life and death...

Today we had both on our farm. Isn't that the way of it? I'll start with the death. We, well actually Matthew harvested our old laying hens. We were not able to save any of the meat from them, because they were 3 years old and too skinny for some reason. So, note to selves next time around we will only go 2 years with them. Oh well, we are still learning as we go. We, yes we both buried them out in the manure pile, dug a hole with our tractor, it has a front end loader on it, and in they went. Matthew said it was a mass burial. I kinda laughed at that, kinda gross I know, but that is farm life. We still have our 1 year old New Hampshire reds, only 5 of them though. Will be nice if they are all laying... I wonder though. Hard to tell, will find out soon enough.
Now to the fun part! Life...
We knew Maggie was going to be coming into heat soon, so we have been keeping an eye on her, and well, all the signs are there. We called the AI tech, and let them know to come and check her. Well she did, and said that she is definitely coming into heat, and that we should breed her now, because  of the way she felt, she could be in a full standing heat by the afternoon. "Oh no" was my first thought. Matthew was at work, at the mill, and I had no idea what bull he had picked, so I called him and thankfully he came right home. We chatted with the AI tech and decided on a bull, and I'm not joking, his name is Denali! Yup! Our daughter is DaLaney, and we had tossed the name Denali around for her while I was pregnant! Oh that was too much. But he is a nice bull, he's young, and he has some good qualities too. With all four children out in the barn, Maggie was AI'd. They had a few questions, and we told them enough to answer their questions, and they were happy with that. Hopefully now there is a calf growing inside her! Now, in about 21 days we should know weather or not she settled! Oh we are so excited! Having missed her last 2 heat cycles, we didn't want to miss another one. Now we wait...