It's a girl ... no, it's a boy

In honor of National Agriculture Week, I will be sharing my own “memories of a former kid” growing up on a rural Nobles County family farm. Check back each day this week for some of my most memorable experiences of farm life.

The barn on the Buntjer family farm has a pair of what I like to call birthing suites. They aren't fancy by any means ... simply private rooms with access to electricity.

The electricity was important back when I was raising dairy goats. Kidding season usually started in early March and continued through the end of May.

I loved kidding season. Most of the time, the mamas had their babies under the dark of night, and I'd trudge out to the barn in the morning before school to find a wobbly-kneed kid with tousled hair, still damp from the placenta and the constant licks offered by mama.

My voice rose an octave or two as I joyously celebrated the new arrival, and then it was time to work. I'd pick up the kid - or kids - and carry them to the private quarters, with mama following close behind and bleating her displeasure that I disturbed her precious little babes.

I'd hook up the heat lamp to get some extra warmth in the room, make sure the kids were getting their healthy dose of colostrum from mama, and then give mama a special "treat" mix of molasses pellets, oats and cracked corn for the extra energy she undoubtedly needed after labor.

As mama was distracted by her meal, I'd check the kids over to make sure their ears were dry and their nose was clear. And then I checked for the really important stuff ... I mean, you can't really give a kid a name until you know if it's a boy or a girl, right?

In the early years of goat raising, I bestowed upon them names that came to mind as I watched them learn to stand on their wobbly legs.

One year, I think I used up all of the character names on Little House on the Prairie ... there was William and Charles for a set of twin boys, and for the triplet girls, we had Nellie, Sally and Tessa (I don't know where Tessa came from ... I just liked the name!)

When I converted my herd to purebred, registered Saanens, the process grew more difficult. I had to use one letter each year ... and all the offspring had to have names starting with that letter. It hampered my creativity ... or forced me to be more creative, I'm not sure which.

I'm sure I can't remember all of the names attached to my goats over the years, but I do remember some of the stress-filled moments, and one that is still a bit embarrassing.

I do believe I was the only high school student to ever call in my own absence from school one day. My excuse: Jenny was having a difficult labor, Mom was working at Campbell's Soup, Dad was working at IBP and no one else could help.

I'm pretty sure the school secretary thought it was the stupidest excuse she'd ever heard, but I'm sure glad I stayed home. I ended up having to assist in the delivery when the front feet failed to come out with the head. (You're just learning all sorts of new things about your farm reporter now, aren't you!) When it was all over, both mama and her big baby boy turned out just fine.

Now, for the embarrassing tale ... my goat Misty was known for her multiple births. For three years straight, she delivered triplets. A trio of boys, followed by a trio of girls, followed by another trio of girls.

Or was that girls, followed by boys, and another set of boys?

Misty's very first delivery of triplets had me so excited, I quickly looked at the three and ran all the way up to the house to tell my folks the good news (it must have been on a weekend).

"Three girls!" I exclaimed, already going through names in my head for three girl names that sounded similar.

I had them all picked out by the time Dad and I walked back out to check on the new babies. I don't know why, but Dad thought he better check the kids over too ... and it's a good thing he did. My trio of baby girls had suddenly become a trio of baby boys.

Gee, was I disappointed!

Posted by: Julie Buntjer on 3/17/2010 at 11:38 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink

Tags: agriculture, family, farm, goats, national agriculture week

Horse in the Haymow

In honor of National Agriculture Week, I will be sharing my own “memories of a former kid” growing up on a rural Nobles County family farm. Check back each day this week for some of my most memorable experiences of farm life.

Whenever Mom was upset with us kids about leaving our dirty laundry on the floor or our dinner dishes on the table, she'd often ask, "What's the matter with you? Were you born in a barn?"

Often, I'd reply, "Well, that wouldn't have been so bad!"

The barn was a great haven on the family farm ... it still is.

When I was growing up, I spent hours out in the barn. Most of the time, I'd grab a five-gallon bucket, tip it upside down and sit in the goat pen among my herd of pets. I'd watch them eat their feed, chew their cud and pick through the alfalfa and grass hay mixture.

I'd let the kid goats chew on my shoe laces and Butterscotch chew on my coat. Trav could spend half an hour rubbing her head up and down my arm as I told her about my day, while Misty would be standing in the corner - grinning because her bottom jaw stuck out just a bit more than it should have.

The goat pen was my refuge. For my three brothers, it was the haymow.

As much time as I'd spend chattering with my goats, the boys would spend upstairs shooting hoops.

I can remember when the makeshift court was created up there. A piece of plywood passes for a backboard, while the hoop is nothing more than an orange rim. To us farm kids, it was good enough.

When our basketball court - a clearing in the center of the haymow, surrounded by stacked bales of hay and straw - was still a novelty, I'd play along with the boys. We'd play H-O-R-S-E, and when we didn't have time for a lengthy match-up, we'd shorten it to P-I-G, C-O-W or G-O-A-T. On rare occasions, we'd lengthen it to D-O-N-K-E-Y.

I'm pretty sure I never won any of the games. Basketball just wasn't for me.

These days, it's the next generation of Buntjer kids that gathers in the haymow. Oh, there's some basketball still being played up there from time to time, but mostly the haymow floor has become a race track for the pedal tractors.

The four-year-olds, niece Katie and nephew Reece, love to go out to the barn, climb the ladder and play among the hay and straw bales in the haymow. They call it the "hay mountain."

A century ago, the barn was considered one of the most important buildings on a farm. Many farm families built a place for their livestock before they built a place for themselves on newly homesteaded land.

It's pretty safe to say that if walls could talk, the barn on the Buntjer farm could share more stories than the house ever could.

Posted by: Julie Buntjer on 3/16/2010 at 11:46 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink

Tags: agriculture, barn, family, farm, national agriculture week

National Ag Week: Sharing stories

It's National Agriculture Week ... a time to celebrate agriculture and honor those who put the food on our plate and the milk in our glass. I'm going to challenge myself to write a daily blog about farm life this week, and considering it's already late on a Monday night, I better get to writing.

It's so nice to look outside and see the snow melting away - finally! I can see the wooden handles on the old plow in my front yard once again, and areas of grass are actually visible in the back yard.

Down on the farm, many of the patches of snow have become puddles of water ... and sloppy, slippery areas of mud.

Thank goodness my folks had a "mud room" in the building plans when their home was built 30 years ago. Little did they know then that they would have little grandchildren stomping through the door with muddy boots, muddy snow pants and water-laden and mud-tinged jackets, hats and mittens.

It took seeing the four-year-olds and the two-year-old jumping in the puddles this weekend to remind me of a simpler time on the farm ... a time when I was their age, without a care about wet feet or a worry about washing clothes. Ah, those were the days!

By the time I was a teenager on the farm, I'd grown to dislike spring. Even today, I'd say it's my second-least favorite season (winter being the worst, of course!)

Oh, I love the arrival of spring ... the melting snow, my first Robin sighting, tulips in the garden and the open water on the lakes ... but I hated the work that came with spring's arrival on the farm.

Springtime coincided with cleaning out the layers of manure that were allowed to pile up in the barn through the winter months. Depending on the size of my goat herd and the length of the winter, that layer of straw, discarded grass hay and manure could get pretty deep.

I'm sure Dad had to tell me more than once to get out to the barn and grab the pitchfork, but mostly I remember him just parking the manure spreader outside the barn door as a less-than-subtle hint that the goat pen was a stench.

You know, when I was growing up I had to hear about how my parents walked to country school - up hill both ways, right? Well, I tell the nieces and nephews today that I had to clean out the barn with a pitch fork! There was no skidloader to make light work of scooping poop ... and there was certainly never an offer of help from any of my three brothers. Oh, the price I had to pay for wanting to be a farmer!

Dad always said scooping manure built strong muscles ... he'd pronounce the "c" to make it sound like "musculls." I wonder now why I never said, "Girls don't need strong muscles!"

Oh well, I grew into a woman with broad shoulders, big arms and an aversion to scooping poop.

On Saturday afternoon, my four-year-old Godson and I flipped over a pair of five-gallon buckets and sat in the hallway of the barn. I looked at what used to be the goat pen and imagined what it would be like to be raising goats once again.

The panels are still in place, the feed bunks still stretch along the alley, and a goat milking stand is in good working order, though buried under a collection of junk. There's straw in the haymow and hay on the main floor, the hydrant still runs and the goat pen door will work just fine with a little shot of 2,4-D.

I could clear away the cobwebs and the clutter, invest in some breeding stock and learn how to drive the skidloader. While I'm at it, maybe I'll fix up the chicken house and get some laying hens. Oh, and I'll want some turkeys too. I suppose I should have a couple of steers in the cattle yard, and maybe I can get a donkey to keep them company. I've always wanted a donkey.

Yeah, there's nothing like sitting on a feed pail, looking around an empty barn and dreaming the impossible dream. Of course, in my dream I didn't see a single speck of manure!

Posted by: Julie Buntjer on 3/15/2010 at 11:25 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink

Tags: agriculture, family, farm, national agriculture week

Vote now to show your FFA pride

The Online Store for the National FFA Organization is conducting a survey through March 17, encouraging people to vote for six of the top 12 designs in the nationwide FFA Chapter T-shirt contest. Hundreds of entries were submitted from chapters all across the country.

I learned today that Wabasso FFA Chapter's T-shirt design has made it to the Top 12.

Some of you may know that I was editor of the weekly newspaper in Wabasso for four years before I moved back to my hometown to become a reporter at the Daily Globe. Wabasso is a small town in the heart of Redwood County, with a population of 642 when I lived there. They have an excellent ag program, lead by a top-notch ag teacher. (Mr. Klaers and his family were also my next-door neighbors.)

A Facebook message posted by Bill's wife, Jane, this morning alerted me to the T-shirt contest and the exciting news for the Wabasso FFA Chapter. Bill and his students designed the T-shirt, which is shown here.

FFA members (actually anyone) can visit this site to vote for their favorite T-shirt designs. Each person can vote for up to six designs.

The six T's with the most votes will be featured in the 2010-2011 Blue catalog, which goes out to FFA Chapters and members across the country.

The site does not state what chapters submitted the entries, but I do know that Wabasso is the only FFA Chapter from Minnesota to have a design in the Top 12. There are some pretty cool designs, and of course, Wabasso's T-shirt received my vote.

Voting began Thursday and will continue through next Wednesday.

Posted by: Julie Buntjer on 3/12/2010 at 9:04 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink

Tags: ffa, wabasso

Join in the fight

Do you know someone who has died of cancer? Do you know a cancer survivor, or someone going through cancer treatments now?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, we could sure use your help in the fight against cancer.

The Nobles County Relay for Life hosted its kick-off event Tuesday night in Worthington. Team packets were distributed, ideas were discussed and the date was announced for this year’s Relay for Life event at the Nobles County Fairgrounds in Worthington.

Several new changes are planned for this year’s Relay - changes we hope will encourage more people to come out and help the hundreds of survivors and team members Celebrate, Remember and Fight Back.

For starters, the Survivor’s Supper will not be the same night as the Relay this year. A special banquet is planned in their honor on June 15, at the American Reformed Church in Worthington. The evening event will recognize all who won the fight against cancer. Survivor T-shirts will also be distributed at this event.

Hosting the Survivor’s Supper a few days prior to the Nobles County Relay for Life on June 18 is hoped to give organizers an opportunity to be more involved in the actual events on the night of the Relay.

In the past, Relay volunteers have been so busy cleaning up and putting things away after the meal is served that they miss important Relay events like the butterfly release, the survivor recognition and the speakers.

This year, the Relay’s opening ceremony will begin at 7 p.m. on June 18, with closing ceremony planned for 7 a.m. June 19.

In 2009, Nobles County’s 21 Relay for Life teams raised nearly $93,200 for research and advocacy for the American Cancer Society. It was the highest fundraising year for Nobles County, and we’d sure like to surpass it this year.

We are still looking for more teams to get involved. Families, church groups, youth groups, small businesses, large businesses, friends ... the team opportunities are endless.

If you would like more information on forming a team, contact Nobles County Relay for Life Chairperson Kim Lambert at 372-5305.

This year’s Relay for Life theme is “A World with more Birthdays.”

As the American Cancer Society’s slogan states, “We save lives and create more birthdays by helping you stay well, helping you get well, by finding cures and by fighting back.”

Posted by: Julie Buntjer on 3/10/2010 at 9:45 PM | Comments (0) | Permalink

Tags: cancer, nobles county, relay for life