inflammation in the ear canal.

She underwent surgery in August to remove them, and to plug the holes in her eardrums. One ear healed perfectly, but the other still shows a perforation in the ear drum and a lot of scar tissue in the ear canal. The AEA has been testing her hearing periodically at school, and we keep getting letters from them about the hearing loss she is experiencing.

She saw her ENT doctor a few weeks ago, and his recommendation was to just wait to do anything until she is 10 or 12 years old. Best case, her ear would heal itself. More probable case, in his opinion, she would need surgery at either Iowa City or Rochester (Mayo Clinic) to replace her ear drum.

The poor thing was in the room during this conversation. When we walked out of the clinic she solemnly asked, “Does this mean I’m going to be deaf?” I quickly assured her that’s not the case!

On the one hand, I was glad he didn’t want to do surgery right away again. A couple of months ago that’s what he was talking about doing. On the other hand, I don’t want to wait 2 to 4 years to do anything. Our family physician agreed and recommended we go to either Iowa City or Rochester for a second opinion. Rochester is only an hour away, as opposed to 3 hours to Iowa City, but our doctor favors Iowa City and I’ve heard similar opinions from others that have doctored there. So I’m anxious to hear what they have to say tomorrow!