Beef to Chickens

Bruce and Jesse have been working away since the first of March, tearing out one half of the beef barn to have a place to keep chickens. We were fortunate to get layer quota for 1000 hens, and this is where we will put the cage system.

Bedding up the cows

Here are two pics of Jesse spreading sawdust into the freestalls with our new sawdust thrower that we got with the new skidsteer at Christmas.

Goodbye Gus

Yesterday we buried Gus, our old horse. He died in his sleep this week, we think he was around 32 years old. Here is a pic taken of him last year, with Carrie.

Tanya's Family

Here is a pic of Tanya's family...her husband TJ, Tanya, Emma, and Madilyn...and soon one more.
She was supposed to send me a picture after she was here on March break, but Bruce , Sarah, and Carrie had to drive up and take it themselves at her home in Glassville. But they got to enjoy a marvelous Easter dinner with them and TJ's father, brother and sister.

Bradford, Stacy, & Nanny

The Future

Here is a pic of Jesse, just out of a phone booth but minus the cape...hmmmm...

Manicures

Thursday we had our foot trimmer in and clipped the toes of 15 cows. We send them in a chute, flip 'em on their side, and it makes it so easy.

Milk & Beef

Here is a pic of the milk truck taking a load of milk this morning.
We also sold a bunch(23) of beef calves to a feed lot today. Here are a couple of pictures of them waiting for the trailer to arrive.

#2011's new calf

Just to show this is actually a farm, I had Carrie take a pic of a new calf we had on Saturday. A nice big bull calf. We like heifers, and have had lots so far this year, but we are now raising all our bull calves for 3 months or so for veal, so this big calf will do well for us.

Gibson

We have some catching up to do, so I'm going to post a pic of the newest family member now. He is Bradford Hyde Matheson, born February 15th (notice the r in February, Stacy?) . Proud sister is Kara, and her Mom and Dad, Gilbert & Stacy. Bradford is named after his paternal grandfather, and the Hyde is his great, great grand mothers maiden name.( and a good excuse when there is too much work to do..)

Willard's First Blog

Hi all. I thought this was going to be easy, but I guess things don't come to a llama as fast.
I thought a few pictures of our March break high lights would be nice. Carrie was off to Quebec for 5 days with her cadet group. The Simmonds Air Cadets. Here is a pic of Carrie getting ready to go. We also had a visit from her big sister Tanya, her daughters Emma & Madilyn, and later in the week they were all back with some guy called TJ. He said something to me out in the barn that wasn't very nice. I'm going to get Tanya to send me a pic to post.

Welcome Back!

After a 1.5 year break this blog is under new management. We will try and update it a little more regularly. This is Willard, our most recent addition, and he is responsible for the blog from this day forward.

It gets so hard to get time to write my blog. Well we had the crew together for the baptismal was a amazimg minor fights but all went well. I also got to visit with my friend Anne fun.Bruce has been busy spreading manure of and on. The weather has been amazing there is days it feels like late summer 19 degrees. The grandkids were all herelast nite Grandma to, I forget how loud it can get with young kids. We now are feeding 13 babies all beef 2 I figure looks alot like a highlander cute woolly

Time is a flying we have been busy .We had a sad time Bruces father passed away at the end of August very sudden it has been very hard to adjust to. He was a very kind and dear soul a great father also a great grandfather. We have gotten all our corn in Tanya travelled down to help her dad it took them 3 days and the fourth day started feeding out of the silo. In the middle of Sept. we had Bayard Goodday family reunion there was relatives fr Vancouver Halifax Montreal Ontario Kentville Glassville Truro Hampton and Midland We all had a blast we did tours of family histroy and we had good food and we ended the evening with music bonfire and carrie gave gator rides It was a special weekend and I hope we do not leave time go to long before we do it again.Well its that time of year we are moving animals home from pasture and low and behold it is going slick. Sold 27 beefers this week it went good again. Amazing Well so long

It is about time

Hello every one It has been a rough 2 or 3 months My father inlaw god love him passed away the end of august pretty rough we really miss him . It hard to get use to .
Now our victoria has head of to university and she also had a rough patch but she is in the groove and doing ok {right vic] Then we had the Bayard Goodday reunion Bruces relatives fr Halifax Kentville BC Hampton St John and St Stephen were all here oh yes Ontario and Montreal too We visited histroy spots we had great meals and we ended at nite with a terrific bonfire It was a great family get together. well I try and get in the groove and keep in touch. Did I tell you we are done corn and now feeding it. Also sold 27 feedercalves I know carrie halfpint to. se ya

Quess We are done haying about time

yesterday we got done haying the last field and it did not get rained on imagine . So normally we would head camping to late to fallish , So we set up camper for carrie behind the hedge so she can think she is campin g I slept out one nite Bruce has slept out a couple . It is not ideal but it works. Now Vicky and Carla has gone to Vancouver to spend aweek sight seeing and visiting Bruces brother Peter and his wife Mai. Now we are pulling for a little freetime here what shall we do. Had a cow calve today in the pen imagine that and she had a heifer All doing well. Our oldest turned 24 yesterday they all are growing up not our little tan Tan any more.

Saint John Idol

Our Vicky did us proud tonight, she performed in the wildcard round of Saint John Idol. She sang a song that wasnt her style but did ok. Our Vicky is more country, wait until next time saint john lol. Next up is the A&E...here are some pictures of vicky singing. Bruce started second cutt today. We had to stop doing hay for a while because we are making a mess of the feilds because they are so wet. The tractor got stuck in a field we just planted so we decided to take a breather from all of that stress..

Another slow day hopefully tomorrow we will hay. Today we had Peter the foottrimmer in and a dozen cows were done and only one real bad one. Bruce went to see his Dad who is back in the hospital maybe they will figure out whats wrong. It has been a rough summer for him getting sick every 30 days or so. Carrie came home from camp today good to have her home there was kids from vancouver and the states and you name it. Also her hamster fot sick today and passed away I wonder who felt the worst Bruce or her . Angel the hamster was to be 2 in august old for a hamster,

Here the group that did the ms bike tour donot look to bad for half way mark

well it has been 10 days since I wrote some text and yes lots has gone on. We had a heifer who calved out in the freestall and yes of course it was a heifer and we do not like them to come in contact with any manure matter, well it's face was covered with manure and the heifer is a b t h and boys she hard to get in the parlour and she won't let you put the milker on her ahh it will come.next we had a good day we got the gravel knoll done up in hay and the little swamp by the lower barn done it was not bad hay also we did the meadow up in silage it was good stuff ran into a problem when the wheel bolts came of and the wheel fell of and wagon is now full sunk into the ground and of course this leaves Bruce with a project for Friday .Well our front end loader cannot lift it so he has to get excavator down, took hub of that wagon got hub of another wagon and we are back in business and can get wagon of the field and the neighbours can relax. Next day is Bruce,Tan Tan ,jesse, and Bruces sister Shelia big ms bike tour 122 kms in 2 days. Can you imagine how soar they will be and it is amazing 134 riders all ages raising money for a cure They were fanastic and I am so proud of them Now all those riders raised 695000 dollars. Wait till next year we will be bigger and better maybe we will practice. You think. Now our grand finale was a bq at Shelias and grandma and grandpa came and so did stacy gilbert and kara . It was great Shelias and Arts boys were there to.