My new favorite poem

"Babies Don’t Keep"


Mother, Oh Mother, come shake out your cloth,
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing, make up the bed,
Sew on a button and butter the bread.

Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I’ve grown as shiftless as Little Boy Blue,
Lullabye, rockabye, lullabye loo.
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
Pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo

The shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stew
And out in the yard there’s a hullabaloo
But I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo
Look! Aren’t her (OR HIS) eyes the most wonderful hue?
Lullabye, rockaby lullabye loo.

The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow
But children grow up as I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs; Dust go to sleep!
I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.

~Ruth Hulburt Hamilton

Cattle drive

Our house has been blessed with the Flu bug this week, so in turn I have watched many many movies and basically maxed out my patience for dirty dishes in the sink and clutter everywhere. Along with Mr. Poppers Penguins (my choice) we watched The Cowboys with John Wayne (not my choice). I was surprised how quickly I got involved with The Cowboys, first it had John Wayne ( felt the cliché of his westerns was to much for me.) and Second it was hard to fathom traveling 400 miles on horse to get cattle to market. I know it was my intrigue in the drive that pulled me in. While on my internship I got to experience the joy of a cattle drive, we moved 300 cows 4 miles up the road to their winter pasture. Those 4 miles took all day and it was on a dirt road making it pretty easy. I remember the chaos that followed with the trip and the frustration on the face of the wife of the ranch owner. It was a learning experience both in horsemanship and patience. I have moved cattle using a truck, four-wheeler, horses and on foot. If I got into the conversation about which is better, there would be a large argument made for each option and how it benefits the cow/cowman better than the other. That being said, we move cattle on foot at home (apparently I am a glutten for punishment).

Back to the movie though.. We sell our cattle private treaty so the buyers come to our farm and that works out great leaving a few stragglers for us to take to market in the Winter. Our Market location is less than 20 miles away and with tuck and trailer the journey takes less than 20 minutes one way, giving us enough time to get all the other chores of the day done. Somedays it is hard to get enough time to manage even that trip! In The Cowboys, Mr. Anderson(Wayne) takes a group of young boys under 15 on this journey ending in a lot of heartache but the children all gain confidence in themselves and valuable cattle experience. I couldn’t stop watching the movie and thinking about how luck I am to not have to endure such hardships to make a sale. The scenery was lovely and I truly enjoyed it and would recommend the movie to anyone.



Below is a picture of how a drive is handled:

Tractor Travels

We (my husband, daughter and I) were hauling round bales yesterday a job that requires us to drive a few miles on backroads in the tractor with the bale wagon behind. As we were traveling I was enjoying the scenary, the sun was shining brightly  when it occured to me that at any moment if a bad driver came around one of these corners and hit us, it could be the end to our great journey. Below is a link to the National Ag Safety Database, which gives some insight into how we as farmers can make the roadways safer for traffic but also how drivers can help prevent accidents.
 http://nasdonline.org/document/1683/d001574/highway-transport-of-agricultural-equipment-preventing-public-road.html.

We live in the middle of nowhere and as far as I know there hasnt been an accident like that in years( knock on wood) but it was scary that while we are trying to work and feed the cattle an accident could happen to change everything. Please be very careful driving on backroads and even main roads, because you never know when there is a family trying to work and make a living on the other side of the corner.