Payback, building news, farm animals

One of my coworkers, who is my age, was walking a little stiffly yesterday morning so I asked him what was going on. He told me that his children had coerced him into some activities on the lake over the weekend. Activities that involved a wave board and other devices dragged behind a boat, skimming along the top of the very cold water at ridiculous speeds. He is still not sure why he agreed to participate. He ended the conversation with the thought he had left his kids with. His goal is to live until they get to his age. Then it will be his turn to rub it in.


Later today I will participate in what is called the “calibration session.” It is fancy title for the time when we put our direct reports up against the direct reports of all the other supervisors and see how well we can reward them based on their performance across the entire group. I usually end up in pretty good shape but it is a real strain to go through the process.

Yesterday I got a quote from the lumber yard in Nocona for all the materials to build the apartment. Nocona Lumber is about ten miles from us and we have done a lot of business there. It is an old fashioned place with people who are easy to deal with. They gave me a good price on the materials to erect, enclose, insulate and sheetrock the apartment. All I would lack is the metal siding. It was exciting to get it all in one quote so I can see how the money I have will be going out.

The man who has done our concrete work also contacted me with a date to pour; Thursday. I have not gotten a quote from him yet but I am fairly confident it will be close to the price he estimated when he was at the farm for the last pour. Getting that done will enable us to move very quickly forward with the shop and apartment. Mama had a bad day yesterday so she is more ready than usual. It was all good news to her.

Right now she is holding on to the idea of traveling to Florida for Thanksgiving. She and Grandma are trying to eat more correctly but both of them are less than strong when it comes to sweets. I do not know if a team effort with Grandma is the right way to go but it is the attack route they have chosen. I suppose it is better to do this change in diet together even though I do not see the “encouragement” they will give each other as uplifting. Neither of them likes to be told they cannot or should not do any particular thing – especially when it comes to eating. We will see how it all plays out.

All the animals are enjoying the cooler weather we are having. The only holdout is Rosie. She does not like to venture out until the temperature is well above the morning lows of 42 degrees. She is more of an 80 degree dog. The big dogs are energized by the cool and it has even peaked their appetites. They are now a little over a year old and are finally filling out. I was a little worried they would never get there.

Grandma and Grandpa favor them over all the other dogs but they are tolerant of both Dodger and Rosie. It could be because the big dogs are in their proper place – outside. Rosie and Dodger are both trained to be inside. Grandma has never been a fan of any animal inside the house. Dodger can be a lot of fun – when he wants to. Rosie is more of a family member, even fro Grandma.

The calves will be moved off of their morning feeding this week. They are all eating grass and grain and putting on weight very quickly. It takes a lot of feed to fill out a Holstein but all of them are doing well. Only one will get a morning feeding for a couple more weeks. Our “Big Boy” is two weeks younger that the rest of the herd - even though you cannot tell - so he will need the added nutrition to get past the baby stage.

We are praying for seven more little calves (that’s all the stalls we have) to buy so we can keep the momentum going.