Weekly Review March 20-26

Reviewing Fitness, Farm, and Life in the latest installment of Weekly Review Posts! Check it out!

Fitness
Now three weeks into Track Season, I'm needing to adjust my schedule a bit to fit in runs and workouts, since I don't get home from practice until around 6:30 most days. I try to fit in at least two runs over the weekend (thank God for 4-day school week and 3-day weekends every week!), and have been making it a habit to get up early before school once or twice a week for a treadmill run. Not ideal for someone who really loves to sleep, but I can make it work.

This past Saturday, we also had a little All-Comers 5K Fun Run/Walk in Rudyard, which I organized, and you can read about IN THIS POST. Overall, I was really happy with the turnout and it seemed like people had fun.

Here's the week in review:
March 20-26
Sunday- 1 mile walk, 4 mile run

I took this photo on the 4-mile run.
I ran along the edge of our neighbor's winter wheat field for one mile.
You can see it is starting to come up! 

Monday- complete rest
Tuesday- 50 minutes yoga (15 min)/core(15 min)/stretching(20 min)
Wednesday- 2.7 mile treadmill run before school
Thursday- 45 minutes yoga
Friday- complete rest
Saturday- 5K Fun Run in town

Year-to-Date
Running: 131.8 miles
Walking/Hiking: 35.2 miles
Yoga: 595 min 
CC-Ski: 500 min / 14.1 miles (since I started tracking mileage on 1/17) 
Alpine Ski: 3 days
Mountain bike: 10 miles

Farm
I wrote a nicely detailed blog post on what happens when we have twin calves born on the farm, which you can read HERE. Otherwise, we are actually starting to shift our mindset toward spring seeding and preparations for that. Our farm purchased a new disc recently, which is an implement used to turn up soil and break ground. We'll primarily be using this on our organic fields. Jeff and Tom have already begun servicing it up to prepare it for work, and I helped Jeff with it a bit, too. Soon, they'll move on to a pre-work tune up of the air drill, which is the farm implement we use to plant our crops.

Disc, unfolded and in the midst of maintenance.

Jeff, doing work.

This is what the air-drill looks like, all folded up. 

Also, the obsessive weather-watching has begun. We are really due for some moisture, as we've had hardly any in 2016. Last year was so dry and draughty, we are in very deep need of a turnaround. Hoping that we get some soon.

Life
Friday evening Jeff and I watched the Cyclones take on Virginia in a Sweet 16 March Madness battle. My parents were actually at the game.  The Cyclones lost, and I was sad. But, it would have been an upset if they had won and Virginia played really well. I was glad that I had watched, and especially because it was the last game for Georges Niang as a Cyclone. We had four great years of watching some outstanding basketball from that guy.

For Easter, Jeff and I went to our little neighborhood country church for service and then spent the afternoon on a long 16 mile bike ride before heading to town for a late-afternoon Easter Dinner and a walk with Tom and Carol. Pretty simple day, but wonderful to appreciate life in the sunshine and nice weather, and with family.

This weekend, we plan to make an appearance at the Montana Farmers Union Young Producers Conference. Saturday is also my first track meet with our 2016 team of tracksters, in Cut Bank. It will be a BUSY weekend! :)

This is a photo of my Father-In-Law, Tom, overlooking some of our pasture. 

Have a great week, everyone! 

Weekend Happenings

Hi Everyone!

I hope you all had a nice weekend! My weekend was pretty good around here, though busy. The major highlight of the weekend was that my birthday was on Saturday! Woohoo! Today's post is more or less a recap of the weekend's activities, which were many and varied, and also of what's going on on the farm.

The crabapple tree bloomed (early!) in time for my birthday this year.

Birthday Happenings
Saturday was my birthday. Yay! I celebrated with Jeff, Tom and Carol on Friday evening. Tom and Carol had a nice meal of grilled steaks, tossed salad with volunteer spinach from our garden, potatoes from the grill, a nice crusty bread, delicious wine, and some cheesecake squares for dessert. It was low-key and nice to get together and share good food and good conversation. Saturday, my actual birthday, I got to take a group of Junior High kids to their track meet in Cut Bank, along with another Coach. It was a long day, but good to be with some of these youngsters as they're discovering the sport of Track and Field. They surprised me with a nice birthday card and some singing of Happy Birthday. Pretty thoughtful for a group of pre-teens, right? Made me feel special and appreciated. :)

It was a pop-up card- my favorite! :) Delivered on the bus ride home.

Farm Happenings
We are officially DONE with seeding. The winter wheat was, of course, seeded last fall, but we still had lots of spring wheat, peas, and barley to do this spring, along with some land that we re-seeded into grass. Overall, seeding went well with little to no machinery breakdowns. The biggest news related to seeding is that we purchased a new blockage monitor system for our air-drill (seeder) this year, which is a little hard to explain, but helps show the person who's running the drill if the seed is flowing through the implement and into the ground as it should be. Jeff, Tom, and Stephanie (when she was here) installed sensors on each hose of the air drill. Each sensor is monitored using an iPad app that Jeff or whoever is driving the tractor can view. The app would buzz if it sensed that no seed was flowing through a hose on the drill, and would indicate which hose was blocked. Then Jeff could go out and see what was up, or how that particular hose was blocked, clear the blockage, and get back to work. The system worked very well and definitely ensured that seeding continued to run efficiently. Without a system like this, a person could have a blockage and not know for a very long time, which means that part of the ground goes un-seeded. So, with this system in place, we know we didn't miss any ground. Pretty cool how technology can work in agriculture and improve productivity, and therefore yields. Now we just need some rain. Seriously, folks, pray for rain!

This is what an air drill seeder looks like. Normally, it's hooked up to trail and seed behind a tractor.

Fitness Happenings
Shape Up Montana ended last Thursday. Overall, I'm happy with my own performance this year. I wanted to make it to 500 miles and I eclipsed that and then some by reaching 565 or so. As a team, my team did awesome, too, and I can't wait to see where we finished in the team standings. I ran and biked quite a bit more this year than in previous years, and already have a 10K under my belt, so I attribute that as a big reason why I scored so many more points this year. Over the weekend, I ran on Friday and Sunday. Friday was a windy uphill run of 3 miles or so in the afternoon, and Sunday was an easy walk/jog combo of less than two miles. I was pretty sore for some reason yesterday morning, plus I knew that Jeff and I were planning our big bike ride for that afternoon so I didn't want to overdo it... I am planning to do the 10K at the Buffalo Jump Race Series in Ulm, MT on May 17, so I do need to concentrate on keeping my mileage and training up this week, then "tapering" next week in preparation for the race.

I love this logo for the Buffalo Jump races!

Bicycle Happenings
Jeff has a fitness goal this summer of getting in a lot more mountain biking. I told him that for my birthday I didn't want any presents, but let's plan to go on a long bike ride instead. So, Sunday afternoon, we spent about an hour and a half on our mountain bikes. For the first time, really, we rode through our pastures instead of on the gravel roads. We mostly followed cow paths, which are a lot like single-track, except where there were no trails, then we just picked our way carefully through the grass. We left from Tom's house and made a big loop heading out to the Southwest, crossing the creek, then by the tepee rings, across the Inverness Road by the gravel pit and reservoirs over there, then crossed back into Chuck's pasture, and headed toward home. We think we covered about 8 miles. Harvey and Abby came with us and particularly enjoyed all the creek crossings and reservoirs. We had a great time!

Our first creek crossing of the afternoon. 

Stopping at another reservoir. Dogs went for a swim. :)

You can see how brown the grass is in these photos. We really need some rain. 

The narrowest, most harrowing portion of our ride. Barbed wire fence on one side, steep drop off on the other...
No big deal, right? We made it through with no spills. :)

 It was a jam-packed, but awesome weekend of work, play, and celebration. How was your weekend? Did you do anything exciting? Happy trails, everyone!

One of my favorite views on our entire farm. Actually in some pasture that Jeff and I rent. Sage Creek with the Sweetgrass Hills in the background. 

Seeding Photos

Over the weekend I was granted a reprieve from track meet duties to assist Jeff with seeding. It was really great to be helping with farmwork.  I helped Jeff by moving trucks and vehicles down the field or from one field to the next (yes, I drove the semi! thankyouverymuch!) and with filling the drill with seed and fertilizer. The weather was beautiful over the weekend, which made everything even more pleasant. Temperatures around 70, sunny, and minimal wind.  Sounds like a San Diego forecast, right?

I brought my camera on Saturday.  Since I haven't done a photo montage blog in a while, I guess this will be it! As usual, there are a few photos of Harvey...

Harvey: "I'm not supposed to be doing this, am I?"  Caught red-pawed!

Harvey cannot resist digging in soft dirt, especially when it smells like animals could be lurking below.  This looked to be a badger hole. This stubble strip was seeded shortly after this photo was taken.  Badger holes are really not great growing conditions for wheat and Harvey's extra digging probably didn't help. Oh well!

 We were seeding in a field adjacent to the house, just to the east.  Pretty nice view with, huh?

Big Truck, Medium Truck, and Small Truck. Actually, the small "truck" is would be a pickup. 

The left side of this photo is what just-seeded ground looks like. The right side is what it looks like just before being seeded.  With the air drill, we can seed directly into stubble, and don't usually need to plow or till the fields first. This is great for many reasons, one of such being that organic matter is retained in the soil.

Tractor pulls the air drill.  The cart in the back holds seed, nitrogen, and phosphorous.

 

Harvey was supervising the seeding operations.

Soon.

Snow is lightly falling outside and I am sitting at the kitchen table, typing away. The kitchen table is, incidentally, our office, meeting room, mail sorting desk, research table, and the place where we sometimes eat meals.  It's a multi-purpose table. This is where decisions are made, folks. Sometimes over a plate of spaghetti.


A recent photo of Jeff feeding the group of first and second-time calvers.
They eat hay, but also the supplement from that bag Jeff is pouring.

Jeff has been ill lately and I am hoping I don't come down with it, too. I find that part of me thinks it would be good news if he has the flu because I got a flu shot this fall and would therefore be safe, right? All the same, it's no fun when a member of the house is sick. I hope he gets better quickly.

With Jeff under the weather, I went out today and checked on the heifers out in the corral at our place. These animals will be bred for the first time later this spring and hopefully will calve in a year. It amazes me how fast they grow, and how fast they EAT! They are teenagers, I guess... if we were to compare to human growth and development anyway. They go through hay quicker than I always think they should. They had eaten the outside of a bale Jeff fed a few days ago, so I grabbed the pitch fork and loosened another ring of grass off the bale.  Harvey likes to go nose to nose with the heifers, who are still curious enough not to stomp and snort him away right away.

Every day we are nearing the beginning of calving season. The official "due date" for the herd is March 1, but we are getting within the range of possibility for a calf to be born almost any day.  If there were a birth in the next week to two weeks, it would still be early, but not outside the realm of possibility. Several of our neighbors who have cows have seen their first calves in the past week. Of course, their respective "due dates" may be earlier than ours.

I wonder sometimes if the cows know or understand what is happening to them. Do the older ones remember from previous years? Do the first-time calvers understand what is happening at all? How much is sentiment versus instinct?

On a more somber note, it seems as though the death angel has passed over some of our friends and neighbors recently. Our landlord and good friend lost his sister a few days ago, funeral on Monday. Earlier today, as well, we attended a particularly sad service.  A neighboring family we are good friends with had a son about Jeff's age who went to Blue Sky high school (back then, it was Hingham and Rudyard together to form Blue Sky).  Jeff had known him since boyhood.  He and his wife got married about the same time Jeff and I did.  The young man lost his wife to complications from a brain aneurism, just a few weeks ago.  She was 28. Same age as me, and in perfect health. It is unfathomable to me that she could be gone, and the grief her husband must be left with... I simply can't imagine.

We are in the dead of winter, and I find myself looking forward to calving more than I have in previous years. The newborn animals bring such joy and hope. The first healthy calf born will be not only the first sign of spring, but a new leaf, a renewed promise that there is so much good in the world.

Springtime In Blooms

While I was gone on my back-to-back vacations, spring arrived in full bloom at our house. Jeff and I planted some tulips last fall, and I was delighted to see that a few of them actually came up! Here's the post I did about planting them: http://prairieponderingsmt.blogspot.com/2011/09/tulips.html A few blooms of each of the three varieties graced the west side of our house for a few short weeks, bringing a little cheer and curb appeal. There wasn't even enough to cut a bouquet for the kitchen table, but a few are better than none, I think! Hopefully, there will be more next spring.  Tulips are supposed to multiply on their own for a few years, right?

 This photo shows each of the three varieties. I don't remember their names, but I think it's in the post from last fall, so if you're curious, click on the link in the previous paragraph.

This "double" variety was so beautiful. It looks like a peony!

Variegated blossom, variety #2.

Variety #3 was mostly white with pink streaks.  

 We also have a flowering tree of some sort on the south side of our house. Apple? Crabapple? I don't really know, but it was in full bloom-- very beautiful. The heifers are at pasture in our yard right now, too-- you can see one in the background.

Miniature irises along the west wall of the garage. Don't know if they're wild, or if a previous inhabitant of our home planted them some time ago. They looked great, though. Love the color.