Snow and mud :)

April 11
Two days ago a cow calved (so we had to help with that too) and the calf was pretty sick. It was immediately hypothermic, couldn't and still can't stand up, and couldn't even drink from the bottle on the first day. We fed it through a tube, but then it couldn't poop and we couldn't feed it anymore. And this morning it still didn't look any better. So we put it on a drip (is that how you say it?). Well, Henry had never done it before either, but I think we did a pretty good job. The hardest part was actually finding the vein, and we didn't know exactly how much to give. But Aileen knew someone who knew. So I sat in the barn all morning making sure the calf didn't move too much so the needle wouldn't come out. That was pretty easy because the calf didn't move at all. I had to make sure it was still breathing. It was just lying flat on the ground and breathing heavily. But just now I fed it again and it drank a lot on its own, pooped, and even tried to get up. So I don't know if it will really recover, but it is definitely doing much better. I can imagine that most other people would have lost it by now, because it wouldn't even have been born alone.
But I think it's so cool here. On all the other farms I've been to, there was always something that was the same every day, like feeding the animals or meal times. And here, every day is completely different. You wake up in the morning and have absolutely no idea what you're going to do today. Everywhere else I've been, I at least knew roughly what I was going to do today. Sometimes we don't even have lunch until 3 pm because we're doing so many other things (and because none of us have a watch or a cell phone). And there are also such different things like building new gates, riding, vaccinating calves, driving tractors, making firewood, building a dam, pulling calves out of cows, building a bridge, fixing the wheelbarrow, putting a calf on a drip, herding cows, building a fence, feeding, driving through deep mud with the quad :) ....... every day something new comes up. When I wake up in the morning, I'm always excited to see what cool things I'm going to do today.

April 14
It snowed all day yesterday. It started raining and then it started snowing. And the snow removal service is only paid until March. That means if it snows in April, you can't go anywhere because the roads are so bad. The snow itself wouldn't be the problem, but the snow and mud together become such a mess that it's difficult to drive on. And when the weather is bad, the internet doesn't work either. You're pretty cut off from the outside world. And the radio doesn't work either. I found that out when I was driving the tractor. There's only an old cassette in the tractor with 'Sweet Caroline' and three other songs that sound just like it. And at the beginning when I was driving the tractor, it kept playing on repeat because I didn't know how to turn it off. And after a while, I finally managed to turn on the radio and after even more searching, I found a station with normal music..... And today I had to listen to Sweet Caroline again. Haha, it's not that easy for me.
Well, for the past 2 days we've been building new (I don't even know if we have a German word for that) a kind of stable doors.... Well, Henry did the building and I held and lifted everything possible. And we also built new door openers for the place where we always sort the cows, which can be easily opened from horseback. I've already tried them and they're really cool. Before, it took forever to close the doors because there were only chains at horse leg level and you had to thread them somewhere.....

Today Henry and I made a lot of fires. Almost all of them were as big as our Easter bonfire.... now we had 10 Easter bonfires all to ourselves and we grilled some sausages. And it was snowing again. (really big, thick flakes like in a picture book)
And yes, otherwise we gave ear tags to many calves again and one day we brought a few cows to other pastures with the horses. That's the most fun:D
The little sick calf already drank on its own from its mom today and can already walk on its own. I've been practicing running with her diligently. The stupid thing is that the mom doesn't know anymore that that's her calf, because they were separated for too long after the birth. And the calf also has many other diseases, for example, its legs have grown incorrectly and its back looks strange. It's actually a miracle that it can walk like that.

After lunch, we wanted to build a fence again. I really like doing that. Well, the building itself is not the best work, but the way there is always an adventure, and it's also nice to go somewhere else instead of just being on the farm all the time. And today I was allowed to drive there alone with the tractor:D. Henry, Aileen's father, and a friend drove with the quad and the ranger and were faster than me. I also tried to drive fast, but then the whole tractor started jumping and everything inside was flying around, so I started driving slowly again. But no one told me which way to go, so I just took the one I knew best and I was really glad when I found the tracks of the others in the end. The advantage of the tractor is that the mudholes and rivers don't look as big as they do on the quad :) but there were still a few places where I had to give it a lot of gas to get through, and also a few places where the whole tractor just slid and I couldn't steer anymore. But it was sooooo much fun. Mud splashed up to the windows and 2 meters away.... but I think I destroyed all the paths.
Today all the logs were really wet too. And after lifting logs for 2 minutes, all my things were completely soaked. (and then it hailed)
On the way back, I rode with Aileen's father in the ranger. The father is exactly what you imagine a Canadian grandpa to be like: he saws with a chainsaw all day, has a long mustache, and likes to drink whiskey. We got stuck in a huge mudhole.... the mud was already so high that it was inside the driver's cabin. The ranger has a winch in the front so he can pull himself out, but there was no tree or anything nearby. But a little further away, there were a few old fence posts. We pulled them into a pile in front of the ranger. They were really heavy, and my leg got stuck in the mud too.... so the grandpa had to pull me out😂. And these logs were completely sunk in mud too.... so my things weren't just wet, they were completely muddy :). (I really like playing in the mud.... that was cool - everything on me was gray-brown). Then we tied the winch around the pile, and I even had to stand on it, and it actually worked :) Our further drive was also very funny. The engine was smoking pretty badly, and there was smoke in the driver's cabin too.... so we opened the windows. Haha, every puddle splashed water, so you got a speckled face. We even stopped once to clean our windshield. We just took a little snow from the edge and wiped it on the window. When I got home, I washed off the worst dirt in a puddle in front of the house ;) oh, that was really cool - I love mud. It would be so boring if everything was dry, firm, and straight.