The Joys Of Farming :) New Calf

Isabel started walking the fence line around 1pm and by 3 her bag was dripping milk and by 3:30 we had a nice little heifer calf on the ground!! This is the only picture I'm going to post of the process of birth :) Those are the calves feet :) Isabel had been laying the other way but turned around just before giving birth and we got to watch, and I taped :), the whole thing! Maggie was a royal pest during the delivery and we ended up, again, having to take the calf away from BOTH cows so Maggie couldn't steal it. Maggie stole the last calf that was born on the place and he didn't get that first critical colostrum and he's rather stupid to this day! Thankfully he's a steer and will soon be freezerised :)  So because this is a heifer and we are planning on raising her to be a family cow we really wanted her to get the best possible start, and not be stupid! After a few tries getting her to nurse off Isabel we gave up and milked Isabel and fed the calf with a bottle.. we decided that was the best idea as we've also had problems getting the calves to STOP nursing.. so MAYBE if she's never nursed off the cow.. MAYBE we won't have the thief problem later in life??? We can hope anyway! 

Right after the birth :) Papa was keeping Maggie off so Isabel could, we hoped, lay down and have the rest of the calf.. she 'hung out' for a while half out while Isabel looked for her and Maggie licked her!! As soon as Maggie was gone Isabel pushed the calf the rest of the way out and started licking. 

Both of them getting their licks in :) Papa moved her on to the hay instead of the snowy spot she was born in.

All four of the older kids and I got to see the birth.. Papa decided to let me watch the birth and he watched J3 and Baby G. Thanks Babe!! The cows had no problems with the kids this close as long as they were quiet.  

Here she is in her little pen :) Wind proof with a heat lamp to help keep her warm. It has defiant advantages, it's right outside the front door and the kids can visit anytime :) 

This was last night before we set up the heat lamp.. yes.. J3 is in his PJ's :) 

I believe the heifers name will be Star. I need to get a picture of why yet and you'll hear about it when I do :) Because we plan on keeping her she gets a new letter, not I or M, for the first letter of her name instead of an I name so we can name her offspring after her to keep the offspring lines straight. For example if she'd been a bull we would have butchered him in about 2 years and so he would have had an 'I' name so we'd remember who's calf he was. 

4 Wheelin'

Our very cool friend Mr. G brought over his 2 kids, a GT and his 4 wheeler 

and took all the kids for rides around the place! Super cool! They had a BLAST!! 

Afterward they drank hot chocolate and watched R's new movie with us!

THANKS for the fun visit G's!! :) 

And She Is A Yeller...

A short clip of Baby G yelling!! She does this a lot :) She almost never cries.. just YELLS!!!

And We Have A Calf!!

It's a heifer, our first one!, full story to come soon.

And They Will Know We Are Griggs' By Our

CAR SEATS!
Several people have made the comment "WOW that is a lot of car seats!!" and it is :) Four car seats and two boosters! Papa needed to haul some neat stuff, we will cover that in another post, so we took the opportunity to bring them in and clean and 'fix straps' so they're good to go again!

Baby G Pictures 3.5 Months Old.

Baby G is 3.5 months old. We got some great pictures of her this week and I wanted to share them :) 

She loves to chew on her fingers.. no teeth yet but the way she drools and chews I wonder if she won't get some soon! J3 got his 1st at 2.5 months for a couple of weeks then it reappeared about 3 months later so it's possible she could be teething.  

I love this one! She looks wind blown with her bib all crooked. I love the color of this sleeper on her but, as you'll see below, her feet tend to escape. 

 Baby G has a CAPE!! Oh wait it's her bib on backward!! 

Umm... I WILL chew on this yummy thing.. I WILL!! 

WHAT IS THAT THING!??

Maggie :)

New Life... Welcome Riata!!

Some good friends of ours had a new baby :)

Congratulations C and R!! You too big brother W :) 

 Welcome to the world little girl!! We love you already!! 

~Sourdough Starter~

I found a recipe for Amish friendship bread starter in a book I recently finished which made me remember that while I had my AFB starter years ago I really enjoyed it. I also learned that a AFB starter is a sourdough starter and there is a web page with TONS of recipes on it for just about everything you can think of to make with AFB starter! SO I followed the recipe and made my very own sour dough starter!! I'm still not totally sure that I didn't kill it this morning when we made sourdough pancakes with it and I'm hoping it will bounce back as I forgot to feed it before I took out the 4 cups of starter I need to make the pancakes. I did remember after and did feed it then so hopefully it is still alive! Here is the link that I found with the recipe for the starter and the things you can make with it. I fed my starter on white flour to start it off but I`m going to slowly change it over to whole wheat as that is what we use most for pancakes etc. I keep mine in a 1 gallon plastic bag in the kitchen which works well for storage without having to worry about spilling or contaminating it.  I can`t wait to see what I can all do with it :) This morning we did the pancake recipe II on the site above and we thought it was a bit too sweet and the pancakes themselves were really soft and mushy and did not flip well at all. I think we will keep looking and see what other recipes we can find. I`d love hints :) Or recipes!! Just leave a comment on the bottom or email me!! 

~Dream A Little Dream Of Spring~

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 Last week we got about 10 inches of snow.

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The days we didn't get snow we got beautiful sunshine. 

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The kids went out and enjoyed it as much as possible. 

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When the sun comes out it rains off the roof. 

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Reminding us that spring will come again soon. 

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**O**

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R's Birthday is soon..

<3 <3 <3 <3

She is very excited to be 4.

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She thinks the snow should be gone by her birthday.

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It will not be. 

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A year or two ago we had snow on MY birthday..

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It's in the middle of May.

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I know I'm not the only one.

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wishing for green grass.

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I know there are more people out there.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Also wishing for green well... 

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

ANYTHING!!

GREENGREENGREENGREENGREENGREENGREEN

This week we hope to see some green..

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We're going to plant some starts and dream of a world filled with green.

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Green Trees, Green Grass,

 Green Green Green!! 

We are going to water them and remember

                                                                              spring rainstorms, 

                                                         beach days, 

                                                     lightening and thunder.

flash BOOM flash BOOM flash BOOM

We're going to watch for the tiniest shoot of green and rejoice!!

King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: