You will not believe how Garfieldish this day was.
To get things off to a roaring start I was awakend at 1:00 AM by a loud pounding on my front door. It was the milkman. He did not have current at the only recepticle he can use. I told him I would be right over. I stumble into the milkhouse and discover that one of the wires is broken at the breaker box. I was glad it was a minor problem and easily fixed. I crawled back into bed about 1:45.
At 4:00 the hated, annoying, alarm rings. I trudge morosely to the barn after swallowing 4 ibuprophen. I now have a headache and am feeling the effects of a sore throat and head cold. After my morning nap I head to the vets to pick up some heifers. (I do not raise my own heifers.) Oh me, I forgot to mention that I had to catch cows for the hoof trimmer while milking this morning. This always makes milking take longer and I am not a fan of sorting cows while milking.
I didn't get home for lunch till 1:30 and, because we were hoping to chop some more today, ny lunch hour turn into a 15 minute blink of the eye. We did make it to the field about 3:00. First load went fine. Second load went fine except for one minor detail. The header drive chain came apart. Third load went fine till the end of the load. The header lost two gathering chain shear pins and I had to replace them. This header is set up very nice and it is east to do but corn fields are always hotter when I have to work on something. Fourth load went fine. Fifth load, oh wait, their was no fifth load. The header was of the opinion we were not getting the hint. He was weary, he broke, we wept. I unhook dump wagon and take worthless machinery to shop. We perform surgery. We fix well. We are dirty and we are tired and we think the header better learn a lesson and not try this again tommorow.
One another note. Sierra had her first day of school toady. Yes it was at home and went well. We hope day 101 goes well as well.
I remember when we went to pick this dump wagon up. I must have been 7 or 8 at the time. It was used when we got it and must be getting close to thirty years old. We have spent time over the years replacing certain parts of it and bracing others but it has been a very trustworthy machine.
This is the truck we have been using to haul the silage. This truck was bought from an electric company that was going out of buisness or replacing their fleet. These trucks are fairly old but they run really well and we were able to purchase quite a few of them for a very small sum.
We made the blade out of some heavy channel iron. We mounted it onto the frame of an old wore out V ripper (Subsoiler).
Sonny is pushing the loads into the trench. This is a 4150 White with a homemade blade mounted on the three point hitch. The 4 stands for four wheel drive and the 150 is the horse power.
My wife put 15 drops of food coloring and pasta in a bag. She used four colors, red, blue, yellow, and green. She did not mix the food coloring but I am sure you can if you want some other interesting color schemes. The girls took the bags and worked the food coloring into the pasta.
They have just finished mixing the pasta and the food coloring. Then they emptied the bags onto paper towels for them to dry before they began stringing them.
Stringing the dyed pasta onto the string. When the string is full tie a knot in the string. You now have a pasta necklace which you can eat when you are very hungry. It doesn't work to well for the boys to play with because it goes directly into their mouths. This makes the food coloring run all over their faces.... 
I was told by a female in my family that: This is a very cute picture of you and the dog. Of course you can't see much of you but the pup is cute....
Aleya and Cupcake.
Jackson wasn't very impressed with the puppy's actions. 
A puppy showed up today much to our chidlrens delight. Jayden and the pup are getting aquainted. 
Whoever is milking is required to wear gloves. Gloves are worn to keep me from smelling like a iodine factory after milking. It is also suppose to help reduce the ability of spreading mastitus from one cow to another.
I prestrip every cow. This is done for two reasons. 1. Helps locate cows that may have mastitus. 2. Helps the cow let her milk down.
The towels we use to clean the cows are purchased at Sams Club. We wash them in a washing machine in the milk house.
The most critical part of the milking process is in the cleanliness of the teats. Notice how I am using my thumb to get the teat ends as clean as possible. Whatever dirt is on the end of the teat will end up in the cows udder and this will cause them to mastitus. Which is something we want to avoid...
The post dip is too eliminate or reduce the amount of bacteria she will pick up in the barn.
