Late evening, bottle calves

After work yesterday I stopped by the church to gather the rest of the metal that had been left by the roofers when they completed the metal roof on the house next to the church. The house is used as a mission’s house as well as living space for the associate pastor and his family. I had taken a lot of the leftover parts to the farm earlier but there were still a couple dozen narrow pieces left on the pallet they had been delivered on.

I took the time to take the pallet apart because I wanted to clean up the area where this had been sitting for some time and I wanted to get the two pieces of corrugated metal used in making the pallet. The two pieces I got from the bottom of the pallet are thicker than any metal pieces I have ever worked with. I am sure I will be able to use all the metal at some point in time, but those two pieces will be reserved for something special.

Anyway, it delayed my arrival back home for about an hour and the time changed combined with the shorter days put me back at the farm near dark. Mama had needed me to help her with a couple small things concerning feed so after I got the metal pieces placed where I will store them we took the flashlight and went out to get her chores done. It was nice to be out after dark working on the farm. It felt special for some reason.

I had to undo part of the work I had done for the pigs I was expecting to get when Mama and Victoria were at Trade Day’s last month. I took down one end of the pen so Misty could continue to use the shelter through the winter and so Mama could feed her as she had been doing through the summer. I can easily retrofit the panel I removed and we are preparing a place for Misty in the barn so we can be ready for pigs pretty quickly when the chance comes again.

I did find a couple ads on Craigslist for bottle calves. I think I printed out three. Mama was very excited about a couple of them. She got in touch with one individual who has both heifer and bull calves but the price is pretty high. They are cross bred milk line calves. He gets the bottle babies and puts them on nurse cows. He has fourteen nurse cows and they will feed out two or three babies each. He has a running business just reselling the calves after they are a week or two old.

Another of the ads stated that they have beef bottle babies; both heifers and bulls. Mama was the most excited about that ad but I do not think they called her back. I went to bed pretty early so I am not sure if she got a call after I was in bed, but she is looking for one. Grandpa said he found beef calves for one hundred dollar each in West Virginia but that is a very long way to transport them to raise them on this farm.

Even if the farms where these calves can be bought here are a couple hours away, they are still closer than the seventeen hour drive from West Virginia. Mama and I are only looking for four and if we can get heifers we will have our brood cows in a year or so.

That would be exciting.