Farmers are Busy Even When Not Farming Part 2

I haven’t been a very good blogger lately.  You see it was the end of the year.  That meant that even though we weren’t driving tractors or helping deliver baby calves we were still super busy and that if my rear end made it to the computer, the computer was on Quickbooks or Excel Spreadsheets.  My post What Farmers Do When They Are Not Farming has been very popular, so I decided to add what we are doing now.

1.        Lots and lots of meetings.  Some farmers like to call this meeting season.  Farmers don’t get paid to attend these meetings and usually have to pay someone to take care of things at home while they are gone.  We look at these meetings as continuing education to not only learn from the presenters, but what worked for our peers the last year.

2.       I have been getting my Quickbooks up to date for the accountant.  Farmers don’t have until April 15 to file their taxes, ours are due March 1.

3.       Last month, I finished up the crop insurance reports for soybeans and reported the acres of wheat we have planted.  I also had to let the government know where our wheat was planted at the local FSA office.

4.       Farmers do a great job of helping one another out, but we do a terrible job of keeping “settled up” with one another.   We spent some time figuring out how much we owed The Farmer’s cousin and my parents and how much they owed us (and discussed a lot of other stuff along the way, too.) 

5.       The Farmer spent several days getting prices for fertilizers and chemicals that we will use this year.  Many of our suppliers had special prices that were good until the first week of the new year.

6.       I spent some time at my computer putting together our family Christmas letter and getting pictures of the family sent out to our friends and family.  In addition, we delivered 2 Cheese Braided Bread to our neighbors and landlords that live close to us.

7.       Of course, the girls have needed extra feed and attention with the cooler temperatures.  We even had to use an axe several days to break the ice, so the cows could drink water from the frozen ponds.  We checked to make sure one pasture’s fence was still secure and moved the cows to it on our anniversary.  The pasture actually has a creek with running water in it which means no chopping ice as long as the water keeps running!!

You can't see my husband, but he isn't very far from our boy. 

8.       Of course, we are preparing for calving season which will start before the end of the month.  There are supplies to be gathered and cows to be moved to the proper pasture before we start getting those adorable babies.

I am so excited our son is big enough to open gates.  :)

9.       We spent most of Christmas Break with the boys.  I sure do miss them when they go to school.  They keep us entertained and remind us when we forget to do something as well.

10.   And yes, we even found time to work on some 4-H projects.  The boys like to do Arts and Crafts, but most aren’t really boy approved.  We spent several day watching them put together Legos and helping them find the pieces they needed.  We also worked on their talks that they will give at 4-H competition day in February.

So you see, I really have been busy and don’t forget to throw in the family dinners, gift exchanges and spending time with my brother and sister in law while they were here from Connecticut.  Whew!  I got tired just thinking about everything I have done the last month.

Here are what some other farmers in different parts of the country are doing this winter:
Feeding Silage with Graff Land and Livestock
Soil Conservation with Kissed a Farmer
Twas the Morning before Christmas
Dealing with winter with Minnesota Farm Living
Dairy Farmers in Wisconsin Winters with Dairy Carrie

-A Kansas Farm Mom

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