Every day a Farmer.

Have you ever wondered what it was like to farm for a living? To get up when you want to, eat lunch when you're hungry, and even be done for the day when you're tired. It sure sounds like a dream when you put it like that! We absolutely love our job but there are days when you just want to give up and work from 9 to 5 instead. We hope, in this blog, we can give you a little idea of why we love this way of life and why we wouldn't change it, even on the worst days.

5 A.M. Sure Does Come Early.

Every morning starts at 5 A.M. rain, sleet, snow, hail, heat, birthdays, anniversaries, and every single holiday. Cattle always have to eat so we always have to feed them whether there is three feet of snow or 100-degree heat at 6 A.M. Christmas morning will always have to wait until after chores have been done for our family, and that's something we've completely accepted. The goal of the 5 A.M. wake up is to be to the farm and start chores by 6. This happens most days so it works for us! By getting chores done in the early morning that leaves us plenty of time to do everything else we need to the rest of the day.

Chores, Chores, and More Chores.

Everybody gets up to eat breakfast in the morning!

Chores begin each morning by walking bunks, bunks being where we put the feed for the cattle. It's important to check and see how much feed each pen ate the day before so we know how much to feed to put in front of them that day. If they are licked clean for a couple days in a row we usually increase the amount of feed by 50 pounds for a pen of 40 cattle and 100 pounds for a pen of 80 cattle. We make the feed by putting the feed ingredients into the mixer wagon, which is a wagon that has augers in the bottom to mix all of the ingredients together into a uniform ration.

This uniform ration is called a "total mixed ration" or a TMR. The TMR is delivered, by weight, to each pen in the exact quantity that they need. During the feed delivery process, we make sure nearly all of the steers get up to eat. Cattle who are eating are less likely to get sick and die on us, which is something we very much like to avoid! If a steer stays laying down we can make a note and check on him later to make sure he was just tired, not sick.

The Morning To-Do List.

After morning chores our time is generally reserved for bedding pens and general maintenance. We have to bed each pen with straw when the pen gets too wet in order to keep the cattle dry. We keep putting new bedding on top of the old bedding to build a pack that actually makes a cushy bed for the cattle when they lay down. We clean out the pen pack at least 2 times per year to keep it from building up too much and spread it on the fields.

We also have a slatted floor barn which is designed with, guess what, a slatted floor! The slatted floor has gaps in it that allow the manure to be pushed through it by the cattle. So the cattle always have a clean pen and the manure resides in a 500,000-gallon pit below the barn until we can pump it. We pump out the pit twice per year and spread it in the fields. This barn doesn't need bedding so it saves us a bit of time each week.

General farm maintenance includes fixing boards, replacing old equipment, and doing everything it takes to keep the whole operation running smoothly. We try and get the bigger projects completed, such as modifying a barn or replacing a fence, in the summer months when the weather is significantly nicer and save the winter for the inevitable emergency repairs. We try to get as much done as we can in the morning so we can have enough time to complete all of the afternoon tasks.

Inevitable emergency repair: a hole in the fence.

Afternoon Tasks and Chores.

Afternoon tasks generally include everything that we didn't get done in the morning that still needs to be done and afternoon chores. Chores in the afternoon include shoveling up the feed for the pens who need it and walking pens. We have to shovel up the feed for some pens because the bunks that we put the feed into do not have backs so the cattle push the feed away from themselves as they eat. By shoveling up the feed we re-present it to them so they think they are getting something new and delicious to eat towards the end of the day.

The feed bunks that do not have backs on them.

Walking pens each afternoon is a very important job.

We walk pens nearly every day to look at each calf and catch the sick ones before they get too sick. Just like humans, a small sickness is significantly easier to treat than a terrible one. We take great care to not overtreat, misuse antibiotics, and work with our vets to make sure we are treating the sick cattle correctly.

At the End of the Day.

So concludes our day on the farm. This is just an average day for us when there is nothing too exciting going on. On a day where we have to process new cattle, work calves, bale hay, work the ground or complete some other seasonal task our schedule changes dramatically and we often put very long hours in. This life requires personal sacrifice but comes with many advantages that a good deal of families does not have. The greatest thing we enjoy is getting to work together, whether it be going to feeder cattle sales or working cattle we love getting to spend the long hours together. As we've said before, we wouldn't have it any other way!

John and Emily Crain