Little bucket calf has big appetite

Dec 09, 2023

A late-born bucket calf has found her favorite place to be is between the legs of the horses. She’s growing and eating well and staying healthy.

“Ahoj” from my very favorite place. The summer heat sure took a beating on everyone and everything this week. I hope everyone made it through and your livestock survived it the best that they could.

A heat advisory was issued just about every darn day, but we sure didn’t need that to let us know just how hot it was. One minute outside and continuous beads of sweat were already rolling down your neck. The good ol’ Nebraska humidity bit hard and made it difficult to work for long periods outside.

Unfortunately, many feedlots in our area suffered huge losses, and deceased cattle were added to piles. My heart goes out to everyone who struggled with such devastating losses. Sending prayers to you and your herd.

We feel so grateful to have water in our creeks and shade trees for the cattle to cool off. I saw many of them pant and breathe rapidly for hours. If I could have brought them all in the house to cool off with me, I sure would have!

I’m a lover of hot weather, but that was just tough on all. Hopefully, that is behind us and the weather is favorable for the remainder of growing season.

We got a bit more rain around here, a little over an inch. Even with the generous rain we have been blessed with in July, the drought monitor map in our area still displays orange, indicating extreme drought. We have come to believe that turning on irrigation may assist the yield, but it is even more helpful to make it rain!

The boys wrapped up the oats crop last week. The cattle go nuts over these oat-filled round bales in the winter and spring. The horses are quite fond of them, too. We will probably let the cattle on this cut field soon.

Kara Brichacek uses a well-loved recipe for pickles as an easy way to take care of some of the garden cucumbers.

The garden is stepping into its harvest season as well. My sister is the gardener at our house. She always dreams big but couldn’t get much to survive this year besides the tried and true zucchini, cucumbers and tomatoes. Her cucumber plant is blowing up right now, so every salad, sandwich and dish we have will contain some form of cucumber for the next few weeks, whether we like it or not!

I haven’t mastered the art of canning pickles yet, but I have a recipe for some mean refrigerator pickles. I make them in an ice cream bucket, and the boys love them. They are rather enjoyable and easy to make. The recipe has been passed to me from some very talented women in our county who have the greenest thumbs in the kitchen I have ever seen.

A late-born bucket calf has found her favorite place to be is between the legs of the horses. She’s growing and eating well and staying healthy.

If you have been reading along with me for some time, you know that my gelding and I found an unwanted calf in the pasture at the beginning of summer. A little update on her: she is now a little over two months old and is doing well. We really didn’t have much hope for her. We fully expected her to develop some sickness from lack of colostrum and simply from the fact of being so tiny.

Now, I don’t know how something so little could have such a big piece of my heart. I might say this about every animal I have, but she adds so much joy to my life. Ever since she was born, eating has been her favorite thing to do. I have raised many bucket calves and never remember a calf taking to forage and grain as quickly as she did. With that being said, she has picked up the name of “Miss Piggy.”

She is my little shadow and has taken a strong liking to the horses. (I’m not sure if they feel the same!) In fact, one of her favorite places to be is right between their front legs!

She is a special one. My brother says she has grown a ton, but for someone who smothers her in hugs and kisses every day, I don’t see it too much yet. I do know that her stomach has for sure grown, though! She eats like a horse, it seems.

I know that God sent this one to me, and I thank him for that every day. Animals, more specifically farm livestock, are something incredible.

I know I would not be who I am if my grandparents or even more, my dad, hadn’t taught me the importance of loving and raising livestock. I’ll never be able to thank them enough for that. I pray that I will never have to live a day without livestock in the yards and in my heart. We are so lucky to live this farming life. Until next time! “Spanem Bohem.”

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