My New Toy

Sorry for the bloggy break. What can I say? I've been busy.

School is going well. Only 6 weeks of student teaching left. I've been teaching all of the classes for the last 2 weeks and will probably give up a class in the next week or so and work my way back down to nothing. It's been exhausting, but I'm having fun.

Life on the farm is much the same. I get up, feed calves, go to school, come home, feed calves, feed kids, sleep, and repeat. My calf barn is still a no go, but today we did go shopping for a new farm toy, for me! I never get any farm toys. So since they gave me a big NO on my calf barn, we've been coming up with other ways to make my job easier. Not that my job is tough, but there has to be a more efficient way to do it.

Currently, we mix all of our milk replacer in individual pails and haul it in a wagon to our calves. My wagon holds 13 pails, so it usually takes a couple of trips. The wagon was a new feature just a couple of years ago. Before that we carried everything, 4 pails at a time. That worked until I ended up making 5 trips and my fingers were calloused and sore, hence the wagon. The wagon works, but the plan is to move all my calves to the back side of the barn. Currently we have 8 pens in the front. That means up to 34 calf pails, or 3 trips with my wagon. I don't mind the exercise, but when there are a million other things that need to be done, time becomes an issue. Which brings my to my new toy: the Kubota RTV. The plan is to build a tank so I will mix up all of my milk replacer in the tank and then fill pails at each individual calf pen.

We had discussed this plan earlier and my father-in-law currently has a Polaris Ranger to drive back and forth. We thought we could just use that, until my FIL realized that it would mean losing his Ranger. Suddenly getting a new vehicle was a brilliant idea! Amazing how that works. So today Pat and I went shopping. We tested out the Kubota first, and then headed to check out the new Rangers. For our purpose, the Kubota was the better option. We aren't planning on doing a lot of off-roading with it, although in the spring, it sometimes feels like it.

The down side to our new toy is that we are getting rid of some of our other toys. Pat sold our 6-wheeler, which isn't a huge deal. It was only ever used for spot spraying and rock-picking. He's also trying to sell our snowmobile. We're both having a tough time with that. On one hand, we hardly use it, but on the other hand, the boys really love it. I imagine another one will be purchased in a few years.

At least this week I have something to look forward to on Monday: a new toy!