Flat Aggie is reporting back after visiting Laurie from Country Linked. Be sure to stop by and tell her what a great job she did hosting Flat Aggie. If you missed the Introduction to Flat Aggie, be sure to read the post to see what our first grade class is up to. -KFM
Dear Mrs. Piatt,
Thank you so much for sending Flat Aggie to our farm. We really enjoyed having her here with us
this past week. We showed her many
different things and all over our farm.
Let me tell you what Flat Aggie learned and saw while she was here.
First off Flat Aggie arrived on a very nice day. It was very warm out and our children, Wyatt
(9), Kendall (6), and Tessa (3) were playing outside enjoying the
sunshine. On the day Flat Aggie left, we had
very cold temperatures and two inches of snow on the ground. Very typical here in Missouri to have
extremes in temperatures in the same week.
Here in northern Missouri we have rolling hills, nice flat
farm ground and timber land. Around our
home we have pastures for our cattle and crop land for raising corn and
soybeans. This time of year we also have
a lot of geese who like to come and visit on their way back up north. We are currently not in the fields doing work
and the cows all have had their babies, so this time of year is devoted to
repairs, working cattle, cutting wood, feeding hay to the cattle and trying to
not get stuck in the mud.
Flat Aggie was able to see Gpa (grandpa) feed hay to the cows. We give the cows and their calves large round
bales of hay every other day. Flat Aggie is a
lot smaller then the bales of hay! Last
summer was very dry here and we did buy hay off of other farmers who did not
need it, but usually we grow and bale our own.
The first big thing that she got to do was help us work
calves. This means that we ran each calf
through the working chute so that they could be given their booster shots. Just like you get shots from the doctor, the
calves need shots to keep them healthy.
We worked two groups of calves and left another group to be worked
later in the week. In three weeks, these
calves will be weaned from their mama’s.
This means that they are big enough to be on their own and no longer
need milk. This day was nice, just
really, really windy! This makes the
calves a little harder the handle, but we try and make it as easy as possible
on them because no body likes to get shots.
Last week was also National Agriculture week. On Tuesday, we took Flat Aggie and two baby pigs to
the school so that we could talk to the students about agriculture. The students and teachers enjoyed seeing and
petting the pigs. Flat Aggie as well as the
students learned many new things about pigs.
Things like a female pig who has not had babies yet is called a gilt and
that there can be up to as many as 18 babies born to one mama. Did you know that your crayons and glue are
made from pig by-products? Ask FA what
else pigs give us.
After being at the school, we then took Flat Aggie to a local area
attraction. Our historic covered
bridge. It used to be over a creek
called Locust Creek, but to make sure that the 100+ year old bride would be
around for years to come, it was moved away from the creek so that visitors can
go and see it. Flat Aggie, Wyatt, Kendall, Tessa
and their cousin Drew all went to the bridge.
Horse drawn wagons used to use this bridge many years ago.
Another fun thing that she did was to visit my husband, Seth,
at his off the farm work. Seth is a
salesman for a seed company. You know
the seed that the farmers put in the ground to grow crops? Well he is the one that makes sure farmers
get the seed that they want from his company, Burrus Hybrids. On this day he was in a large warehouse where
the seed is stored until the farmer is ready to have it brought to his
farm. This time of year farmers are
getting their equipment ready to go to the fields and they need to have the
seed handy for when the time is right to start planting. The warehouse can hold thousands of bags of
seed. Each bag can weigh up to as much
as a 1st grader! Flat Aggie enjoyed
seeing all of the seed bags and containers and even got to sit on the forklift.
Flat Aggie arrived on beautiful day, but by the end of her time
here, the weather was not very nice for being out side or doing much farm
work. FA did help Wyatt with one last
thing before she left though. Wyatt
bought a pig for his 4-H project and was needing to name him. After many suggestions from friends and
family, he finally settled on a name and Flat Aggie was there to reveal it.
I hope you enjoyed hearing about our farm and what Flat Aggie did
while she was here. If you have any
questions, please let me know.
Sincerely your new friends from Missouri,
Seth, Laurie, Wyatt, Kendall
and Tessa Link
www.countrylinked.wordpress.com
-A note from KFM:
Here are some additional pictures that were taken during Flat Aggie's time with the Link's in this post.
Didn't Laurie and her family do a great job of hosting and showing Flat Aggie around?!
Be sure to find her on Facebook as well at Country Linked.
-A note from KFM:
Here are some additional pictures that were taken during Flat Aggie's time with the Link's in this post.
Didn't Laurie and her family do a great job of hosting and showing Flat Aggie around?!
Be sure to find her on Facebook as well at Country Linked.
Be sure to check out Flat Aggie's other adventures in American Agriculture:
- Northern Missouri
- Northeast Kansas Dairy
- High Tech in Nebraska
- New Hampshire Farms
- Kentucky
- Delaware
- California
