{"id":4551,"date":"2010-10-22T05:18:24","date_gmt":"2010-10-22T05:18:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/bharry\/2010\/10\/22\/a-lesson-in-farming\/"},"modified":"2024-06-24T13:19:50","modified_gmt":"2024-06-24T20:19:50","slug":"a-lesson-in-farming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/bharry\/a-lesson-in-farming\/","title":{"rendered":"A Lesson in Farming"},"content":{"rendered":"

Take my advice.\u00a0 Don\u2019t get in a round bale ring with a cow.\nIt\u2019s been a while since I\u2019ve written about my alter-ego \u2013 farmer Brian.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been meaning to write a general farm update post and still hope to in the next couple of weeks (with pictures and all).\u00a0 But something happened this last week that was funny enough that I just had to take a few minutes and write about it.\nOur summer this year was extremely dry and, as a result, all the grass went dormant in Aug\/Sept.\u00a0 Because of this I\u2019ve been feeding hay for the last several weeks to try to give the grass a chance to recover now that the fall rains have started.\u00a0 So every day or two I have to deliver the cows fresh hay bales.\u00a0 These aren\u2019t the little rectangular bales (called \u201csquare bales\u201d) that you might be used to.\u00a0 They are huge 4\u2019 x 5\u2019 round bales that weigh about 1,000lbs each.\u00a0 So you deliver them with a tractor and drop them in a \u201cround bale feeder\u201d.\u00a0 My round bale feeders look something like this:\n\"Image<\/a>\nand cows eat at them something like this:\n\"\"<\/a>\nCow\u2019s eat a shockingly large amount of hay and, collectively, mine will devour a couple of thousand pound bales in a day.\u00a0 So, after a while that big bale just becomes a layer of hay on the ground a few inches high.\u00a0 When this happens some of the younger calves will squeeze through the bars and stand in the middle of the ring to eat the hay more easily.\u00a0 I\u2019ve observed this for a long time and when I bring out a new bale I just drive up to the ring and kind of lower the new bale toward the calf and the calf gets scared and jumps out of the ring and all is good.\nWell, the other day I was repeating this ritual and I noticed that a bit of a larger calf had managed to get themselves in the ring \u2013 he was probably 400lbs or so.\u00a0 I lowered the bale toward him and he ran around a bit but wouldn\u2019t jump out.\u00a0 So after trying this uselessly for a few minutes I backed the tractor up and got down and tried to shoo him out.\u00a0 Well, that didn\u2019t work either.\u00a0 So I figured,\u00a0 OK, I\u2019ll get in the ring with him (they are about 8 feet across so there\u2019s plenty of room) and shoo him out that way.\u00a0 This is where the story goes bad.\nWith me in the ring with him, he finally decided to jump back through the openings.\u00a0 He tried 2 or 3 times but every time his front shoulders hit the posts and he was stopped.\u00a0 Dang, he was too big to fit through.\u00a0 Well, it turns out that not all the gaps are the same size.\u00a0 The gaps where the two halves of the ring join together are bigger (on my rings).\u00a0 So I thought I\u2019d just chase him around to that gap and shoo him out.\u00a0 Seemed like a good plan.\nAnd it worked, kind of.\u00a0 I shooed him out the larger hole, however these holes at the joints, while bigger, are not uniform shape.\u00a0 they are big at the bottom and smaller at the top.\u00a0 My friend jumped through the gap but then got his rear hips stuck in the top of the gap.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t like that and panicked.\u00a0 He started running like crazy, dragging the bale feeder behind him.\u00a0 Now mind you these bale feeders are quite heavy.\u00a0 I\u2019m a pretty big guy and I\u2019ve drug them across a field before but it\u2019s exhausting work (I usually turn them on their side and roll them if I need to go far).\u00a0 Anyway, this cow is dragging the bale feeder across the field at a pretty good clip and here I am, inside it with no good way to get out.\u00a0 Yikes!\nI\u2019m running along with it, pulling on it trying to get him to slow down\/stop.\u00a0 After he\u2019s dragged it about 100 feet, I suddenly realize he\u2019s headed for the pond.\u00a0 God knows why but now I\u2019m thinking, this could actually be pretty serious.\u00a0 After about another hundred feet, I finally managed to get him to stop long enough for me to lift the feeder up 6 inches or so and he was able to wiggle out.\nIt definitely upped the adrenaline level and taught me a lesson:\u00a0 Don\u2019t get in a bale feeder with a cow.\u00a0 Take my advice.\nThis is but one of many lessons and experiences from farm life but I thought you might find it amusing.\u00a0 Now back to your regularly scheduled programming\u2026\nBrian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Take my advice.\u00a0 Don\u2019t get in a round bale ring with a cow. It\u2019s been a while since I\u2019ve written about my alter-ego \u2013 farmer Brian.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been meaning to write a general farm update post and still hope to in the next couple of weeks (with pictures and all).\u00a0 But something happened this last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":244,"featured_media":14617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-4551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-personal"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

Take my advice.\u00a0 Don\u2019t get in a round bale ring with a cow. It\u2019s been a while since I\u2019ve written about my alter-ego \u2013 farmer Brian.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been meaning to write a general farm update post and still hope to in the next couple of weeks (with pictures and all).\u00a0 But something happened this last […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/bharry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/bharry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/bharry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/bharry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/244"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/bharry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/bharry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/bharry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/bharry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/bharry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/bharry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}