This is our one and only spring calf. In our cow/calf operation, we calve in the fall. However, we made an exception this year for Cutie, one of our favorite heifers.

Cutie is a red white-face Hereford/Angus/Simmental mix, the product of our only Hereford cow. In an operation where almost all of the calves are black or black white-face, a red white-face really stands out. Whenever I was in the pasture, I told the little calf she was such a cutie! The name stuck.

Cutie’s mother, Hereford (That’s what we call her—just “Hereford.”) has been a member of our herd for almost seven years. She produces and raises great calves, and has a gentle nature. Bill has kept four of her heifers to breed to continue the “good mother” genetics. Cutie is the only red white-face heifer from Hereford. Here's a picture taken last fall of Hereford and her calf:

For her first motherhood experience, Cutie lived up to her genetic heritage. However, the second year which was last year, she didn’t stay bred. Usually when this happens, the unbred heifer is taken to the sale barn and sold as “open.” But due to Cutie’s genetics and because she was one of our favorites, Bill decided to breed her to have a late winter/early spring calf. Also, there’s the dollar-and-cents side: She’s worth more now with a calf than she would have been as an open heifer last year. The gamble paid off.

As to the question of paternity: When Bill decided to keep Cutie and breed her, he took her to a pasture where he was keeping cows he’d just weaned calves from, plus the two bulls. Since all the cows were bred, the bulls weren’t getting any action. Cutie was given a warm welcome!

Pictured below are Kruger, on the left, and Romeo, on the right. The boys don't look their sleek and debonair best because they've been wallowing around in the mud created from the melt-down of 13 inches of snow!

Bill decided to sell Cutie and her calf to a neighbor who does spring calving. The other option was to breed her in her first cycle after the birth so next year she would calve in January; then continue the early breeding until she was in sync with the rest of our herd. This process would take several years and involve calving in potentially risky weather conditions. Cutie and her calf will go to a good home and be close enough to visit. 

I was lucky to be able to capture these moments shortly after the calf was born:

The calf struggles to its feet for the first time. “Hey, I was perfectly happy swimming around in the nice, warm water. You pushed me out of Paradise and out onto the cold ground. Now you say I have to do what? What are legs? You say I have four?”

“A little shaky here, but I’m up!” 

“Whew! That was a lot of work! Now I’m hungry. Can a starving, newborn calf get some groceries around here?”

I didn’t get a shot of the first meal, but got this one the next day in the barn. Cutie and her calf spent the first couple of days there, with the calf basking in the warmth of a heat lamp. 

In my previous post I described the sad state of my snow boots—too short to navigate through more than six inches of snow, zippers in both boots wouldn't stay up and a split seam in one boot. Remember that ugly pair of gaiters I modeled that I had to wear to keep my feet dry? 

My Valentine's present was a pair of Bogs® chore boots, purchased at the Farmers' Co-Op in Manhattan, KS, when we there earlier this week. We had lunch with a friend who highly recommended them and said her feet stayed toasty warm while doing chores and her daily walk. So we hied ourselves to the Co-op and tried on boots. When I balked at the price tag, deciding I could make do with my old boots while looking for a less expensive replacement pair, Bill decided I should have the Bogs® for Valentine's Day. He also bought a pair for himself.

You're thinking wryly, "Gee, what a romantic devil!" But, if you check out my Home and Author Bio pages, you'll find out his gift to me after our first date was a head of broccoli. Not just any head of broccoli, but the biggest one I had ever seen—larger in diameter than a dinner plate! The presentation was made at my office and my coworkers were impressed, proclaiming "He's a keeper!"

As stated in my bio, my next favorite gift was a shiny, red hay hook. Bill was about to leave on a work-related trip for several days and I would have to feed bales of hay to the cattle. As the bales were too heavy for me to lift, I used my new hay hook to drag them into the corral, then cut the wires and throw pieces of the bales into the feeding tank. 

I don't wear much jewelry, don't wear cologne at all, my favorite chocolate is Dove Dark Chocolate and I prefer eating a nice meal at home to going out and waiting half the night for a table. My needs are simple and tend toward the practical, which makes me hard to buy gifts for. But Bill nailed it with the boots, just as he did years ago with the broccoli, then the hay hook. My farmer!

Here are my new boots:

Recently, a farm wife friend and I were discussing the snow and frigid temperatures we've been experiencing this winter. The chat progressed to clothes, in particular our choices of farm clothes that would keep us warm when outside doing chores. Yes, we played true to the stereotypical women gabbing about clothes. But, here’s where the stereotype ends: We both agreed we don’t care whether or not our chore clothes are fashionable, because warmth and practicality trump chic!

Besides, the cattle don't care how we look.

In my book chapter titled “Farm Fashion,” I described some of my farm clothes: a denim jacket purchased at a garage sale for $5.00; Bill’s old ragged-around-the-edges olive drab army coat, vintage mid-1960’s; a Cargill Industries freebie stocking cap; heavy work gloves; and my gumboots, also known as my “Big Girl Boots.”

Included in this stylish collection are ski clothes I no longer ski in: double-layer underwear, turtleneck shirts and socks. I also have a couple of ski jackets, colorful stocking caps and headbands, and gloves and mittens with liners for both. However, when I’m mingling with the cattle and slopping through mud and muck, I prefer to wear outer clothing that can be hosed off, if necessary, or deemed no great loss if it’s unsalvageable.

A new item for me this year is a pair of leg gaiters. There were three reasons for this: One, we had 13 inches of blowing, drifting snow and my snow boots weren’t tall enough to wade through it without filling up with the cold white stuff; two, the boot zippers won’t stay up; and three, one of the boots sprung a leak along a seam. I can’t part with it right now to be repaired but the gaiter covers up the split seam.

So, what does this farm fashion maven look like in her chore ensemble?

When I want to "glam" up the outfit, I trade the freebie stocking cap for one of my colorful ski caps. Tres chic!

Initial snowfall reports started at 4" to 8". Then, were revised to 6" to 10". And, finally, 8" to 12".

I made a quick trip to town Monday to pick up the essentials: groceries, filters for the wood furnace and toilet paper. 

Bill had already laid in a good supply of wood.

...began early Tuesday morning. Bill readied his tractor: bale fork on the front to feed round bales to the 11 heifers, bull and one cow/calf pair; snow blade on the back.

By mid-afternoon when we bundled up and went out to take a short walk, Bill estimated the depth at about 8 inches. But it was difficult to tell due to the blowing and drifting. 

...a sun dog—an atmospheric phenomenon creating bright spots or arcs of light on one or both sides of the sun that sometimes look like short pieces of a rainbow;

...and 13 inches of snow! Although depth was hard to determine because of blowing and drifting. 

Bill bladed snow away from the barn so he could get the mini-truck out to feed cattle, and also cleared a path to the pasture.

Then he hauled buckets of grain and a couple of square bales out to the cattle. They also have round bales to munch on. You can see the tops of those feeders over the backs of the heifers.

Before he could put out the square bales of hay, he had to shovel snow out of the feeding "bowl"—a former stock water tank that sprung leaks.

When Bill finished feeding cattle and clearing out our driveway and walking path, he left to blade neighbors' driveways. 

When he was blading our driveway, he unintentionally created this snow fort where he pushed the snow.

When Bill returned from clearing neighbors' driveways, he told me about the drifts on the east/west road that ends near our house. The county had bladed the road, leaving the drifts, almost 5 1/2 feet tall, on the north side intact. 

Weather predictions call for more snow this weekend, but no significant accumulation is expected.

Bill relaxes with Moly Bolt and the seed catalog.

Yikes! Due to low supply levels, the price of propane has spiked to over $5.00 a gallon in some areas of the nation, creating financial hardship and potentially dangerous situations for people who heat their homes with it, including over 83,000 Kansans, according to an article in the Topeka Capital-Journal. Bill called a supplier and asked for a quote. The reply was, “$4.06.”

The article went on to explain the shortage began when propane supplies took a hit during last year’s late harvest when farmers needed the fuel to dry a bumper crop of grain. Then the situation snowballed into an insane perfect storm as the “polar vortex” swept across the nation shoving temperatures into record-breaking lows. Increased demand reduced or depleted already low supplies, resulting in rationing, price-gouging and supply cut-offs in some areas.

We have a forced-air gas furnace and hot water heater both powered by propane. But, we also have a wood-burning furnace in the basement that is our main source of heat for the house. I shared my experiences with wood-fueled heat and learning to build fires in the furnace without burning down the house in the chapter titled, “I’m Not Having a Hot Flash—We’re Burning Hedge!” in my book. I referred to the wood furnace as a “big hulking, smoke-belching, black behemoth.”

As I write this blog, Bill is out cutting more wood. The varieties available in our timber include oak, walnut, mulberry, elm, hackberry, hickory and hedge. Of these, hedge is the hottest burning wood. (I jokingly asked Bill if burning mulberry produces purple smoke! It doesn’t. But if it did, we’d be the talk of the neighborhood among Kansas State fans!)

Pictured below from left to right are the different types of wood we burn: hedge, locust, oak, mulberry, red elm and white elm.

According to a brochure put out by the Kansas State University Cooperative Extension Service, “Wood, An Alternative Source for Home Heating,” whether or not a piece of wood will provide optimal heat is dependent on species, density and moisture content.

The densest, driest hardwoods provide the best heat: hedge (aka osage orange), locust, hickory, oak, mulberry and sugar maple. They burn slower and put off more heat per volume. Slightly less dense but acceptable varieties include ash, walnut, hackberry, elm and sycamore. Less dense, softer varieties that will burn quickly, but not provide much heat are soft maple, catalpa, cottonwood, willow and box elder.

Regarding moisture content, I’ll state the obvious: Wet wood doesn’t burn. Wood from live trees is considered “green”: it has high moisture content and will smolder and smoke. As I pointed out in my book, “Building a fire that smolders and smokes excessively will, over time, cause a build-up of creosote, a highly flammable black, tarry residue, in the chimney. If enough creosote builds up, the result could be a pyrotechnic extravaganza erupting from the chimney. Then, the house burns down.”  Rule of thumb for selecting firewood: The deader, the better!

Hopefully, the propane supply situation will ease before it reaches major crisis proportion. Until then, my advice to those of you who have wood-burning stoves or furnaces:

“Ladies and gentlemen, start your chainsaws!”