New Cow Stalls - The Project Begins

This pile of metal has been lying around the barnyard for a couple of years now, being moved from one location to another to keep them out of the way. Believe it or not, these looped metal tubes are going to form the sides of new cow stalls, and the work has finally begun. I can't wait to see how they're going to look!
This is what the old wooden stalls look like. Most of them have been broken down over the years, so the cows poop wherever they want and lie down wherever they want. Are you getting my drift? Even with keeping hay on the floors, the cows get awfully dirty and Weldon has to wash them morning and evening before we can milk.
The new metal tubes will hang from iron or cement posts, so Weldon is making one new cement post each day. This is the form he made, filled with cement.

Each one is perfectly beautiful, as you can see. He will need to make about 25 of them.

Weldon's nephew Wesley Carroll has been coming to help with the work: measuring, cutting, lifting sagging roof beams, and digging out cement, packed dirt & cow poop. It's a lot of dirty, heavy work.

Nothing is exactly square, so the whole center area needed to be dug up and laid out "just so." If you look carefully, you can see the string working as a level so that concrete footings can be poured. Weldon backed the tractor & generator into position , but only after Wesley did his best to drown a nest of wasps. I think he missed. But the work continued and now you can see the finished line of concrete and metal posts running down the center of the barn lot. The cement posts that Weldon is making will run along the sides of the barn lot ... or, that's my understanding. It's all pretty impressive.
Now this work has stopped so that the corn/sorghum harvest can be brought in. A farmer's work is never done.
Stay tuned ....

... Walk with Me ...
Weldon has 3 silos in which he stores the silage that he feeds the cattle throughout the course of the year. The last of the silos was almost empty, so he had to cut some corn last Thursday (August 27) to tide the cows over until it's really time to harvest. Walk with me as I tag along behind the workers.
The parade is just about ready to start: tractor, corn chopper, wagon, and clown.
Weldon has 4 cornfield areas on the farm, "cut up" into about 21 small patches. These fields cover about 33 acres. His dream is to "just once" farm a big flat piece of land. Today Weldon, Tim, and Jeff would be cutting in the furthest field (3/4 mile from the house), down by the Little Yadkin River. They drove the equipment down and started working while Jasmine and I walked and took some pictures along the way. This is the edge of the first field on the left side of the road.
Next is a scuppernong vine and a pretty view of Pilot Mountain.
On the right, Weldon's sister Pat has a house that she used to live in and an old house that came with the property. It's old and falling apart and I love it!
We have one neighbor at the end of the "real"road , but the wagon tracks continue to some more fields. This looks like the corn is planted too close together, but Weldon had to plant some sorghum amongst the corn to make up for all the stalks that the deer, crows, and turkeys pulled up. And in this picture , you can see where Weldon has cut the hay beside the corn field. Now it needs to be baled and brought up to the barn.
If you look carefully, you can see the smoke from the tractor in the middle of the corn field. The Little Yadkin River is nestled in those trees on the far side of the field. By the time Jazz & I got there, they had already cut one wagon load and were working on the second.
Silage in the first wagon.
Loading the second wagon.
On our way back up the hill: It was nearing 90 degrees and I think we were both panting by now. Jeff came by on his "Mule" and offered us a ride. Jazz isn't crazy about riding in strange vehicles, but she sat on my lap and didn't complain at all. I guess she knew she shouldn't look a gift mule in the mouth.
And here we are, back at the silo. The wagon has a conveyor chain that pushes the silage out and then a blower blows it into the top of the silo. This silo is 40 ft tall.
You can see an exciting video of the silage moving along the conveyor table on my Facebook page :-)
Thanks for walking with me. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

3 DAYS IN MINNESOTA

A big party in northern MN to celebrate my parent's 60th wedding anniversary and my dad's & my uncle's 80th birthdays? Neither hell nor high water could keep us away. Katie flew from NY to MSP Int'l Airport on Thursday evening and Weldon & I flew out from Greensboro on Friday morning, July 31. We met up with Anna and Marshall in the Charlotte airport. From there, we flew into Minneapolis/St.Paul and were met by Steve (my former husband) and Katie. We went to his home and visited for a while with him and his wife Teri. This was the first time for Weldon to meet them. From there, we took Grandma Esther's car (Steve had made arrangements for us to borrow it to save us some $$, thank you very much!) and headed north. We stopped for lunch in Rush City at the Firefly Bistro and then drove on to Cloquet.

You can read the rest of the story and see 150+ photos by clicking on the link below and reading the captions under the pics. There are 2 short videos of Esther talking at the end (second & third from the end), so make sure to check them out.

http://picasaweb.google.com/farmliving/Minnesota2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCNfZuuDGxJrKUg#

Lots of relatives and not much scenery, but hope you enjoy :-)

NC to NY ... and Back Again

The big (sad) day finally arrived. On Tuesday, June 2, Katie was ready to make her move to New York. In order to delay the sad part for a few days, I drove with Katie to Brooklyn to help her get settled. Heading-out day was plenty busy. First, there were lots of kitties to say goodbye to. Katie had just found and rescued these little babies just 2 days previously while we were at church. Since she found them, she had to name them: Ike and Ray. (Turns out Ray is a female, so now it's Ike and Raye.)

The "boys" were finally able to start getting in the wheat. What a relief!
Tim Lawson: Papa John:
and Mr. Farmer himself, Weldon:

While I did evening chores, Katie loaded the car. When we were ready to go (close to 11pm), we had a good strong cup of coffee, kissed Weldon goodbye, and headed out. Katie drove and it was my job to keep her awake. Personally, my eyelids never felt heavy, but we were both plenty exhausted. We stopped often to pee and stretch our legs, but what a l -- o -- n -- g drive. The sun was coming up while we were going through PA, so I enjoyed seeing a little of that beautiful countryside. The GPS didn't give us too many problems. It finally had to admit that we were right :-)

We arrived at the apartment a little before noon, a few hours longer than the maps predicted, but we did make a lot of stops. Sebastien had flown up from Miami to help with the move, and he had just exited the subway when we pulled in. Talk about timing! We unloaded the car and then found some lunch. Jamaican goodies, just around the corner from Katie's apartment. mmmmm
I hadn't had a Ting in years!
Then a quick stop at the local hardware (?) store for a broom. We didn't need any Tide, but one can always use more Time, right?!
We returned the rental car to Manhattan and stopped at a few shops before taking the subway "home."

The next morning, Thursday, all of Katie's earthly belongings were delivered by truck from Miami. The shrink-wrapped pallets were set on the sidewalk in front of the apartment and the 3 of us got everything inside the lobby and then up the elevator to the apartment. I think it went extremely well. Sebastien's body-building buddy was supposed to be there to assist us, but we got along just fine without him, thank you very much. We were pretty hard on Sebastien, but we finally convinced him that jumping wouldn't solve anything. That night we had supper in a cute little Mexican restaurant right across the street from the apartment. I had a hamburger - go figure. Sure was tasty :-)
Sebastien spent Friday with a friend and Katie and I went into the city for some r&r. We spent a couple of fun hours at MOMA and had lunch there.

After the museum, we dashed through the rain drops to visit a few shops, including a fabulous chocolate shop, a Japanese sweets shop, and maybe another Japanese grocery or two. Then it was back to the subway and back to Brooklyn.

Saturday morning we were up before 5 to make the trip to JFK. I had a good flight home, through DC, and Pat picked me up at the airport. Weldon always asks, "Did you see anyone you know?" This time I really surprised him by saying, "Yes! I saw Eddie McGee." He was flabbergasted. "You DID??" (Eddie used to go to the same church as we go to.) "Yup. He was in the movie we watched last night - Junebug. :-)" It's true and made us all laugh.... And then it was time for chores.