In the Swing of School Again

Well, with the end of August came school again and over a month had gone by so far. I have to say that I was excited to go back but not excited for my classes. However, I've already learned not to bosh a class before I've actually taken it.
I'm taking two ag. courses right now: Anatomy and Physiology of Animals, and Feeds and Feeding. Each has a lab with it, so I'm spending a pretty good deal of time with my wonderful ag. friends. I was really surprised at how much I enjoy Feeds and Feeding (F&F). It's challenging but SO interesting. Who knew that what animals eat could be so complex! Prior to this class, I knew that it took some work to balance rations, but I now understand why so many farms go to nutritionists for their rations. I also understand why it's important to be able to do it for yourself. It might not be fun to learn, but it is an essential to any farm raising livestock.
Anatomy and Physiology of Animals (A&P) is interesting too, but the location/setting is less than ideal. At 8 o'clock in the morning on Tuesdays and Thursdays, my friends and I have to sit in a freezing classroom for 75 minutes. It's really hard to stay awake for and it's all kinda over my head right now, but it's a good class.
Labs are so much fun! So far we've dissected digestive tracts from hogs and sheep (in both labs, so I've done it twice), sheep and pig heads and everything included with them, and we have lots more on the way. In F&F lab, we went to a local dairy and took feeding samples. The guys were bored out of their minds, but the girls made the most of it and had fun by climbing up into the different feedstuffs and taking samples from all over. The guys just sampled from one spot, and they wonder why most feed test errors come from the sample-takers themselves! Haha, I'm just giving them a hard time :)
Well, back to work for now.


Dordt College has a student count of around 1500 in a town of around 6000, most of whom are Dutch!!!

Here Comes the Sun

I'm a week and a half into school. It's crazy and I'm loving it. I'm taking two ag. classes this fall: Feeds and Feeding, and Anatomy and Physiology of Animals. So far I've had a great time in both. The weather has changed drastically in the past two weeks. Hardly any rain and it's cooled off a lot! It feels like we hit September and the weather decided it was time to change from summer to fall, right along with the start of school.
Today, however, I was extremely thankful for the cooler weather. My grandpa called me at 6:00 last night and asked me if I could come out and help cover corn silage piles. I've helped with this in the past, and usually it takes a lot to make sure that the Midwestern wind doesn't steal the giant tarps from us. Well, today there was just a slight breeze and the temperature was around 70 degrees Fahrenheit. A beautiful day if there ever was one.
For four hours we covered one pile. That's right, it took us four hours for ONE pile, and we didn't even get finished. I don't know the exact measurements we were working with, but one of the rolls of tarps we were using had 1000 feet of tarp on it. I'll get the exact measurements tomorrow. So anyway, it was a great day. I was covered in tire oil, grime, and lots of dust, I had silage in my shoes, and I have cuts from the wires in the tires, but I was on the farm again, doing hard work and loving it!!! God is so good!