Two beautiful inches of rain fell at the Peterson farm near Waverly, Neb. at the end of May.
Paula Peterson is a columnist for the Midwest Messenger.
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Right this very minute down on the farm, I’m in a love-hate relationship with heifers. Most of our heifers over the course of the years have been fabulous mother cows. However, every once in a while, we get heifers that are just careless. They either walk away from a newborn calf saying that can’t possibly have come out of me or misplace said newborn calf and look at you like I know it was here.
On most occasions, we have been able to have heifer and newborn spend quality time in the barn together, and they get the whole cow-calf process straightened out. I will say most of the time it is the calf that figures it out before the mother cow.
Freida and her calf Zippy the Second were the main attraction for fourth graders at the Ag Awareness Festival sponsored by the Nebraska Extension in Lancaster County.
For the most part, we try to give heifers the benefit of the doubt and will keep them for another year to see how things go, especially if said heifer happens to be 4-H or out of a 4-H cow. For example, last year Christian’s heifer Freida had a difficult birth with her calf Zippy. As soon as she got up, she walked away and never looked back. Needless to say, Zippy was my bucket calf last year. This year, however, she has been an absolute wonder of a concerned mother cow. Her calf Zippy the Second even helped out at the Ag Awareness Festival sponsored by Lancaster County Extension, where we get to share agriculture with fourth graders from all over the county.
I have to admit to a totally irrational partiality to any calf that comes out of any cow, however many generations removed it may be, that was ever shown for 4-H or FFA. Our daughters have been out of high school for 10 and 15 years now, but whenever one of their 4-H or FFA progenies calve, Tom is pretty sure if it is a heifer it is going to get to stay. Amanda, our oldest, didn’t have a high track record over the course of her 4-H and FFA years of getting heifers from her cows, so she is down to just one cow line left, Chloe. Erica, our youngest, had much better luck at getting heifers from her cows, especially one in particular, Belle. We have many different variations of the Belle line.
Cali, our granddaughter, is increasing her herd pretty well as Ms. Pickles has had two heifers and two bulls in her calving life so far. Christian, our grandson, seems to be following Amanda’s lead and is limited on his replacement heifer choices. Domino has had one heifer and three bulls so far; hard to increase your herd that way, but his feed bill gets paid.
Hopefully, by the time this article is published we will be done with planting. We got the corn in pretty good time and we are down to just a single field to plant for soybeans. We had some new terraces and tile work done on this particular field, so we knew it would be last. We were hoping we could get it in last week, but we ended up with a well-appreciated almost two-inch rain over the course of three days, so we aren’t complaining.
Randy Norris of North Carolina feeds Tinkerbell, a bottle calf at the Peterson farm near Waverly, Neb. Norris will be staying with the Petersons through the summer and play baseball for the Lincoln Saltdogs.
As promised, here is an update on our summer sons. We have two young men that are staying with us for the summer that play for the Lincoln Saltdogs. Randy Norris is an outfielder from North Carolina and Jr. Disarcina is a shortstop from Massachusetts. We are so excited to get to be a part of the host family program again this year. To add icing on the cake, Christian gets to be a batboy this year, too. This will be the only year he can do so as he will be a freshman in high school next year.
Next on the list is cutting alfalfa for haylage, probably sometime in the couple weeks. Always something to do to keep us off the streets and out of trouble.
Living the life, I love
Paula Peterson and her husband raise crops and cows near Waverly, Nebraska. She loves to share her love of agriculture with people from all walks of life, and she is active with several agriculture organizations. She can be reached at pgpeterson86@gmail.com.
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Paula Peterson is a columnist for the Midwest Messenger.
Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
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Freida and her calf Zippy the Second were the main attraction for fourth graders at the Ag Awareness Festival sponsored by the Nebraska Extension in Lancaster County.
Randy Norris of North Carolina feeds Tinkerbell, a bottle calf at the Peterson farm near Waverly, Neb. Norris will be staying with the Petersons through the summer and play baseball for the Lincoln Saltdogs.
Two beautiful inches of rain fell at the Peterson farm near Waverly, Neb. at the end of May.
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