Commencement: A New Stage of Life

This past week, we hauled the heifers to the Palmer Pasture. After several dreary days of cattle sorting and hauling, it was nice to have the sunshine brighten up the scenic view. It seemed a good omen for these females who are beginning the next phase of their journey on the County Line.

These heifers will be mothers for the first time in 2018. But they started out life on our farm. They were born during our 2016 calving season.

 

At this time last year, they went with their mothers to summer pasture. In the fall of 2016, we brought the whole Class of 2016 back to the farm and weaned them from their mothers. We sorted out all the boys, who became feeder calves. At the same time, Randy selected 25 of the females to become part of our breeding stock. The veterinarian calfhood vaccinated them in November 2016. 

Their brothers and sisters went to the sale barn in March. Later in March, the heifers began another step toward motherhood.

In March, Randy mixed MGA into the feed given to the 25 heifers. MGA stands for melengestrol acetate, which suppresses the ovulation cycle for the heifers. For 14 days, Randy added the MGA to the grain in the feed truck and fed the equivalent of 1/2 a pound per head per day.

Then, in April, we gathered the heifers to run them through the working chute.  Randy gave each of them a shot of Lutalyse, so the heifers will come into estrus (or heat) at the same time.

He also gave each of the 25 heifers a shot of vaccine to prevent respiratory issues and diarrhea.

 

So why do we try to synchronize the heifers' cycles? We do it to shorten the calving season for the heifers, which saves labor at calving time. (Well, it saves some labor for the humans - not the mama cows.) Because heifers are first-time mamas, we check them frequently in case they are having trouble calving.

The heifer below was waiting for her turn in the chute.

April 2017

I spent a little time looking at photos of the 2016 calves. I'm not sure whether this is the same one, but it definitely has a similar eye patch.

March 2016

Maybe this one was trying to stay incognito so she wouldn't have to go to her OB-GYN appointment. I know that feeling.

But they all had their time going down the lane ...

... and into the chute.

The same day the Lutalyse shot was given, four bulls came a callin'. The bulls were chosen for the "job" because they are bulls whose offspring are expected to have lower birth weight, making it easier for the first-time mothers to deliver their calves. The newest bull, which we bought last month, also joined the party.

The four bulls stayed with the heifers for 10 days. Last week, the heifers and our newest bull arrived at the Palmer Pasture.

Some 283 days later, these females will become mamas for the first time. We will expect to get our first 80-pound bundles of joy next January 28 or so.

We also hauled the rest of the bulls to the different pastures with mature cows. Our cow herd should begin calving around February 7.

And the story will begin yet again. 

Easy Slow Cooker Beef & Vegetables

On hot summer days, a Crock Pot helps a cook keep cool - literally and figuratively. And though it may say "September" on our kitchen calendars, our warm Kansas temperatures and stout southerly winds don't make it feel like the arrival of fall is just around the corner. 

No matter the time of year, I'm always glad to find a new recipe to add to my slow cooker arsenal - whether it's to beat the heat or to save some time.

This beef and veggies meal came up on a Facebook feed. I'm also always looking for ways to use the beef in our freezer. (Brent pointed out that people might rather grill their sirloin steak, since it's a tender cut of beef. And, while I don't disagree, it's also nice to have an alternative. It might be possible that the recipe could be used with a less tender cut of beef, though I haven't tried it myself.) 

Broccoli was the only vegetable called for in the original recipe. But I decided I wanted to add additional color and flavor with sweet peppers. Mushrooms or other veggies could be added as well.

Serve over white rice and you have the flavors of a Chinese restaurant dish without ever leaving home. For extra fiber and nutrition, serve over brown rice.

Both times I've made this recipe, I've taken out a portion of the beef and broth before adding the vegetables. I refrigerate the reserved portion and later make my Kansas farm wife version of Philly Cheesesteak Sandwiches. The sandwiches first appeared on the wheat harvest menu, and the recipe has been added to the meals-to-the-field rotation. It will likely make a return during fall harvest time.  (It would have been helpful if I'd planned to make it yesterday, since I made two parts runs to Hutchinson and two trips to Stafford, too!)

Tune in tomorrow for the sandwich recipe!

Easy Slow Cooker Beef & Vegetables

Adapted from Facebook - Buzzfeed

2 lbs. sirloin steak or boneless beef chuck roast, sliced thin
1 cup beef broth
1/2 cup low-sodium soy sauce
3 tbsp. brown sugar
1 tbsp. sesame oil
4 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 cup water
1 head broccoli, cut into florets
2 cups coarsely chopped multi-colored peppers

For serving:
White or brown rice, cooked as directed on package

In the insert of the slow cooker, whisk together beef broth, soy sauce, brown sugar, oil and garlic. Place slices of beef in the liquid and toss to coat. Cover with lid and cook on low heat for 4 hours.

After 4 hours, whisk together cornstarch and water in small bowl. Pour into crock pot and stir to mix well. Add the broccoli and peppers; gently stir to combine. Cover with lid and cook an additional 30 minutes to cook vegetables and thicken sauce.

Serve over warm white rice.

***

Today, I'm linked to Weekend Potluck, hosted by these bloggers. Check out the tried-and-true recipes from them and other foodies!

• Served Up With Love ~ Melissa
• The Country Cook~ Brandie
• The Better Baker ~ Marsha
• Sweet Little Bluebird~ Mary
• Mommy’s Kitchen~ Tina

Family Resemblance

Do you remember the book, Are You My Mother? It was published in 1960 as part of Random House's Beginner Books series.

I remember checking this book out of the Pratt Public Library as a child. When I took Jill and Brent to the library, I loved pulling my favorite childhood books from the shelves and packing them in our book bag.

Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman is the story about a mother bird who knows her egg will be in her nest where she left it, so she leaves him alone to go and get something for him to eat. The baby chick hatches. He does not understand where his mother is, so he goes to look for her. In his search, he asks a kitten, a hen, a dog, and a cow if they are his mother. They each say, "No."

Spoiler alert:  He eventually finds his mother.

During a weekend trip to Topeka, I was reminded that there's not a question about who Kinley's mother is. There's plenty of Daddy characteristics, too, as I watched the engineer and meticulous first-born daughter build together at the Discovery Center.

And, as Brooke transforms from toddler into little girl, now 18 months old, there is definitely some family resemblance there, too. (Actually, Brooke wasn't a toddler for long. She's more a "runner." I was reminded of that as Randy and I were chasing her around the Topeka Zoo!)

There might even be a few characteristics that come from an older generation.

It wasn't easy to get everyone standing in one place and looking the same direction.

 

We also see bloodlines reflected on the County Line. There's no question that this little calf and mother are a pair. Even their facial markings are virtually the same. 

While these aren't exactly a matched pair, the splotch on their face makes it easy to see they are related, too. 

We have lots of little all-black babies and mamas running around the pasture.

But when it's time to eat, mother and baby are sure to find one another!

Family resemblance: It's fun to see, whether human or bovine!

***

A note:  I wrote this last week and intended to post it on Thursday or Friday. But I went with Randy to a Kanza Co-op board retreat in Kansas City and was too cheap to pay the $9.95 it took to use the internet in my room. Plus, I spent most of the time in KC in the hotel room sick. I hated missing the group activities. As I told a couple of people, if I missed a dinner theater, you know I didn't feel well. On a positive note, I read three books and watched more NCAA basketball than I figured I'd be able to. See? You can find positives in anything.  And that may be easier, since I'm feeling a whole lot better today.

Sale Time: A Year in the Making

The road to the cattle sale isn't covered just in the distance the semi travels as it leaves the farmstead and arrives at the sale barn.

For us, the road to the sale of our feeder cattle started more than a year ago, when the 2015 calf crop was being born on the County Line in February and March. We have been caring for them ever since.

Photo taken in late January 2015

Last week, we sold 72 feeder calves at Pratt Livestock. Ours were among the more than 6,600 head sold last Thursday (March 3).

From cowboy hats to ballcaps, buyers and sellers mingle in seats reminiscent of an old school gym. Cattle buyers are identified by their cell phones pressed close to their ears, as they talked with clients who needed cattle. They were on their phones as much as teenage girls ... really!

Buyers nervously watched the board to see how much each particular pen of cattle brought, as the auctioneer sang his tune about "fussy and fancy heifers" and "green steers."

"You like 'em now," the auctioneer warbled.

 

"Look at the length on them, and their bigger sisters are coming right behind them."

Our steers averaged 808 pounds apiece and sold for an average of $1.58 per pound. Our heifers, which weighed an average of 678, sold for an average of $1.54 a pound. That was way down from last year, when cattle prices were above the $2 per pound mark. Can you think of anything besides farm prices that go down rather than up? Yeah, me neither.

Though they didn't weigh as much as last year, Randy was pleased with the 2-pound-a-day rate of gain since they were weaned from their mothers last November. 

 

We sold 72 head and kept 25 of our 2015 calf crop at home to become our next new mamas. These heifers will give us the first glimpse of our 2017 calf crop next January and February.

It was a long day at the sale. We got to the sale barn just after 10:30 AM. It was 8:30 before our last group of steers were sold.  I had brought a library book, but I finished it mid-afternoon. I ended up buying a paperback in Pratt to pass the time for the rest of the day.

There was one big bonus to leaving after dark. The semis played ring-around-the-rosey in the sale barn parking lot, creating a colorful light show.

The sale ends one chapter on the County Line,  but the next one has already begun with a new crop of 2016 calves.

2016: To Market, To Market

The job required quick reflexes and extraordinary vision. Too bad I have neither of those attributes. But, as I tell Randy, you get what you pay for.

Still, my aging reflexes and eyeglass-corrected vision helped get the job done as we sorted feeder calves last week. I ran one of the gates as we sorted the group.

These calves were a little more than a year old. They were the babies born to our cow herd during the 2015 calving season a year ago. They spent last summer at pasture with their mamas, then we sorted off the babies last fall and weaned them after a veterinarian visit. The feeder calves have been in a separate pasture, where we fed them all winter. (Click on the links for more of the calves' journey at the County Line.)

After getting them into the corral,  we sorted them into two groups - steers and heifers. That's where the 20-20 eyesight would have been helpful.

Last fall, the veterinarian inserted a red tag in the right ear of the heifers treated with the bruccellosis vaccine. They are the heifers that potentially could become mamas for us in the future - additions to our cow herd. It's not always easy to see those tags on moving heifers!

Randy planned to keep 25 heifers to breed back for our herd. So, after the initial sorting, Randy again looked through the heifers, and he chose the ones that he thought had the best characteristics that we want to carry on in our herd. He looked for heifers with a straight back, good muscling, a larger frame size, good feet, a smaller head and a feminine look.

Those 25 went into a separate lot. The remaining 72 went back to the pasture until Wednesday morning, when we again brought them up into the corral.

 

That's when the semi came to take them to the sale barn. Though we have two cattle trailers, it would take several trips to get all the cattle to the sale barn, so we hire Darrel Harner Trucking to haul them in a semi.

The cattle go single file up a loading chute and into the semi. The semi is divided into different compartments, which can hold anywhere from six head to 25 head of cattle. Darrel would tell us how many he wanted at a time, and the guys would send that many into the truck.

 

Once they were all loaded, the semi pulled out for the trip to Pratt Livestock.  

 

 We did have to take one trailer load of calves ourselves, so the semi wouldn't be overweight.

Once the semi arrived, the sale barn workers sorted our cattle by sex and size and put them into different pens where they had water and feed until sale time. There are lots of pens throughout the sale barn facility. Each sellers' cattle are kept separate.

They also unloaded our farm trailer and added those cattle to the larger group brought by semi.

And, no, I didn't get photos of those cattle unloading because I didn't want to get in the way.

Randy is always happy when it's sale time!

Coming up: More from the cattle sale!