A Moving Experience

January has been a month full of moves. The first move involved relocating Brent in a 2,720-mile round trip trek from here to Columbia, South Carolina.

For last week's moves, we stayed closer to home. We moved 38 pregnant cows from milo stalks back to the pasture south of our house.

Just like human mamas, as the time for delivery gets closer, it's best to stay close to home. They had been dining on milo stalks about 8 miles away for the past couple of months.

They are supposed to start calving around February 7. So it was time to get the maternity ward open for business.

The guys used hay to coax them into a corral, guiding them along with the 4-wheeler. Then the cows had to hang out in the pens until it was there turn to take the journey.

The move was slightly more complicated than normal because one pickup is in the shop. Instead of using two pickups and two trailers, we had only one "moving van" available.

So it took five trips back and forth to move the mamas back home and then another trip to go back and retrieve the 4-wheeler and other supplies. (I guess that's not so different from our repeated trips up and down stairs at Brent's second-floor Columbia apartment!)

At this time of year, they are definitely not headed off to "greener pastures," but they are nearby in case they have problems calving.

Since there's not green grass to eat this time of year, Randy & Jake got the pasture ready before their arrival.

They put several bales of sudan out. It's a crop we raised this summer, then harvested and baled in September.

Randy unwraps the net wrap from the bale and then positions the feeder around the bale.

Who doesn't like a great meal after a journey?

Let's hope for moderate temperatures as another calving season begins on the County Line!