Today I want to share with you what “hibernation” means to a farm girl/milkmaid. I’m in charge of all the baby calves……until weaning age that is. This in itself keeps me fully “grounded” and at home most of the time. I’m sorta like the old timers. I go to town for supplies about once a month. Give or take a few days. Haha  Raising calves is a big job so I recruit lots of help from the kids. We all work together.       Here’s my partial row of calves. As soon as they’re born we put them into their own little hutch. I like to call it their cozy little condo. Every single calf needs to be vaccinated ASAP and then we feed them fresh colostrum to give them a good, healthy start. Without these steps their life can be pretty “dicey”. Calves will pick up bugs very easily and if not caught in time they’ll be dead within 24 hours. Just like human babies……constant care.          Bedding down hutches is not a favorite job. It’s back breaking work and Marshall says it’s the worst job on the farm. Our winter was extremely wet and muddy which calls for lots and lots of bedding. The dogs think it’s great fun!       We only had one set of twins. I kept them together for a couple of days so they could “bond”. That’s the “mother instinct” in me. After a few days they go their separate ways. Baby calves do best when they have their own hutch.       We had all colors this year. Mostly brown, black and red. The red was my favorite. They’re always such cute little stinkers…..and then they grow up.       I always do the “hat thing” at Christmas time. It takes so. much. patience. They hate that silly thing on their head….but I think it looks so cute. Can you see that look? It’s saying……Oh the disgust and shame! Get that stupid thing off of my head!         Speaking of shame……little “Dixie chic” was so mad at us for doing this to her. Just look at her face! She is so ticked! Oh my…..Candace and I just laughed and laughed. Too much fun! Well, that’s all for now. More winter pictures coming up next………………..Carol