When the pasture stands empty

Plan on a two year time frame if you're thinking about raising beef.  Ideally, you buy in the Spring and send to market just before the third Winter.  Beef always does better in pairs, so it is suggested that at least two are purchased at a time.  Keep track of all your costs:  purchase price, hay, grain and butcher fees.  If the beef is still 'on the bucket' when you buy them, you'll need to figure in the cost of milk replacer as well.  Also consider running barbed wire atop your fences because beef will push and test all boundaries.  If done efficiently, you can raise two beeves for two years and, in selling off one, recoup your overhead costs.  Homegrown beef is not only economical but also produces a quality product.

For two years you'll carry buckets, fork hay, rotate pastures and muck out paddocks. Expect to be slobbered on, pushed around, bellered at and stepped on.  Two years of daily attention can be a daunting commitment, but when the time is up and the pasture stands empty, your heart will ache for it.

Under a layer of ice

The entire barnyard was literally creaking this morning.  The cows were bellering.  The geese honking, and the sheep were skeetering around, trying to understand why the ground beneath them was shattering with every step.

Last night we had lightening and thunder.  Rain ushered in by driving winds eventually turned to sleet.  Northern Wisconsin, along with several other states, were also hit with measurable snowfall on top of this ice.  Thank God we were at least spared that!  The weatherman predicts that it will melt off today, but warns that we should brace ourselves for a second round again tonight.  *sigh*   Oh, Spring, where are you?

the old horse-drawn hayrack inside the ewe's pasture

latch on the dog kennel

God Made a Farmer

How badly do we miss Paul Harvey? 

And how proud are all the homesteads across the country this morning?

God Bless the Farmers.

A Summer's Evening

The other evening I noticed that the house was a little too quiet.  Supper was cleaned up; the kids weren't wrestling on the couch; Hank wasn't clicking away on facebook.  I was all alone in the kitchen.  So I wandered out into the barnyard to investigate. 

I found my daughter sitting in the grass, a pile of clover at her feet, braiding a chain.

The 122 bales from our first cutting were patiently waiting to be put up.  While not a huge crop, this alfalfa/clover/grass combo is perfect for the animals.

Bumper and Rusty were methodically devouring one of said bales.  It's been so dry here that the pastures just aren't maintaining growth like they should.  I hope we can get at least two more good crops off the field to see us through the winter.

Behind the main barn, the skid loader sat idle, but obviously some project was in the works.  The ewe's manure pile had been partially scooped away.

Finally followed the noise and found Hank spreading that manure pile on the freshly cut hayfield. I thought about using this photo as my cover shot on facebook.  It's picturesque, but it is manure.  Still debating...

And just about then my daughter came running up to show me, "Mom!  Look!"  She was mighty proud of her first handmade flower crown.  We put it in a shallow pan of water and kept it overnight in the fridge.  Moral of this post:  when you find yourself alone in a quiet house, take a moment to search out the simple, every day pleasures that are going on right outside your window. 

Bumper and Rusty

Well it seems that Winter has finally made it's appearance here in Wisconsin.  Four inches of snow over the weekend . . . and 50 degrees by Wednesday.  This winter has been so mild.  No shoveling a path out to the chicken coop.  No breaking ice off the water pans each morning.  The sheep are happily sleeping out in the open pasture.  The calves are starting to sproing.  Oh, yes, I said sproing.

Bumper, aka. "The Nose"

Bumper and Rusty are doing fine and growing fast.  They rush the gate when I rattle the grain pans.  And appreciate a good scratching around the ears, although they usually work their mouths over to my glove and latch on to a finger or two just for old times sake.  They toss their heads against the hay bales, pushing and snorting around.  If life gets a little dull, they charge the sheep, lest the girls start to think that they own the place.  Bumper and Rusty are part of the landscape now.

Christmas Lights

Here are a few photos I snapped of our Christmas lights. 

 My husband decided to damn the electric bill and run lights on our fence line, stretching from the garage, along our driveway to the road.

Bumper and Rusty are inside that pasture (keeping company with the ewes), and they seem to enjoy the atmosphere.

And a view of the front window . . .

. . . where our tree stands.

If you haven't done it yet, make sure you toss the kids in the car after supper and drive the neighborhood to enjoy everyone's creativity.  We did that last week and were amazed at the extensive displays that folks set up!  Such a treat!

Of milk and manure

Yesterday the cows came home!  We bought two 2 month old steers from a farm in northern Wisconsin.  My husband, Hank, rigged up the slickest hillbilly cattle hauler you ever did see.  It was a truck topper fastened down to our trailer, lined with tarps and hay bales to cut the wind, all ratcheted together with multi-colored straps.  Those of you who Mend and Make Do will appreciate the money saved in building your own one-time use piece of machinery.  Although it did work so well, we may use it to take sheep into the butcher (instead of the extra large dog carrier in the back of the Toyota Matrix). 

Please say hello to Bumper, a purebred Jersey.

And Rusty, a Jersey Shorthorn cross.

Both boys handled the trip well.  We put them in the sheep pen and will eventually pasture them with the ewes once they get a bit more familiar.  

Although both are still taking milk, they do drink from a bucket.  So twice a day I mix up some formula and take out two buckets of warm milk.  And let me tell you, they lick out every last drop!  

We also feed them grain and have hay available, but they're a little too young to be interested in the hay just yet. 

But all those ewes baaing outside their pen door is very intriguing!  The girls hear me banging around inside and automatically think that someone is eating their grain.  What a surprise they'll get when these two babies come walking out!  

And so begins another chapter in the Willow Homestead Livestock Report.  Our barnyard animals have gotten consistently larger as the years progress.  Chickens (both layers and broilers) inevitably led to ducks, turkeys and geese (what's more fowl, after all?).  Then the sheep arrived (providing both  meat and wool).  When we realized that we still had extra pasture, why not add a couple of beefers (gotta eat something other than lamb).  We've toyed with the idea of pigs (bacon is sooo expensive!).  And I wouldn't mind a milk cow, but perhaps Bumper and Rusty will fulfill that need for a while.

And I realized this morning, as I was whisking up the boys breakfasts, that the reoccurring theme with virtually every new arrival is milk and manure.  Be it for my own children or the lambs or the calves (or the stray cats or the new puppy), once a mother, always a mother.  Am I fated to always have a light scent of milk about me?  Formula powder under my fingernails and milk stains on my shirt?  I fear I shall always be cleaning off someone's rump (or tail) or shoveling it out or scrapping it off my shoes. 

But truly I enjoy this nitty gritty of life.  What's a little spilled milk on my pants and cow slobber on my sleeve?  Proof that there is lots of life to be lived even if my curls are flat and the internet connection is too slow to load up that youtube tutorial I've been looking for.