Back Yard Farm

Well you already know about my front yard make-over but there are things going on in the back yard also. There is my new row crops full of corn, beans, squash, bell pepper and a cabbage. There is also my above ground vegetable boxes that were originally meant to be flower boxes. So my yard is now full of Carrots, Cabbage, Lettuce, Strawberries, Raspberries, Bell pepper, Beans, Squash, Pink Tomato, Porter House Tomato, Homestead Tomato, and Better Boy Tomato. My Dad really likes Tomato's. I also have a problem with buying plants. Lowe's is like crack to me. However I know the first step to solving your problem is to omit you have one. I have a buying plants problem.

Fram agian farm again yeppie!!!

Well we went back to the farm. Oh how I missed it. The colors, sound and smell. I missed it all. I did not miss the cow calves. They were much more wild and anger this trip. I think they knew why we were there. It was so funny to see the sophomore's faces when they started to palpate the cows. Then there was the boy who only weighed like 90 pounds that tried to tackle a 250 pound calf to the ground by himself. Let it go to show the calf one that battle. Then there was the boy who ripped his pants. That was worth the trip. I just love being away from all the stress of the city and school. The farm is like a small sanctuary. I could spend the rest of my life there. I cant wait for the next trip.

Back to the Farm

My class goes back to the farm tomorrow. We will be palpating, castrating, and ear tagging. It has rained all day today so it will be funny to see how many people fall in the mud and poop at the farm. I just hope I wont be one of them.

Full of Poo

In animal science class one day we were back at the farm again. This time we were learning how to palpate cows. What!!! You don't know what palpate means. Well its when you put on an extremely over sized glove and stick your hand up a cows butt. Sounds crazy right. The purpose of palpation is to tell what part of the pregnancy cycle the momma cow is in. Yes I did it. I put on the glove and reached into the rectum of the cow. Poor cow. My teacher starts asking the questions. " What do you feel, is she pregnant?" All I felt was warm mushy stuff. I replied, " She's not pregnant she's just full of crap." My fellow class mates were telling me I wasn't in deep enough. Listen when you've got half your arm up a cows butt you really do not want to go any deeper. I hear my class mates laughing. "What are yall laughing at?" Just then my leg started feeling really warm. I look down and what do I see? Noooo!!! The cow had just pooped all over my jeans. It was seeping through onto my leg. Gross. So I retrieved my arm from the poo hole of the cow and stumbled my way out into fresh air to examine the damage. Everyone was laughing and pointing. " That's ok yall will get your turns." I replied. I cleaned the poop off with some paper towels but unfortunately my jeans were now blue and green. We all ended up dirty and poopy that day. After a long day of work like that our teacher thought it was only fair to feed our hungry bellies. Where did we go? No where other than the Golden Coral. Oh boy were people staring at us. That didn't matter we were having the time of our life. Together with our muddy boots and poopy jeans.

Hot wire and sun glasses

Have you ever touched a cattle wire? Well they have electricity running through them and from what I have felt and heard its alot. I was in a class at my school called Animal Science: Large Animals. We learned all about cows and had lots of hand on training with them on a local farm. We made many trips to the farm in class and I loved the hands on dirty work. One day we were standing out side of the fence watching the men and some class mates feed the cows. It was very sunny this day and I had a pair of sun glasses on the top of my head. I was the tallest person in the class me being 6'1". No one knew there was a hot wire or cattle wire above all our heads. Well I went to put my sunglasses on. When I pulled them of my head I heard a little humm sound in my head. All of a sudden it felt like someone had hit me with a car or my heart had turned in to a giant drum and some one had just hit it hard. I fell back and the first word out of my mouth was, well its not very nice so ill just say it was another word for what was on the ground all around us and it smelt really bad. Every one was looking at me and my teacher, who was ear tagging a calf, had heard what I yelled and came to check to see what happend. I was shaking and soo embaressed. Lucky for me I didnt fall in the cow pies on the ground. My teacher didnt really care about what I yelled he just wanted to make sure I was ok. I had to act cool because all my lady friends were near me. " James, James are you ok?" Of course I am that didnt hurt Im a man. On the inside I was thinking Crap that hurt im shure glad im not a cow. A couple of hundred volts to the heart nope that dosent hurt at all. Well at least now I know to look up when at the farm and that metal conducts electricity.