Wednesday, May 23, 2012

That's the plan

Have you figured it out yet? How things always work around here? A friend said today "I am so much better at keeping plans when I don't make any."  That's the truth.

Plan A:
Keep all the animals here for the winter, just like last winter.

What actually happened:
All the animals went to Yarmouth for the winter.

Plan B:
Trade boh the heifer calves (Yum and Yesterday) for two bull calves. Mom would keep Yesterday for breeding stock.

What actually happened:
Traded one heifer for a bull. We still own Yesterday. Yesterday isn't good enough to keep for breeding stock so we'll ship her this fall. Also, Yum, who Mom know owns, she doesn't want as she's not certified organic, so we have her to ship as well.

Plan C:
Bring Royalty, Smokey, Yesterday and new bull back here in the spring.

What actually happened:
Mom sold the farm and the opportunity came up to trade Royalty for a better cow, both genetically and physically. So we traded for Chocolate.

Plan D:
Herd will be delivered on Monday.

What actually happened:
Mom got held up and couldn't deliver until Tuesday because of a hoof trimmer who didn't show up, even though, as we learned on Tuesday, wasn't suppose to show up until the following Monday.

Plan E:
Bring Smokey, Chocolate, Yesterday and new bull back here in the spring.

What actually happenend:
Chocolate was too close to calving so she had to stay behind. Royalty came back instead. (I heard from Mom, that Chocolate just calved and had a black bull. His name will start with Z.)

So we thought we were going to have Chocolate, Smokey and two bulls. Instead we have Chocolate, Smokey, Yesterday, Yum and a bull. With Smokey, Royalty (who we don't own), Yesterday and a bull here and Chocolate and Yum still in Yarmouth.  Confused? You should be.

One thing that you have to be open to in farming is that nothing ever goes exactly as planned. Ever. The only thing that actually went as planned is if you look at the big picture. The Big Picture Plan was to have cattle here this summer. That, we actually accomplished.