At the end of last summer, an eighty something row crop farmer told my farmer, "Well, I made it through another year!" We felt a little the same way, having completed the hay season. The last day we baled I was so tired that night I couldn't go to sleep for a while. The rains were just right last summer for the meadows to produce grass for more than one cutting. The farmer says we put up 1400 round bales of hay; that's a lot of grass and more than enough to feed the cattle for a year, but it's always good to have extra in case next summer is dry.
Of course row crop farmers can call an end to their harvesting "another year", but with chicken farmers it's "what goes around, comes around" with no noticeable beginning or ending to a new year. We have just finished the first flock of chickens for this year, having had to keep them for eight weeks, longer than any we have ever raised. The company wants a larger bird; I suppose consumers demand larger portions to eat. When we first started raising chickens they rarely weighed as much as four or five pounds in six weeks times; however the word obesity was rarely heard of either.
Because of my cataract surgery last spring, we didn't have much of a garden, but by late summer we planted peas and I froze enough for the winter. A lot of our fall and winter weekends would find us getting in firewood for the furnace. The farmer took the tractor and dump trailer to the edges of the fields and brought in logs which he sawed into usable lengths, then split them with an attachment on the front of the BobCat. I loaded the pieces onto the bed of the side by side and brought them to the house to stack.
In December, the farmer was sick; he thought he had the flu but it wasn't anything like I remember the flu being. He continued feeding the hay and helping in the chicken houses then spending the rest of the day in his recliner. Much of the Christmas joy was lost because we both felt bad for a while. On the 21st of December we had been married for 57 years.
The Christmas card from our older grandson and his wife announced that we would be great grandparents in July, and since their "reveal" party we know the baby will be a girl; our first.
The month of January was mostly very dry but we did get about two inches of snow and around 10 inches of rain fell in February. Although everyone thought we had a really cold winter, I didn't think it was too bad.
I stayed busy in the sewing room too; two aprons,
two quilt tops, one large top and one baby top
two baby quilts,
and two crocheted baby blankets.
The quilts and tops were all made using scraps; however, not to worry, I didn't use near all of them.
And now spring is upon us; robins are scratching through the old leaves, buttercups are waving in the March winds, and the cattle are searching for every little sprig of green they can find. We'll start a new flock of chickens in two weeks and then only a short span of time until it'll be back to the hay meadows to start "through another year".
Charlotte
