Meet Rosie, Our Family Cow

This is Rosie, a pure bred Brown Swiss milk cow. She's been bred to a Simital bull and will calve in about 3 weeks. In the corner of this picture is her calf from last year, bred to that same bull. I think she was sad to leave him. 

She's big, but sweet. I won't say gentle just yet as she's beat Chad up a bit. He'll be limping for a while and is lucky to still have a arm. Bright side, I now know how to open the livestock trailer door properly. Oops. More updates later.

March Was CRAZY Busy Part 5, the final montage

 Even more happened in February and March. More than I caught on film or recorded. It was just amazingly busy. The kids also got the flu, the variety that is super high fever that lasts for 5-7 days. Their fevers were middling though, only 99-101. Totally manageable, thank God.

Anyway, here's a few of the moments from March......

Baby IE, we have yet to come up with a clever blog name for Aunt Bee's precious bundle.

Not sure she gets the whole "cousin" thing. She was pretty confused about there being two "Baby Zaps". (she thought both were her baby brother.....) It was weird actually. The babies DO look a lot alike. Actually Baby IE looks JUST like Lil'Bug when she was a wee babe.

Aunt Bee was tired. Baby IE spent her first few days in the NICU.

Soooooooo CUTE.

Baby Zap at church. His arms are so FAST or my camera was on the wrong setting. I vote for fast baby arms. It's cooler.

Tea party princesses. In Blueberry Girl's hands is Little Baby. Little Baby was lost in Chariton for about 3 days. A search party found her and returned her before we had to put up missing signs. Yes, we were almost to that point of desperation. Little Baby is very loved.

Zap. Chilling. He sits here while I work in the kitchen and he TALKS or baby chatters to me/at me the whole time. 

Lil'Bug's new favourite dress. It has super deep practical pockets.

Family work day. We went out to check on piglets.

Even the cat came with us.

March Was CRAZY Busy Part 4, NLE

Our booth at the Natural Living Expo.  

Grampa with Baby Zap, maybe he's explaining why babies are not an item for the recycle bin?

We decided to spend our small bit of money for marketing on a booth at this expo. First, I've been attending this expo as a consumer since year 1 and second, what an amazing idea Tanya had way back when to get all these local businesses together under one expo and connect people! She doesn't run it anymore, but still, I am glad someone is carrying on the torch and keeping this event going. One of the things I love about Des Moines and Iowa is all the people with good ideas and motivation to make things happen AND the temperament to keep the ball rolling even when it becomes someone else's turn with that ball.  :) I really liked working with these folks and the expo was busy both days with local musicians, classes, and constant foot traffic to our booth. Bonus, I met several other farmers who are doing the same thing we are and we got to talk shop.

March Was CRAZY Busy Part 3: Something Fishy

Spring on the farm. I never thought I'd see huge round bales on our farm, but there you have it. 

This was something Blueberry Girl and Chad did as a Daddy Daughter task (Grampa took pictures). 

Grass Carp and catfish. Mmmmm, catfish.

Last winter, winter 2009/2010, we had heavy snow fall and cover and we lost a large amount of whale sized grass carp. Ok, maybe not whale sized, but pretty big. One of the dead fish carcasses was 6 ft long. Yes, carcass. When the dead fish is THAT big it's a carcass. Anyway,  losing that many large grass carp was bad for the pond and last summer we saw the affects of the fish kill. This winter we had next to no fish kill at all, but we decided to stock the pond and get a good start.

The dock and the kids used to make me nervous. When we first moved here I fell through one of the boards and was stuck up to my hip, baby on my back, and camera held high. It's had some repair but mostly I think we've just all gotten used to its weaknesses and strengths and navigate its structure more deftly. 

Managing the pond ecology is one of the biggest responsibilities we have to our land and farm, but we get so much enjoyment from having this amazing resource right in our backyard. Yes, this IS our backyard. Wow. Every time I look at it, breathe the fresh country air, I praise God for our many blessings.