Well, the snow WAS nearly gone!

Here, I have proof! Jacob took this picture of our farm when he and I were returning from running a computer part down to the mailbox at Titan Machinery yesterday (that's what we do when we need to mail something after our mailman's delivered the mail already for the day.) The tulips are popping up and everything...

And now it's snowing again.... We're praying for our little calves to do alright in this wet, wet snowy weather. We pulled a calf shelter out to the cows and located it on some fresh straw, so hopefully the babies will be smart enough to go inside for the night!

I took this picture of my goldfish that survived the Winter out in our stock tank. They were only about an inch long when I put them in the tank last Summer and now they're about 5 inches long. :)

OH, and here is Sweet Pea, drinking from her mother the hard way (from the back!)

Here is Sweet Peas' mother, Suzie. So far, we'd just been milking her here in this part of the barn by dumping some grain in a trough and setting a pail down beside her and milking her, but Andrew got home tonight (HORRAY--HE'D BEEN GONE SINCE MONDAY!) and decided it was time to start training Suzie right and so he, Jacob and I worked together to get her in the stanchion. She didn't like the idea of being stuck there too well, but eventually began to eat her grain and settled down. Meanwhile, Sweet Pea was having fun bugging Andrew! The other day when I milked Suzie, little Sweet Pea came from the back and pushed on me until I nearly fell off my pail. When Mother milked Suzie last night, the little calf thought sucking on Mom's boot laces was great fun too. She sure is cute, but I suppose we'll have to start teaching her some manners if we want her to respect people when she grows up.... Nobody wants a 1,000+ lb cow rubbing on them or sucking on their boot laces!

While Andrew and Dad were gone over the last few days, Jacob had to feed the cows a few times (when Dad wasn't going to make it home before dark.) Here he is, driving the 9030.

While Jacob and I were out with the RAM, checking the cows yesterday afternoon, Jacob captured some fun pictures of calves, a few of which I've shared below:

My White 222's baby. :)

See that black calf toward the left side of the picture below? OK, now, do you see that white circle on his hip? That is a real mark on the calf, not one that we made or anything. He'll be very easy to tell apart from the other calves!

This is one of Jacob's calves (Orange 4)...

These 2 reddish calves were so cute together, standing on some old bales that used to be a wind-break.

FYI:

• We now have a total of 60 live calves!


• 2 calves have died.


• 1 calf has needed pulling.


• There's just been 1 set of twins.


• We're not half done calving yet.

AND NOW, about our greenhouse:

This is what it looks like from the outside...

Here is the view when walking from the house...

And here is the inside, nearly ready to seed in. The barrels are going to be filled with water so they will hold heat into the night, hopefully. It is so exciting to have a large greenhouse after all these years of talking about building one! We are so blessed!

Now, please come back Spring so we can enjoy Springy things once more!!!