Here’s hoping that everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and was able to enjoy a meal with some family and friends. We had the smallest dinner we have had in over 20 years. We had plenty of food, but there were just four of us.
It was a little later than we had originally planned, but I had company from Dryden looking at animals. It was a calm evening, but the food was delicious. The turkey was raised locally; I picked the brussels sprouts that morning, I grew the squash and my mom grew the potatoes! We also had cabbage rolls and perogies, and the people visiting us from Dryden brought us a fresh loaf of artisan bread, and it was excellent.
Saturday was a beautiful day! I had my mind set on getting my yard dialled in again. The grass needed to be cut, and I wanted to clean up some of my dead plants. I had some company off and on, so my target list maybe didn’t get met, but it was close!
I got my cows home that evening and locked up for a busy week ahead. Of course, because of the nice weather, they were off looking for greener pastures, but once they heard the tractor, they slowly made their way home.
Sunday morning, I was busy trying to get a few supper plans off the list before my Dryden company arrived. It took a fair bit of time to clean and prepare my brussels sprouts, and I still haven’t harvested all of them. The Dryden family wanted to purchase some calves. Of course, the cows were all worked up with the extra people around, so I ended up having to put them all in the corral for them to get a good look. They decided on four!
Monday was a hard, busy day. I knew the weather wasn’t going to be in our favour, but I was determined to get through it all wet or not. I started off moving some equipment around to get our scale out. We got that all in place, and I called for the cows. They were not cooperative since they had just made their way in less than 24 hours previously, and they knew that their calves would be pulled off soon.
I got them, and we began the task of sorting calves and cows. We weighed all the calves, and this year we decided to try out quiet weans. A nose flap is inserted so that they cannot nurse the cow. You leave them with the cow for four or five days, take them out and then take them away from their moms.
We will see how these quiet weans work out. I did notice them trying to nurse, but they were frustrated because they couldn’t latch on. I had to replace a few tags, but this way they will be ready to load this week prior to the sale.
Then we organized and put all the equipment away properly. I had to feed the cows, and it was sad because we had enough rain that the ruts were showing up again. The next task was sorting off the lambs because I had abattoir day on Tuesday. That meant moving the ram to the barn to get him out of the corral.
We got the lambs in, tagged them all and loaded them onto the trailer except for the one we were keeping. We put her in the barn as well. She will have to get bred at a friend’s house because our ram is her dad!
We put out hay for the sheep and the bulls and finished up the rest of the chores! Doesn’t sound like much, but my mom and I didn’t get finished until 6 p.m. We were even more thankful for our Thanksgiving leftovers after that day!
Reminder — please support the Friends of the Abattoir Fundraiser on Oct. 24. Get your tickets today to support repairs and maintenance at the Rainy River District Regional Abattoir! Cocktails start at 5 p.m., with dinner to follow at 6 p.m. at the Stratton Millennium Hall & Curling Club.
Tickets are $100 each (with tables of 8–10 available) for the prime rib and chicken dinner, homemade desserts, live and silent auctions, games and a cash bar. To purchase them, contact Kerry at (807) 271-4316 or via the Rainy River District Regional Abattoir Inc. Facebook page.
