What You Can Learn From Our 5-year old Cattle Rancher

1. He can tell you the difference between cows, bulls, heifers, steers and calves.  In detail. 


2. He knows the numbers of the 2 cows I brought to the Kittson County Fair 10 years ago when I was still in 4-H. He can also find them out on pasture.

3. He's learning how to write all our cow numbers. He's learning how to write all of Grandpa Lowell's cow numbers. He's learning how to write numbers of random cows we find on the internet.  He's obsessed.

4. Why do we keep the heifers and sell the steers? Ask Clarence.  He'll tell you that heifers make you money because they can have more babies and steers make you money because they can't have babies.

5. He can tell you what you should feed his little calves in the barn. He can tell you what you should feed the pigs. He can tell you what to feed each of the pens of cows we have in the yard...not in great detail, but he'd be very helpful if you needed to come over and do chores for us. :)

6. Do you know the difference between a hay bale, a straw bale, or a corn bale? Clarence can help.  He can also tell you the difference between beet pulp and corn silage.

7. Clarence can tell you all about preg checking...you know, checking to see whether the cows are bred or not. That's all I'll say about it. Yes, I know he knows too much about some things for his age.

8. He can tell you the numbers of his cows out in the pasture. Sure they have orange ear tags and we don't, but he can write down their numbers for you. Pretty cute.

9. Ear tags. Who has what color? Ask Clarence...Grandpa Lowell/Uncle Chuck; Nathan; Nikki and Mark; his Daddy; his Mom; him. 

10. He can show you how to run calves down the chute.

11. Clarence is too brave for being 5. It scares me sometimes. He can show you how to sort heifers... the bigger ones. The other day, he came into the tractor and told me he had some heifers sorted out in the barn that we should keep. I asked him if they were fancy,  and he said, "Yeah, they're really nice. I have two black ones and two with white faces." And he did...they were all sorted out and stuck in a little pen in the back of the barn.  Ahhh!

 

Well, I hope you've enjoyed a little insight into the life of this little cattle rancher. He's a fun kid to have around!

Back in the Swing

Hi there...it's been a while.

We're just busy living life, I guess. We've been going to preschool, feeding cows, trying to do more work on our addition, running here and there, teaching piano, etc.  It seems like we never slow down.  Matt keeps asking why I haven't written in a while. Partly it's because of the stuff I mentioned above, and part of it's because I just don't have the heart to write anything right now. I know that I like having these memories of my kids to look back on, but at the same time, I guess I just want to live it and not write about it, too. Am I making any sense?

Well, little Spiffy Cliffy turned 1 on Wednesday. I can't believe how fast that year went.  He's such a fun, happy, busy little boy.  He wants to be anywhere Clarence and Adina are. He puts more things in his mouth than they ever did, though - I feel like I'm always doing the finger sweep to see what he's got in there...marbles, money, styrofoam, paper, whatever he can find. And so far I've been lucky...no chokes. Thank you, God! Another favorite thing of his is climbing the stairs really fast if I forget to put the baby gate up and digging in the toilet if I or someone else forgets to put the lid down.  We're always keeping an eye on him! Adina and Clarence are big helpers for that, though. They let me know what he's up to.  He's also a good little helper in the tractor. I've been helping Matt the last month or so with chores every day and the kids and I drive the mixer wagon.  Adina's good if she brings a bunch of treats with; Clifford's just good. He jumps around and barks at the dogs and moos at the cows if we're sitting still, but when we move and head to a pen to feed, he sits still and just watches. He's so good...and I remember that's just how Clarence used to be in the tractor.

Adina's been busy coloring, watching movies, helping me and just growing up. She likes to help with most chores around the house like scrubbing the floor, vacuuming, and cleaning the bathroom. I really don't have to beg her for help in those areas...it's more when I ask her to pick up toys that she just looks at me and lets Clarence do all the picking up. 
 It's crazy how much older she seems lately. She uses manners when she talks and just seems to have a sweeter nature than her "terrible two" days.  She's still as stubborn as ever, though, so I'm trying to find ways to creatively deal with that. :)  All in all, she's so much fun...

Clarence has been up to the same as usual...cows. He has five or so little calves out in the barn that he works with/feeds/leads, etc. on a daily basis. He's trying to train one of them to lead right now. I guess he wants to get a jump start on the fair.  When we feed cows, we dump a pile of silage/beet pulp for him and he scoops it up in his little buckets and feeds to his calves. He's so helpful, too...when we're feeding the heifers by where he works with his calves, he's always waiting with the gate open for us so we don't have to jump out and open it ourselves. What a great little kid!

Since his birthday, he's been drawing, coloring and painting pictures. Right now, I've got about 15 taped to my kitchen windows that he wants up for Clifford's birthday in a few weeks. He's going to sell them to whoever wants to buy them. He charges a dollar or a quarter, whatever you want to pay (his words). It seems like he's always looking for a way to make another dollar.

Matt's been up to his usual...no good. Just kidding. Ha. He's feeding cows daily (we try to help nearly every day) and doing little projects here and there. We've worked cows and calves a few times with Clarence's help. The other two kids head to the babysitter's house when we're out in the barn...it's tough to have their "help".  Yesterday, he built me a nice big shelf for all my canned stuff in the basement. Clarence helped him, and it's awesome! They organized all my stuff and made it all look so nice. I love it!

Well, I guess all I've done is update on the family, but that's ok. We're just trying to slow things down a little to enjoy our winter.  As I wrote that, I thought about Adina. About two times a week, she asks me, "Mom, when's it going to be summer?"  I think she's mostly just waiting for her birthday...it's been hard for her to see both her brothers have birthdays and she doesn't get one until summer. Oh well, she's being more patient about it now.

Have a fabulous day and weekend, friends!