Scents of summer

After the Stearns County Breakfast on the Farm, held earlier this month, the St. Cloud Times' story about the breakfast featured a photo of a little girl holding her nose while touring one of the host farm's barns.

So often it seems that when visitors come to dairy farms, the first thing they notice is the smell of cow manure. Most of us who live on farms don't usually notice the smell because we're accustomed to it.

What we do notice are the dozens of other scents that come with living on a farm.

During milking tonight, the barn was filled with the aroma of the blossoms from a tree in our front yard. I don't know what kind of a tree it is; and most of the time I'm cursing it for leaving such a mess on our patio and sidewalk; but right now, with its heavenly perfume filling our yard, our house and our barn, I can overlook the messes and be thankful for its presence.

Thinking about the tree made me notice several other scents on the farm tonight – some delightful, some less so.

There's a small stack of big square bales of second crop sitting in the yard, waiting to be fed to the heifers. Walking by the stack is like walking through a cloud of the sweet, herbal scent of sun-cured alfalfa.

A less delightful scent – but not a bad smell, at least to my nose – comes from the pig pen. We're raising a pair of pigs this summer and the corner of the heifer lot where their pen is located smells like pigs.

Every day when Monika helps me feed our lambs, we stop to give the pigs their feed first. As we get close to the pen, Monika always says, "I smell our pigs."

Another new scent on our farm this summer comes from the raw wood shavings we bought from an Amish sawmill. We're using them to bed our heifers and the pigs. With each bucket of shavings that comes into the yard, I flashback to the Minnesota State Fair. The shavings smell just like the wood chips the beef exhibitors use to bed their cattle.

I think it's neat that, much the way a song on the radio can take you back to a particular place or time, certain scents can do the same.

The scent of the ripening sweet grass (at least that's what my family calls it) that comes from the road ditches right now always reminds me of childhood trips to southeastern Minnesota and Iowa during the summer to visit family. My dad always says the smell reminds him of Nebraska and his childhood trips there to visit his mother's family.

What scents of summer do you notice right now? What scents bring back memories of your past?

In memory of Skippy

In loving memory of Skippy, Dan's (and sometimes Monika's) best friend for the past two-and-a-half years. We're really going to miss you, Skippy. Rest in peace.

Their very first picture together – the day Dan got Skippy for his birthday. Their bond of brotherhood was instant.

Skippy's first portrait. It was hard to get him to sit still for a picture.

Dan and Skippy playing in the yard. I put a small bell on Skippy's collar so that the cats and chickens would have a warning when he came running. The clanging of that bell against his vaccination tags was also my child locator, because wherever Dan was, Skippy was, too.

Skippy loved to come along when it was time to get the cows from pasture.

Skippy's stand-off this spring with a migrating muskrat. The kids and I watched from the kitchen window for what seemed like an eternity while Skippy and the muskrat danced across the yard. In the end, the muskrat got away.

I wish I had a more recent picture of Dan and Monika and Skippy together. We'll have to rely on memories.

Goodbye, Love.

We had to sell Dan's favorite cow, Love.

Cows like Love are hard to come by. She was like a bovine jungle gym. As soon as she'd lay down after being milked, the kids were in her 'house' — as they called her stall — petting her and climbing on top of her and laying on her. And Love never moved.

I took these pictures two nights before we sold her — and before I told Dan and Monika that Love would be leaving.

You can read the rest of the story in my last Dairy Star column, which will be posted on the Dairy Star website on Tuesday, April 17. I'll add the link here when it's available. Here's the link.

P.S. The story has a happy ending named Lucy. I'll post pictures of Lucy as soon as I snap a few.

Chickens and eggs

My dream of having a flock of free-range laying hens came true in 2008 – the summer after we bought our farm.

Glen's family wanted a bunch of broilers to put in the freezer. We had a chicken coop, so I agreed to raise the birds. And since I'd be going through the work of raising the broilers, I said I wanted to raise a dozen layers with them to start my flock.

Well, when Glen's dad ordered the chicks, he went a little overboard on the layers.

I ended up with 40 laying hens.

I felt like I had eggs coming out of my ears.

I loved — and still do — having our own supply of fresh eggs. But washing that many eggs always turned into a chore. And, even though we eat a lot of eggs, we can't eat that many eggs. Thankfully, our friends and neighbors like eggs, too.

Little by little, the size of our flock decreased. Then, we got our dog, Skippy, and the size of our flock decreased a lot.

Last year, I was picking up milk replacer and the store manager said they had 10 chicks that were in urgent need of a home due to an ordering error. They came home with me.

The kids were thrilled with the surprise. I was excited, too, about replenishing the flock and having brown eggs again. (For some reason, the only hens left after the summer of Skippy were six California Whites and one Americana that lays green eggs.)

The new red hens are all laying now. And they even found the nest boxes after we tore the old chicken coop down and moved the boxes and roost to the machine shed.

Going into their fifth summer, my old hens are still laying and the Americana decided to return to the nest boxes just in time for Easter! (We only collect the eggs from the nest boxes and the square baler. I don't have time for daily egg hunts.)

Now my only challenge is collecting the eggs before the kids find them and want to 'help'!

P.S. I hope you had an egg-stra special Easter!

Mowing the lawn in March...

...and other spring fun

As much as we enjoyed our mild winter, our enjoyment of our unseasonably warm and early spring is double that.

Even though, as farmers, thoughts of drought and the summer of 1988 linger in the backs of our heads, the current weather has us smiling.

We should be able to let the cows out to pasture a full two weeks early this year – something both us and the cows are excited about. Jillian, one of the dry cows, found an unchained gate yesterday and took off for a jaunt. I know the rest of the cows are just waiting for the pasture gate to open.

Spring grazing – 2011

Words can't even describe how much the kids are enjoying the spring. I'm ready to start putting them to bed in clean barn clothes because they're out the door in the morning before they've changed out of their pajamas.

Monika got a trampoline for her birthday. (Technically, it's Monika's and Dan's, but we're letting Dan believe it's Monika's for awhile because every other play thing was his first.) The kids and their cousins were out jumping as soon as Grandpa finished setting it up. And, yes, Dan was still in his pajamas.

We had a beautiful day for Monika's birthday party. We ate outside, opened presents outside and played the year's first game of kickball.

The day after Monika's party — March 25 — I took the lawnmower out. The grass behind the barn was ready for a trim. It didn't get mowed last summer because the grass got away from us when our lawnmower broke down — and once the grass behind the barn gets too tall, mowing that area becomes an occupational hazard due to the steep banks. Plus, we were super busy with our construction projects. I'm determined this year to keep it mowed.

Maybe we'll look back later and shake our heads at our early spring, but right now we're having fun!