A Christmas Update

I was talking to my sister-in-law this morning (Hi, Mary!), and she was reminding me that I hadn't posted here in quite some time.  So here I am, posting an update... Let's make it almost like a Christmas card, because we all know that I won't be sending them out any time soon...

First off, we'll start with The Girls. 

As I scroll through my photos, I realize that this is the only photo I have of The Girls from the year that doesn't have them covered in mud, dirt of cow poo.  How nice.  Anyhow.  Collectively, The Girls love horses, cows, quads, dogs, their family and basically anything to do with ranch life.  They love their friends and neighbors, staying home on a Friday night (it's my dream, really), and being outside.

And now, for some more details:

Hannah.  Age (almost) 17.  Grade 12

It's Hannah's last year of high school this year, she will be graduating at the end of the year.  Her plan next year is to work for the year, and then she's hoping to attend college to be a Vet Tech, specializing in Equine.  Hannah loves horses, and enjoys cows.  Last year, her steer won Highest Rate of Gain in our 4H Interclub achievement day, so she was pretty happy with that big boy. 

 

She bought a couple of heifers this fall to start her own cattle herd also.  Hannah spent a week helping at camp this summer, and I think is hoping to go back again next year.

Hannah continues to work at a horse barn, where she's worked for the last 3 yrs.  She loves watching movies, being outside, riding her horse and reading.  Always reading.

Abby.  Age 15.  Grade 10

It was a big year for Abby.  After getting skunked last hunting season, Abby was bound and determined to fill her deer tag this year.  She talked of little else.  All.  Year.  Long.  Abby also works at the same horse barn that Hannah works at, and she saved her pennies to buy her own gun for hunting season. 

Abby loves cows.  And she likes horses.  She is most often found in the steer pen, working with her 4H steer, or walking through the pasture checking out the cows.  Abby also enjoys baking, reading, hunting, and talking with friends on the phone.  And she loves cows (Did I mention that already?  'Cuz the girl is crazy about them!)

Besides buying herself a gun, after years of pleading, we finally let Abby buy a puppy.  So she purchased a really sweet Chesapeake Bay/Lab cross puppy who she named Dixie.  Dixie fits right in with the rest of our pack, and is sure fun to have around.

Lastly, and probably most importantly to Abby, the girl managed to fill not one but two deer tags this season.  She harvested this doe on opening day, and learned how to gut, skin and butcher her deer.  Truthfully, all the girls learned.  We've been enjoying the great meat, and Abby has also made lots of jerky.

Molly.  Age 12.  Grade 7

Molly had a really great year in 4H this year.  Her steer won Reserve Grand Champion at our interclub show, which meant she won herself a nice buckle.  She was beyond excited!  She was quite sad to see that steer go.  Molly loves cattle and horses, as well as being outside and playing inside with Playmobil or Schleich.  The girls spend hours in the basement, setting up their own ranches, which is quite fun to watch.  It's Molly's first year in youth this year, so that is a big change for her, but she's really enjoying it. 

Molly loves being involved in everything around our farm, and is often Art's little assistant.  She can work a full day outside and then still have the energy to run around and play.

In going through pictures, I was chuckling that it really is hard to find a picture of Molly on her own.  She's definitely a social butterfly, and loves her sisters fiercely.  I am often asked if her and Elizabeth are twins, as they are almost the same height, and there's definitely some family resemblance!  Molly is usually the one making everyone laugh in our family, and she is very quick witted.

Elizabeth.  Age 10.  Grade 5

Elizabeth had her first year in 4H this year, and loved every minute of it.  I guess, after being dragged to countless meetings and events of the last 5 years, it's about time.  Elizabeth works really, really hard and is very diligent in everything she does.  She loves horses and cows, she's crazy about owls, and she enjoys being outside with her animals and sisters, as well as playing inside with Playmobil and Schleich.  Elizabeth has sure had big changes this year as 1-2 nights a week, all of her sisters are gone to youth.  She misses them quite a bit, so we try and plan a few fun things with her. 

Elizabeth is very affectionate and sensitive, and is always the first to hug or cuddle in.  She really loves Science.  Her sisters are her best friends, and they sure do have fun together.

She loves working with cattle, especially if it's horseback.  One of her favorite spring time activities in castrating calves (For real.  That girl outworked grown men at cutting calves), and she gives such a huge effort in all things. 

So there you have it.  As for Art and I.... well I suppose our lives are spent mainly keeping up with life.  As I was looking through pictures, specifically for Art, I was struck that in every picture, the man was either working on the farm or doing something for us girls.  He works very, very hard at providing us with not only our needs, but many times, our wants. 

Besides running our cabinetry business in town and farming, with all the spare time we have, both Art and I enjoy shooting and hunting - especially when the girls are along.

Having our farm is a dream come true for both of us, and we love our life.  It's exciting to continue to build our herd every year, and produce some great cattle.   It's a privilege to raise our girls this way as well, learning the value of hard work and having fun while doing it.

We both continue to enjoy learning more about how to raise great cattle and be great stewards of our land.  This whole life long learning thing is something that we've tried to install in our girls, as well as live it out in our everyday life.

Art has always had a way with kids, and his even temperament make him a good cattleman.  Our cows are very quiet, and (usually) will just follow him around like a puppy dog.

Lastly, the man loves his girls.  He loves to see them work hard and do well.  He is so steady and reliable, something I very much appreciate.

Soo there's an update on our family this year.  I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas, and cheers to a Happy New Year! 

The Goerzen Girls.... and Art

Spring is FINALLY here!

After a couple of false starts, I think it's safe to say that Spring is finally here.  I think...

We've had an extremely wet spring, with several late snow storms, as well as lots of rain, so there is water everywhere!

This is our front yard, where we've never had water, and The Girls couldn't even walk through this in their rubber boots, the water was higher than their boots were.  Half of that little bridge in the distance was covered with water.

We've had fun making horses go through the puddles, and it's given them a chance to get the pounds of mud off their feet.  I'm sure it feels good for them! 

This is also the first year we've had this secondary seasonal creek running through our land.  It's sure pretty!

This may be my favorite picture of all time. This is a sloughy area that normally fills up in the spring, but not usually close to this amount!  The little spring fed dugout is probably 6 ft. deep, and it extends well in the low lands.  The ducks love it!

It's been really great to get out riding again, and start getting the ponies in shape for the spring.  I always say that riding is like therapy for me.... but I haven't quite decided if it's cheaper or more expensive.

This spring, we finally bit the bullet and built a new chicken house.  The house is significantly larger than our last house, and so we thought we'd fill it with 50 layers this spring.  As you can tell, 50 layers doesn't even come close to filling it.... so maybe next spring we'll do closer to 75?  We'll see how that all plays out.  I love the new house, with several windows to let natural light in, and lots of room for the chickens to roam.  There's 2 chicken doors for them to get outside into runs, as well, the large door at the end will make cleaning out this house a dream.  We'll be able to pull the skidsteer right up to the house and shovel right into the bucket.

There's also storage for feed and water, as well as some great nesting boxes which open to the other side of the wire mesh, so we don't even have to go into where the chickens are to collect eggs.  The house is finished off with a man door at the end.  We still have some work to do - we'll side the outside with old barn wood, as well as run electrical in there so we can have heat and light in the winter.... but all in all, it's been great to have some new space for these silly birds.  And having new chickens always makes it feel like spring is finally here!

Calving

The first week of March, when our snow was almost gone, we got a huge storm with -30C temperatures and about a foot of snow.  It was a bit of a blow, although completely acceptable for this time of year in Alberta.  We were crossing our fingers that our cows would cross their legs and not drop any babies until after the temperature had warmed up and some of the snow had melted, because friends, it.  was.  miserable..

Thankfully, the cows co-operated, and we had about a third of our herd have their calves in the nice, warm, muddy pasture.  It's always exciting to go and check cows during calving season, because you never know what you're going to find when you get to them.  Usually The Girls come with me, and it's almost as exciting as Christmas morning.  You scan the herd, piles of straw....looking for a mama who is licking a new baby, or seeing a new, fresh calf up and running about, trying to figure out how these things called legs work. 

This mama kept leaving her baby all over the place - under trees, in puddles.... the coyotes kept trying to get closer and closer, so we brought them in a small maternity pen close to the house in order to keep the baby safe until her mama remembered that she needs to keep a close eye on her baby.

This mama and baby are so quiet, and she loved it when the girls would come and hang out in the fresh straw.  The baby would come and lay her head on the girls' lap, just enjoying the attention.

Good thing her mama was nice and quiet - we had plenty of opportunities to pet this little lady.

This handsome guy surprised us being red.  We expected to have only black calves out certain cows....and as you can see, he is certainly NOT black.  But he's my favorite.  He's a big lug of a guy, and he reminds me of our giant dog, George.

We still have some cows to calve, but are expecting a bit of a break for a couple weeks until our next set of cows start calving. 

I'm telling you, it's the most wonderful time of the year!

Homeschooling and 4H

 January marks the start of a more intense couple of month of 4H involvement for us.  We started off the year with our Awards Banquet, and Hannah, Abby and Molly all won awards.  This year, for the awards, we put what they won on the back of a hoodie, and all the kids seemed to like that.  The Girls worked hard last year, and they can be proud of themselves!

This is the first year that Ellie Mae is in 4H, and she has waited many, many years for this, so to say she is excited may be a tad bit understated.  During our busier season of 4H, one of the things the Girls have to do is sell raffle tickets to raise money for our achievement day in May.  I took the girls to the auction market the other day, and they sold a whole lotta tickets in a short amount of time, which was great!



The beginning of February starts off with public speaking in 4H for us, so the Girls spent a whole lotta time preparing their speeches.  The all did really well, with Abby winning in her age category, after a speak off.  Molly competed against Ellie Mae in their age category, and Molly came in 2nd and Ellie Mae came in 3rd, and Hannah would've won in her age category except that she ended up with time faults, so she came in 3rd.  They all worked really hard, and we are super proud of them.  It's been so great to watch their progress and confidence increase over the years in public speaking, so much so that Hannah volunteered to emcee our district public speaking event which her sister will compete in.  I would've never thought I'd see the day that would happen!  Hooray for 4H!

We haven't started calving just yet, but some friends of ours have.  We've been over there a few times to walk through the calves, and it makes me extra excited for our calving season to start, in just over a month from now.  You must check out this sweet, silver calf!

The other day, we were at their place and they had to pull a calf.  This was a first for us to be up close and personal in helping/watching a calf be pulled.  We haven't had to pull any of our own calves....yet, so it was a great learning opportunity for all of us!  In my mind, it was the perfect homeschooling day!

First, we had to bring the cow into the barn, which she wasn't thrilled about!  But we got her in and got her checked out, and sure enough, she needed some extra help getting this calf out.

After some pushing on her part and pulling on ours, she had a big (huge, really) healthy bull calf.  We figured he was about 120 lbs.!  After he was born, our friends showed the girls how to make sure he was breathing, and recovering as quickly as possible.

Then, the Girls got a lesson in how the placenta works inside of a calf.  This was laying outside, from another cow that had just calved, and the Girls were fairly fascinated to see how everything works.  Things like this always make me amazed at how God has created us!

Our last task of the day was to bring in a twin who's mother decided she wasn't interested in mothering it (she took the other twin instead), and give it a bag of colostrum.  Did you know that calves aren't born with any immunity, so it's imperative that they receive colostrum from their mamas within 6 hrs. of being born.  After that, their intestines start closing up and they aren't able to receive those good antibodies after that time.  Fascinating. 

Anyhow, after this twin got loved on by our girls, and got some warm milk in him, the next day she got a new mama - a jersey cow that our friends had bought at the market.  Hooray for happy endings!

Outdoor Winter Activities

Since I talked about some indoor activities on my last post, I thought I'd share some pictures of our favorite OUTDOOR winter activities on this post. 

Firstly, winter in Alberta means feeding cattle.  This year, we started bale grazing for the cold winter months, so we placed bales in the pasture, cut all the strings, and have electric fence to limit how and when the cows get them.  It's working great so far!

We have really, really great neighbors here.  And our great neighbors have been toys tools.  Just before Christmas, they came over and lifted Art up in their picker truck so that he could put snow stop on the shop roof.  This chore also involved rides for the kids.  Naturally.

We spend lots of time going on walks out in the pastures....

....sometimes to check cows....

.....to exercise the dogs (and ourselves!)...

....or to enjoy a sunset!

We spend some time spreading straw for the livestock, so they stay warm and dry(ish).

....and rush outside to catch a picture of the sunrise!

We have spent many hours combing the woods, doing some shed hunting.  For those that don't know, this means looking meticulously under every tree and branch for antlers that have been shed by moose, deer or elk.  The great thing about shed hunting is that it's extremely beautiful in the isolated bush that we walk.

Sometimes we take the dogs, sometimes family who is visiting gets roped into coming....

....and The Girls always want to go!

Lastly, and perhaps the most favorite winter activity of them all is skating.  Art and The Girls have been working faithfully on getting our skating rink up and running, and the Girls enjoy it every day they can, along with friends and neighbors.

So there you have it.  Winter activities around our ranch.  Always beautiful, always fun, and we (mostly) stay warm!