The cows are out!

So the rain doesn't seem to be letting up anytime soon, but the cows have been itching to get outside and eat some green grass. Well last Saturday they got their wish, and while there isn't a lot of good grazing yet, the cows are still enjoying a half day of munching on some sparse green stuff. The grass seems to be about 2 weeks behind in terms of growth, due to the cold and excessively dreary Spring we have experienced so far.
The fields are wet so we are hesitant to let the cows in our better pastures, but we are letting them on a steep hillside that we plan to reseed in a couple of weeks. This way the cows can churn up the soil a little for us before we use a no-till seed drill to re-plant some perennial forage seed.
For now the lactating cows will get days out on wet, sparse pasture and nights in the bedded pack barn to eat some baleage and corn, meanwhile the heifers and beef cows are picking at a little bit of green grass and eating some hay on the driest ground we can find.
 I love pasture season! I love the girls out on grass, I love moving fence in the quiet of the morning or at dusk and I love watching the girls rush into the next paddock in excited anticipation of the smorgasbord of crisp green leaves. Our cows love the bedded pack barn with it's thick cushy bedding and wide open space to kick up their heels, but just like humans they get cabin fever and no matter how nice the surroundings they long for a change of scenery. Lucky for these girls they get a new paddock every day during the grazing season, and sometimes they get a second new paddock each night.

These are pictures of the girls heading back to the barn last night to get milked. It was drizzling lightly and they could hear the corn being laid out for them in the bedded pack barn, so there was a race to get there as quick as they could. The meandered carefully down my parent's driveway (it make a nice cow lane), but once they got in the barnyard near the bedded pack barn they took off in a sprint.