June

Well, this past month was a whirl-wind of activity. Personally I'm very glad that June is over as nothing good happens in the month - birthdays excluded. I'll catch you up a bit on things that have been happening, but there won't be a whole lot of commentary in this post, the paper and I are currently in a bitter struggle since the crosswords keep beating me.

The second week of June was hectic. I had just found out that my sister is engaged the same day that a friend that I used to drive to HCHS was killed. Little bit of awesome, add a dash of devastating, bake for 30 minutes and that was my evening. That Tuesday my farm had a calf, who's name is Friendly. Supposedly it is a historic name - the wife of the territorial Governor of Iowa. That Governor shares his name with one of our oxen by the way. The rest of the week was fairly uneventful.

Third week of June. Kate's old farm had their second calf who is a bull calf, and very leggy. In fact, he is all legs. We've taken to calling him Skipper for some reason. Maybe it was because the calving which should have taken 1-2 hours max, took 6 hours. Ended up that Tony, and Sam had to pull him because the vet wasn't in the office at 10 PM. I also became an Iowa citizen this past week. Plates, car title, drivers licence, the whole 9 yards. Luckily one of my roommates didn't need their car that day and I got everything squared away before noon. -One side note here, Iowa's department of transportation is very strange. You can get a drivers licence at the DMV (DOT out here), but you can't change a title, or get your sticker, you have to go to the county hall. Strange. -

Fourth week of June. My phone died. Monday and Tuesday were brutally hot. It was nice to clear up all of the rain that we had gotten the previous week, and the crops are showing their love of the sun. Our corn has startled to tassel already, and in a week or so we'll probably have silks start to show up. Our potatoes are ready for harvest. Turnips, beets, beans, radishes, and rutabaga have been very popular in our dinners as they have gotten so big so fast that we're selling them at the garden market just so that the non-thinned veggies have room to grow. Anyway, apparently when you have your phone in a pocket that is saturated with sweat all day, in 90+ degrees of actual heat, plus the 8 or 9 degrees of heat index...a phone will die. I have a new one, and a new number, shoot me an email or talk to my folks, they have the number and I can get it to you. Wednesday Henry - a volunteer - and I slaughtered and butchered a lamb for the wedding later in the week. It was a lot of fun to do that, granted Henry did most of the work to start with, but I did the slaughter, then once Henry got the skinning started he handed over the knife and told me what to do. Dressing lambs was new for both of us, but I've had plenty of experience with anatomy classes regarding dissection, and he's hunted for the past 70 years. I think we managed quite well. Friday we lost a lamb and a ewe. The vet says that it was worms which doesn't make us happy. Saturday we had the Pioneer Wedding. We had a fair number of visitors so it was a good day, but it is amazing to me how much work we can get done on site when there are more than 3 people there. Granted in a single room cabin lots of people can be a hindrance, but somehow we managed. We had an amazing dinner, roasted lamb (this one was supposed to die), roasted root veggies, mac and cheese, lemonade, potato souffle, fresh salad...I'm not doing the dinner justice when I say it was delicious. It almost rivals some of Grandpa's grilled brats, with Aunt Karen's homemade apple sauce - or ribbon jello -, Grandma's potato salad, and Mom's fancy salad. Oh yeah, I was the minister for this fake wedding of ours. I got to wear a wool coat, canvas vest, cotton shirt, canvas trousers, and a quaker oats hat. So, needless to say, the heat was horrible. But I got to dance with some pretty girls during the waltz, and then the Virginia Reel. I must say that the Virginia Reel is quite fun. But dangerous in work boots on grass. Sunday was uneventful, we lost another ewe Sunday night. Somewhere between 11 and 4. I only know that because that's as much sleep as I got that night, worrying about the poor thing.

Last week of June. The vet came out on Tuesday to de-worm our sheep and give the pigs their booster shots, which was a lot of fun. Herding sheep isn't the most enjoyable task in the world. Then crawling into a hog lot to wrestle those little guys made the day even better.

Today, well, Steve - my immediate boss - left for a fishing trip right after the wedding so I've been the big man on campus. Which is great, but at the same time it shows me how much I need to learn still. Today I got my real first experience driving the oxen without training wheels. All we did was move some fence rails, but...everything went well. We also butchered and dressed a duck which was fun, I did it last year too, but it is still fun. While we were dressing it I got to teach some kids about anatomy and how human anatomy is different from a duck. Yay for using my degree!

So that takes us through this past month. Hopefully things will calm down a bit more and I can regularly update this.

Buck