Bottle Feeding in the Rain

      When it rains on the farm, the chores do not stop.  This meant that me & my two volunteers had lots of fun the other night. Thankfully we found an umbrella to use while we bottle fed the cows. Lauren would not stand under it because it was a Spartan umbrella, but I would rather be dry so I didn't care. I held the umbrella while the girls fed the calves.

       The calves have finally learned to come out in the rain to eat. For the first week of rain, one of them would come out, but the other one would not. He was too scared of the rain. This meant you had to climb into their pen to get to their hut to feed just one of them. Good thing they are cute. 

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         We also have lots more new baby's on the farm right now. I love the little chick with the black spots, you don't see two many of those. Of course we have TONS of baby bunnies to get ready for this summer. Some more ducklings as well. They are all so adorable :) 

The sun has also peaked its head through this week, so hopefully the sun is here to stay for a while. 

Questions of Authority

Today I would like to talk about a little issue that I had the other night.
I had two volunteers come to the farm to work with me, one of them was around 10 and one of them was 13.
      Megan, who was 13, is a very out spoken child. She is great to work with, because she is very hard working and doesn't mind doing the dirty jobs, except she is a bit full of herself. She thinks she is the best, or one of the best volunteers at the farm and doesn't like working with anyone else who is bellow her.
      Then there was sweet Lauren who I did a post about before, who came to work with me again.
The problem that I had is that Megan did Not want Lauren to be around, and she found her quite annoying. So all night she was complaining about her.
      What would you do in that situation? Would you tell Megan off? You probably would... But I just couldn't! I guess I was too nice to yell at her. At the farm I don't want to be seen as the mean person that yells at everyone, I want kids to come and work with me. That doesn't mean I'm not strict and make sure they do what they are doing, but with something like this I wasn't sure what to say.
      Is it right to tell off a volunteer if they are being rude? Is that my place? I am honestly not much older than some of these kids, but I am more mature. I can tell, trust me. I know I can tell them what to do, but beyond that, is that my place?
      That has been on my heart for the past couple of days, and maybe I should have said something. I want to be a good role modle for these kids, in hope that maybe I can impact their lives - even if by just the smallest of ways.

I Am Woman!

     Just my luck that we would get an order of feed the night I am working. But no, not just one order! Multiple orders, enough to fill two trucks and a car. I am pretty sure we have never gotten this much feed all at once before.
     And I'm sure you can guess who unloaded all this feed. Yup. Me! What fun that was. Thankfully Greg was also at the farm that night, or un-thankfully? While I was bringing in bag after bag (and note that these are not light, some of them go up to a 100 pounds), Greg was in the feed room opening the bags.
     The question that I ask here, is how did the guy end up opening bags while the girl was unloading them. Feminists would be proud of course, but it was hard work. Normally I do take pride in being able to 'role with the boys', so to speak. I like being able to unload feed like them, it makes me feel strong :) Plus I Hate being looked down upon because I'm a girl. But by the end of three thousands pounds, I was done. Finally my arms did give out (literally) on me and Greg had to bring in the rest. In my defense I had already unbacked two and a half of the cars - my arms were just exhausted. I was carrying a bag and I just dropped it, and once it was on the ground, it was not getting off the ground. Thankfully Greg unloaded the rest for me and I tried to find space for all this feed.
     I guess from all this you could say that I'm a bit of a tom boy. I like being able to do the things that 'only guys can do'. I'm not really a feminist though, because I do understand that the genders were made differently so sometimes those stereotypical things for guys and girls fit because that is how they were made. Most guys were made stronger than females, not all but a lot of them, and so I do have to ask for help sometimes. I hate asking people to carry things for me, but I'm not exactly the beefiest person ever. I try my best though. I am pretty sure I am not allowed a power tool for a reason though, even though I would love to try sometime.
      Somehow this story turned into my thoughts on gender roles. Just a little insight into my head. Lets hope we don't get any more feed for a while, I've proven my strength well enough for now.

Sunsets

       Even though it has been raining for the past Forever, this week we had some of the most beautiful sunsets that I have seen in a long time.
The first night I took pictures of there were just some beautiful clouds in the sky.

Last night I also took some picture of. I actually drove down to the beach (because I don't live too far away from it) after work to take some pictures. The sun had already gone down beyond the horizon, but the sky was still gorgeous. You just have to look at the pictures to understand what I mean. 

All I have to say to some this up: What an amazing God we have. 

Around the Farm

      Tonight was another night to work for me. Not much happened besides more rain. What an exciting blog post this is starting off as... BUT I do have some pictures that I took while there. So I thought I should just share them with you. Enjoy :)

This is one of the pregnant ewes that will hopefully give  birth within the next month! MORE BABIES! YEAH! 

 I worked with Cassie (an amazing voluntier) tonight. She found a hat for Copper and just had to dress him up :)










We also took Cooper for a nice long walk when it wasn't raining too hard. He's getting so big! He is about a third of the size he is going to get right now. So still lots more growing to come.

Lots of baby bunnies on the farm right now. This is one of the tiniest. Its a mini rex and it's mother had 9 babies. Which is quite a lot if I do say so myself. A mama bunny has 10 nipples, so if that gives you a reference. Bunnies don't normally give birth to that many, although they certainly can. We had a bunny give birth to 12 babies once. 

 Last but not least is my favorite baby goat on the farm. Out of all our kids she was one of two girls born to the dairy goats. I'm pretty sure she is also the smallest of the group, but that might just be why I love her. She always comes to the edge of the pen to say hi when I go into where they are. :D I hope she is one of the ones we keep.

Mr. Chops

Today I am going to blog about a very special animal on our farm.
Mr. Chops!

     Mr. Chops is out resident pot bellied pig. Right now we have 5 of them, but Mr. Chops sure is the oldest. He was one of Mary's (aka the critter barns) first animals, so he has been there right from the start.
     On June 8, Mr. Chops is going to be 21 years old!!! Now a pot bellied pig normally lives to be about 10 years old if they are healthy and have a good life. So he has sure surpassed his years.
     The thing about Chops is that in July of this year, if he lives that long (sorry but it is a possibility being this old that he may not make it), he will break the guineas world record and be the oldest pig alive! It blows my mind just a little bit each time. A world record holder! My Chops!
      Now he is doing great actually, which is a very good thing. He gets up each day to eat, but only after a lot of grunting. These pictures are a bit older since now he doesn't really move around much. He has arthritis in his feet, so he moves slowly. We have to keep the blood flowing though, and so we make him get up and walk to his food each day. Don't feel bad for him though because he gets the best spot in the entire barn. He has his own corner full of straw in the heated section of the barn, so I'm pretty sure he is pretty happy.

     Chops has been here as long as I can remember, longer than I've been at the farm. He used to do tricks with Mary, but if you didn't guess he can't do that anymore. Chops is our resident old man, at least that is what I call him. In the summer he just wanders around the farm, digging holes and hiding under bushes. 

     I have a little story about Chops that comes from Mary (the owner of the critter barn). When Chops was a lot younger he used to live in the house with Mary and her family. Now what Chops liked to do was play a little game with Mary's kids. Yes, Mr. Chops would play hide and seek. Either he would hide and the kids had to find him, or he would go around looking for them. I sorta wish I had been around to see that. A pig playing hide and seek :)

     His birthday bash is coming up (yes we do celebrate his birthday cause it is a big deal). So once again, if you live in West Michigan you can come and celebrate with us! I have to say that I can't wait until July, and I'm praying he makes it that long. But honestly he is doing just fine, so I think he will. As long as he keeps getting up in the morning to eat, and at night for his apple juice. 

Note: I did not take these pictures like I normally do, I got them off critterbarn.org since I didn't have any of him.

Elder's Trip

     On nights I work, I go right from school (because I'm still in high school) to the farm. Last night, right as I pulled in, I saw a large white bus going up the hill to the farm in front of me. It wasn't like a school bus, but it's one of those bus's to transport the elderly from nursing homes. I of course found that out as I stepped out of my car. This meant I had a group of about 7 elderly and three of their nurses coming to the farm. Surprise!
     It was a good surprise though. I brought them into the class room, and just had them all find a spot to sit and I brought them animals. I'm pretty sure bunnies were the biggest hit. I showed them all the baby ones and then brought in a giant angora. I also showed them Cooper the dog, and some goats and lots of baby's.
     Near the end, one of the helpers came up and thanked me for all the help. She then went to say that all of the elders they had come with had dementia. I had actually kinda wondered if that was the case, but I wasn't positive until she told me. That explained why I heard about how one man grew up on a farm, over and over. I was also asked what kind of animal they all were multiple times. One of the lady's called every animal that came through a puppy, which was quite sweet. Mr. Chops (who is our resident old pig) was in the room there, because he sleeps in the corner, and I was asked what type of animal he was a hundred times or more.
      I didn't really mind at all. They were all sweet people. More me, it was interesting to see how each one of them were so different. One of them were hard of hearing, but she never stopped smiling at me. Another was too scared to pet any of them except for the bunny. One lady kept falling asleep :) They were all so different, even in their own age.
     To be able to see the joy on their faces, I can't even describe it to you. It really makes me think that even though they are 'just animals' they really do so much for people. Dogs really are a mans best friend, or a goat or a bunny or what ever type of animal you have.
     At the end the lady from the nursing home gave me a check as a donation. She said she was sorry she couldn't give more, but that was all the budget they had. The check was for $8, which to be honest isn't much. But it reminds me of why we made the farm free for people. Some people just can't afford to come. If we had charged them as a 'field trip' group, they would not have been able to come. Even for me it was worth it for them to come. I loved seeing their smiling faces, and it was a wonderful time.
    I hope that one day, I can be that awesome when I am old and wrinkly. Then I can be like the one man that kept saying he used to work on a farm, over and over. Yup. That will be me one day :)

Molly Update

This is my third Molly post. I first told her story in Stories of Baby's and then I did another post about her in Molly (Part II). So I guess I just wanted to give you all a quick update on how she is doing.
     Sadly, she is still not up. The good news is that she is still alive. Her baby's are doing quite swell, but we did start bottle feeding them a week or so ago. The little marbled one was the first to go on bottle milk because she was getting less than her sister. We have now put them both on milk, just because we want to make sure they are getting enough to eat. They have learned to bend down to get the milk from mom, but sometimes it isn't enough. We also wanted to make sure that if something got worse with Molly, that they would accept the bottles so that they could keep living.
     This isn't all a bad thing; if anything, it makes the lambs more friendly. They love people, but they also love their mama. The little marbled one will stand on her moms back all the time, which I find sweet. Good thing Molly doesn't mind, and then the little lamb gets a good view of everyone in the pen. For now they are still in a jug pen, but we expanded it so they have their own section of the sheep pen. I'm not sure if we will keep it like that, but for now it works. It just gives Molly her own space to move around and get her own food.
    So everything is going good with her. Molly is healthy and she sure knows how to scoot around her pen. This will be her last set of baby's for sure, she is being retired after this year. I can't say what is going to happen to her, because I don't well know. But for now she is living contently.

Spring Fling 2013

Spring Fling at the farm this year was a BIG hit. Last year at the Critter Barn's Spring Fling, we opened the farm for free to the public for the first time. This brought in hundreds of people and we were packed. We have been open for free for a year now, but this year at the Spring Fling we had even MORE people than last year. 

I want to say a thanks to the over 10,000 people that came out! That is a lot of people.... I also want to say a Huge thanks to all our volunteers. We could NOT have done it with out them.

There was so much to do, and so many babies. A few lucky families even got to see a little lamb be born. 

On one of the days, we open at 10:00am, and by noon we had 1,000 guests come through. Bottle feeding goats was a Huge hit, but I think the best part was after words. We made a giant circle and set all the kids (baby goats) free to let them run around. That is where my video comes from, and they are all just so adorable. If you have never seen a kid prance about, I would highly suggest watching because it is a pretty neat thing to see - not many things can jump like a little goat. 

Overall, Spring Fling was a blast. I hope this summer is as fun filled as the spring, with classes and lots more guests I sure it will be. 

Farm Update: Rain

'Whats going on at the farm?' you may ask. Rain. So much rain. Since we got the truck unstuck from the mud, it has just kept raining. I'm pretty sure their is only one animal/human on the farm enjoying this rain. 

The geese have been swimming around in all our giant puddles that pop up around the farm.

Normally I quite enjoy the rain, I love it really, just not while I'm trying to work. Last night I had to bottle feed our baby calfs out in the freezing rain that was pelting down. From experience  I can say it is cold, wet, and not very enjoyable. It didn't make it any better that the cows would not come out from their hut until after a ton of coxing. 

Though one good thing about the night is that I figured out how to bottle feed the three lambs at once. Our three bottle lambs that were orphaned always get fed together, and when you are doing bottle feeding all alone, it can be hard to feed the three of them. So I stuck one bottle between my knees and held the other two in my hands. Good thing no one walked in on me, because I surely looked quite hilarious. It worked though! I feel pretty proud after that. 

There is nothing else quite new about the farm. I still have to post about Spring Fling that ended last week. I will get that post up shortly, I promise. It has been a very busy week, plus I am trying to make a video about it. So please just hang in with me here, and it will be up soon! Enjoy the rest of your day, whether it is raining by you or not. :) 

Overcoming Autism.

Now its not a secret that I am not a big fan of any type of bird... But this story is beautiful. I encourage you to read the entire thing. I've seen animal therapy work in so many kids lives at the farm, and it honestly works wonders. Sometimes animals reach a new level that humans can never get too with each other. I know I have found that with myself.

http://www.metroparent.com/Metro-Parent/April-2013/Chickens-and-Autism-How-Goldie-Helps-a-Michigan-Teen/index.php?cparticle=1&siarticle=0#artanc

(Once again I take no credit for this article. I was just a reader who was inspired and wanted to pass it on.) 

Lauren

Last night at the farm, I had one of my first night volunteer in a very long time. Her name is Lauren, which is my middle name! So that was a cool connection. She was about 10 or so, so she was younger.
Now sometimes, to be honest, volunteers can get a bit annoying or they can slow you down, but Lauren was great! She liked to talk, but not too much like some volunteers I know. She was also very helpful, and would actually do chores. Of course she took some time to play with the bunnies and baby goats, but I would too if I was her.

The reason I wanted to post about Lauren, is because I have a story.
If you read my last post, you know that it rained all yesterday. At one point it was nice out, but then the thunderstorm rolled in. The two of us had to run around the barn to close up all the doors quickly before it started pouring. The rain sure did start pouring, and soon the thunder and lightning hit.
After everything was closed up, the two of us set off to fill of some waters for the animals. As I was dumping out a dirty one, she turned and said to me, "Do you believe in God?" Immediately I said yes, being a Christian and all. I didn't really think about my answer, because it is what was true.
The thing I love about that, is that she asked. You would think that normally kids would just start talking about God, but she was smart enough to realize that not all people do believe there is a God out there. Her mother has taught her well.
Thats not all though, she then went on to talk about the thunder and lightning. I will sum up what she told me. She said that she believe that when it rains, that God is up in heaven bowling. Each time there is thunder, He is knocking down a bunch of pins and each time lighting strikes - He gets a strike. I just had to smile at her story.
I remember when I was little I used to believe that the Unicorns up in heaven were playing a game where they bashed horns. I also remember being told that God liked to bowl. That story really brought me back to my childhood, plus it got me thinking about the mind of a child. They really do have the best imaginations. You could tell by the way she talked, and the look in her eyes that she honestly believed that God bowls. I hope that throughout my life, I can keep a piece of my child's mind with with. Each time God bowls now, I think I shall be reminded.

This post is turning out to be a bit long, but I have another story about Lauren too. Well I have many, but I have one more to share.
Near the end of the night, the two of us were making up some milk for calf bottles. We use a formula, so we have to mix it with water. That has nothing to do with the story though. The two of us were working on getting those read and she turns and says to me, "You know, your my favorite person to work with." Then she went to list her favorite people to work with, with me as number one and so forth.
Now to you, that may not seem like a big deal, but to me it meant the world. Not gonna lie, I might have gotta a tear in my eye or two.
Heres a little background on why: At the Critter Barn we have a very small staff. There is Brad (He is a middle school teacher and works here in the summer.), then there is Gren (who you have heard about if you read any of my other posts. He is in college.), there is Nate who is in my grade and Holly who is our barn manager. There is also Mary + Wally who own/run the farm. Also there is Jessica who is the newest 'addition', she is a homeschooler who is a couple years younger than me. Maybe one day I will do a post all about them, but that pretty much makes up our staff. For the longest time though, it was always Greg, Brad, & Nate. They are the three boys of the barn. Now as I see it, all the volunteers like to work with them, and I don't blame them - they are great people. The boys have also worked at the farm longer than me, and so they know more kids. The thing is for me though, all the volunteers seem to like the guys. Its always a big deal whether you like Brad or Greg better. It doesn't bother me, but I guess it just feels nice to be a favorite. I love the volunteer, they are honestly my favorite part of the job, and so to finally start to get in there and be recognized by them feels great.
I was a voluntier myself for 7-8 years, and so now that I am staff I want people to recognize me as that I guess. Since before I feel as if some kids did not realize that. What I'm trying to get at here is that I feel like I finally am excepted into this 'group' of cool staff at the farm.
I'm pretty sure I will see Lauren back on the nights that I work, and hopefully I can keep building a bond with her and with more volunteers. If I can just make the smallest impact on any of them... My life will be complete.
Thanks for listening... well reading my rambles and thoughts. I honestly appreciate each and every person that takes a minute out of there life to catch up on mine. :) So a big Thanks to anyone who reads my blog. Goodday.

Stuck Truck

First, I would like you to take note that the title rhymes. :)
Now if you also look at that title you can probably guess what this story is about. Tonight I did evening chores at the farm. At one point we had about 20 guests at the farm, so it was not a quiet night. The farm closes at 6, and I was just wrapping up with bottles at 7. I was surprised we had people come to the farm because it was raining pretty much all night. Not just a nice drizzle but a hardcore thunder and lightning storm.
Turns out, that rain did a little damage. As the farm is set up, all the rain ran to the left corner in the back. That is where our hoop barn is, where our steers live. Wally (who is Mary, the director of the farm's, husband) came in saying that the cows were swimming in water. The water was building up back there, and well it was not a pretty sight.
Another problem is that we had about 25 bails of hay stacked in that barn, that were now getting wet on the bottom. For $7 a bail, Mary was not happy. We could save the bails if we got them out, and fed them in the next couple of days before they got moldy.
This meant someone had to go out and move them to a different barn in the pouring rain. Mary called up Greg and Nate (the two boys of the barn) to see if they could come on over. Only Greg could make it so he came over, and since he needed some help and I was there; the two of us went out in the pouring rain. We got one load out and into the next barn. This involved backing up Mary's truck into the hoop barn and filling it as full as we could with hay. We got about half of it out, so we went back for the second load. Keep in mind we had to keep the hay dry as we moved it too, so we had lots of tarps.
The problem came when we went back for the second load. At the entrance to the hoops barn, there is a bunch of small pebbles to help with drainage. With all the rain, they became a sort of sing whole and I think you can guess what happened. The back two wheels of the truck sank into the mud and it was stuck, very stuck. Almost the entire back wheel was buried.
No matter how much we pushed or reved the engine, the thing would not budge. This meant we had to get out the tractor to pull it out. Someone had to drive the truck (me), someone had to push (Greg) and we needed someone to drive the tractor. At this point Greg called up Nate and told him he had to come over. By the time Nate got there and got the tractor all hooked up, Wally had come out as well to help. After a bit of struggle the guys got the truck out though. (At this point, I was not doing very much.)
We still had to get that hay out of there though, but we could not back the truck back into the hoop barn. So this meant carrying it to the truck, putting it under the tarp, while stacking it and getting in as much as possible. Before that started, Greg told me to go home. I had not been home all night, and well I have homework and such. I took him up on the offer and left, since the guy's had it handled and I was not doing much anyways. Hopefully they got it all out!
So that was my night... Lets just hope the cows don't mind a little water since it is STILL raining.

New Critters

 We got some new critters at the farm!
First we have our two bottle calves. Apparently they are the most slobbery cows we have ever had, but I'm not sure if I agree with that. They are just young, thats all. Normally we get one black and one brown one, but this time we have two black. I love the spots on these ones. Cows are one of my favorite animals, so I'm pretty excited to have some again. Especially when they are small and are not as likely to hurt me as our steers. They don't have names yet, but they will soon enough.






















Next we have a little Romney girl that was born last week. She was born on April 5, and she is our first Romney of the year. She was born a single, and pretty large at that. I love the Romney's (they are the white sheep that we have at the farm). We have two more who are pregnant, but they will not birth until June.

We also have some new baby bunnies that were born, but I don't have pictures of them. Plus, we have bunnies all the time so they are not 'as' special.

Thats about all that is new, just a small update. The Critter Barn is sure hopping with new life. :)

Re-Blog: Suck it up and carry the goat.

While looking around online the other day, I found this blog post. It was written by a lady who went to the Critter Barn a year or two ago, so it is older, but I really like the post. Thats why I want to share it with you!

http://people-equation.com/sometimes-you-suck-it-up-carry-the-goat/

Please take note that I didn't write this, and I'm not trying to copy write her or anything. I just really enjoyed the point and how she related it to everyday life. So please, go check it out!

Colorado: Mountains

We are out west skiing in the Rockie Mountians, which is absolutely GORGEOUS. This may seem strange, but I've never really seen a real mountain before. I live in Michigan and so we are a little low on mountains.
But just look at them! Stunning.

I still can't get over how beautiful it is here. I'm pretty sure the mountains are what I am going to miss most. Skiing was great and all, but it was the beauty that got me. I would be skiing and I would just stop in the middle of the hill and you could look out and see mountains and more mountains.

My brothers and me (my dad just Had to get a picture). We were about 12,000 feet above sea level in this picture. That was the highest point that we got to.

I can't believe the beauty. There are just no more words. 

Colorado: Lasting Forever

This story is from day two of my Colorado trip.
Its a small thing that happened, but it still made me smile.
My family and I were walking around, looking at some little shops in the area. We stopped at a small chocolate shop, because well it's chocolate! The shop had all sorts of candy's and some ice cream as well. When we got in there, another family was looking at the candy as well. They had two little girls who were pretty excited by all the candy. The mother was telling them that they could each choose one treat. The littlest girl picked up a giant rainbow lolly pop.

It looked like this. You could tell she was Super excited, and Really wanted it. Her father and mother wasn't too sure, they wanted them to get ice cream, so she turns and says to them: "I want something that will last forever! Not something that will melt like ice cream." Needless to say, that convinced her parents and she got the sucker. I'm pretty sure that little girl is going somewhere in life. 

I've been thinking about what that little girl said, and I feel like she speaks for many humans. Our entire lives we strive to get things that will last forever, a big house, a new car, the love of your life. But in the end, it is all going to go away. Then why do we put so much time and effort into these things? As much as that little girl thought the sucker would last forever, eventually it will be gone. Not to be morbid, but eventually we are all going to die, so why put so much into things on this earth? We could instead be putting our time and effort into making a difference, to make a change in this world. To leave something behind when we are gone. I think thats one of my new goals in life, to make this world a better place - even if it is just in the smallest of ways. 

Picture from: http://www.123rf.com/photo_15365295_rainbow-twirl-lollipop-candies-isolated.html

Colorado: Crossing the Finish.

This week I have been on my spring break out in Colorado. My family has traveled out here to ski, and so far it has been AMAZING. The next couple of posts are going to be about, and from our trip (not farm stories! Shocker, I know.) They are just about the trip in general or something little that I noticed or happened.

So first story.
I was skiing down a run and to the side of the hill there was a giant sign that read 'FINISH'. There must have been a race last week or something, because there was none going on this week at all. So there is just this giant finish sign that you can go over, so of course I ski through it and start waving my arms in fake victory. Now to the left there was a chair lift that brought people to the top of the hill. As I went through the finish line, a group of guys on one of the chairs all started cheering for me.
Now it may seem silly, but just that bit of cheering made me feel special. This got me to thinking (I've had a lot of time to think while skiing). We all deserve some cheering in our lives. I feel as if a lot of people focus on the bad in their lives. Maybe thats just me, but it might just be a human thing as well. Is it sad that maybe we come to just expect the bad? Thats not how you should look at life though, we deserve good, and there is good - You just have to look to find. Shouldn't we come to expect good? I could certainly stand to concentrate on it more. Its funny because in Creative Writing we have been talking about how we need to 'widen our keyholes' or in other words we just need to open our eyes and look for the little things in life that make it great.
I just love when things connect like that.
So I guess in conclusion this is a little thing that made me happy today. Those guys probably don't even know how much it meant to me, to be appreciated for doing absolutely nothing.