Our one winged warrior

Is mostly back to work now. His shoulder will probably never be the same as there are muscles detatched from the bone that are not going to grow back. However, he is a typical tough farmer and just keeps going and going. He managed to get all the corn chopped and finished up Thursday. You can see in this picture from last week that his right arm doesn't work too well, but he gets things done some how...(he is bringing me firewood in this picture, bless his heart.)

Farming is different from most jobs in that respect. There are a finite number of people to do work that is absolutely unforgiving. Cows must eat, drink and be milked. The stove must have wood. Things have been kind of ugly....cows don't get bedded or stables cleaned until late afternoon and I do most of the former. Not so neat and tidy as it might be, but they have something to lie on at night anyhow. One side of the stable manure has been piled outside under the chute for weeks....that will get cleaned up pretty quick now that he doesn't have to try to chop acres and acres of corn with one arm and worn out equipment. Just yesterday, Liz and I helped him get all the fans out of the barn, move calves, change calf collars, build stalls, clean mangers and a half dozen other jobs that have gone begging until we had enough help and time to do them.

Now we have to rebuild the sawdust shed for yearling calf housing, tear out half of the old calf tie up and put in the new headlocks so we can catch the yearling heifers to breed them...oh, and get some Amish in to patch the roof if we can... rebuild the pig housing....get the five bred heifers and two dry cows down off the hill ....and on, and on, and on..etc.....

I am awful glad to have him done with corn and able to help in the barn all day....you just can't imagine how glad.

On another note, today is opening day South, deer season. Cows are all staying in the barn except the seven out on the heifer pasture hill and they have a lot of feed down here to keep them busy and close to the barn. Show heifers are locked in the barn yard. Horses are in the barn.....and my son is somewhere out on Seven County Hill with a twenty gauge and a dream.
I forgot to have him borrow a cell phone from one of his sisters, so I will worry and worry.
I trust him.
It is the poachers who will have by passed our no trespassing signs I worry about. The ones who hunt in full cammo and take sound shots and can't tell a deer from a billy goat or a Jersey cow. It is an insult to call them hunters. They are just idiots. I hope he doesn't meet any.