Hay Barn

We finished the hay barn last week. I didn't really work on it. All the men worked on it.

The hay barn is wonderful! It fits hay bales exactly so there isn't much extra room on the sides. The wood was all used at standard sizes so there wasn't much cutting involved. It has overlapping sides so there will be airflow, but not much snow or rain can settle on the hay itself. Air around the hay means we won't have as much spoiled hay.

The grandkids love to play on the farm.
It seems there is always something to climb on or explore.
This is the hay barn with the walls up, but no roof on.

Of course, someone has to climb on the stack of building wood!

And if you're going to play on the stack of wood for the hay shed, you might as well pretend it's a trampoline!

Despite the bad air from all the forest fires a few weeks ago,
everyone spent time building, putting the roof trusses on, and finally the metal roof.

We got a load of 71 bales of hay on Monday.
See how nicely the hay fits side to side?
Each level of hay has 14 bales.

The front gates are each 8' wide, which lets us load or move hay with the tractor if we want to.

We have gates so the animals can't get in and make a mess of the hay.

We'll be getting 250 bales of hay this year which should last us until next June.

How do we figure out how much hay we need? Math!

In the winter when there is no pasture for the animals, they eat about 1 bale of hay a day. 8 months x 31 days = 248 bales. We'll start feeding 1 bale a day about mid-October so 250 bales should last us until mid-June when the first crop of new hay will be ready to buy.

In the summer the animals eat about 1 bale every 2-3 days because they have pasture grass to eat. We usually buy the new hay in June and feed them a little bit of hay as a treat.

Corn is another treat they love!
Our neighbor had some old food storage corn that he brought over for
all the animals to enjoy!

We're so blessed to have friends and neighbors that think of us before they send their old food to the dump. The chickens love the wheat, the goats and cow love the corn and, dried fruits and vegetables.

I am surrounded by people who believe that they can do something nice for someone else every day!

I hope you have a great week and find something nice to do every day!

Echo's New Calf 2018

Welcome back to school!

Almost every Friday during the school year you'll get to see what's happening at Welcome Home Farm in Highland. You can ask questions by writing them on pieces of paper and putting them in a spot that your teacher will show you.

I love it when you ask questions because then I know what things you want to learn about. I will post a picture of your question so your friends can see the question, too!

On August 13th something wonderful happened on our farm.

Our cow, Echo, had a baby!

This is Echo.
She's 5 years old.

Echo had a calf on Monday, August 13.
It's a girl!

This is Echo's 3rd calf. She had a boy calf in 2017, and a boy calf in 2016. We are so excited that she had a girl because girl calves, called heifers, turn into milk cows just like their mother.

Miss E was born in the pasture, in the sunshine.
I needed to move her to someplace out of the sun
so she didn't get too hot. (photo credit S.P.)

Echo licks Miss E to finish cleaning her off.
(photo credit S.P.)

We have some wonderful neighbors love to help on the farm.
MG gets to pet Miss E before any of the other neighbors
because she came to help twice a week all summer long!(photo credit S.P.)

MG also got to be the first one to feed Miss E
a bottle. (photo credit S.P.)

New born calves get tired quickly.
Miss E gets to take a nap on some clean shavings in a stall.

We feed Miss E a bottle during the day, and she spends the night with Echo.  That will make sure that Miss E is so friendly that she will make a wonderful milk cow!



Miss E also gets to eat from Echo.

Miss E gets lots of visitors, too. We let neighbors come pet her and play with her as often as we can. We had some visitors stop by this morning to see Echo and play with Miss E for a few minutes. We want Miss E to be very comfortable around new people that she doesn't know. How do you get comfortable around people you don't know?

One thing our family tries to do every day is to do something nice for someone else. I hope during the school year you will do something nice for someone else every day!

I hope you have a wonderful week!