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Saturday, July 30, 2011

Home on the Range

The end of June ~ the land was leased, the fence was fixed, and we were ready for our calves.


Off to the ranch down the road to get them ~ 10 Black Angus steers.

they were penned up ready to work

We did the talking, the helping, the learning, and the paying.  Boy, was that a lot of $$!

making decisions about what shots to give
in the chute
Rockin' 3-J Ranch eartags
Jared didn't like the castration part
the calves didn't feel sorry for him at all!
All worked over and ready to come home.


Unloaded.


They're our calves now.

Welcome home, boys.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Expanding

Being very happy with the money from the sale of the heifers,($1.10/lb on the hoof), we offered to repay our grandfather back his initial investment.  He encouraged us to reinvest it in something else.  We wanted to buy more cattle but with only one acre designated for calves, we wouldn't be able to expand.  What we needed was more land.

heifers being sold
 Our dad happened to mention what we wanted to do to a neighbor of ours. A week later he came back with a proposition.  His father owns the land directly behind us, 17 acres, which he was willing to lease for a few years.  It would take a lot of work though because the fence needed fixing.

Time for a family talk.  Mom and Dad made sure that we knew this was "our deal" meaning we would have to make the deal and do the work on our own.  Not knowing how to put up a barbed wire fence would require research and time.  We would also need supplies which took money that wouldn't come from Mom and Dad either.  Luckily, a few people heard about what we wanted to do.  It turns out that people like self-motivated kids that don't mind breaking sweat.  The land owner's son taught us how to stretch barbed wire and oversaw us doing the work, even working along side us sometimes.  And the rancher whom we would by the cattle from, blessed us with 80 T-posts and a roll of barbed wire.

What came next was a couple of weeks of hard work.  Up at 6, out the door at 7, working 10 hours somedays, covered in poison ivy.  We learned a lot in those weeks and built some muscle too!


clearing brush


drilling post holes


finishing off the holes


It was a lot of work but we were on our way to ranching.

before

before

after


Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Three Little Pigs



Jonah liked the cattle but really thought he would like to raise pigs.  So he bought three little ones which he appropriately named Bacon, Sausage, and Pepperoni. (It's a good thing to name them what they will be because it reminds you everyday what they are for.)



They were really fun when they were little.  Jonah put together a hay bale house and pen until a permanent shelter and fence could be built. He spent lots of time with those little pigs.


And they grew...a lot!

Pigs like two things ~ food & dirt!

In the end, they went with the steer to the butcher.  We all thought Jonah would be sad but he knew what the pigs were for and was good with that.  We kept two of them for the freezer and he sold the other as pork.  Pig raising was something he wanted to do again, for sure.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

It All Began

with three calves ~  two of them heifers, Bessie and Bertha, and one steer that we named Ribeye.  Our family had just built a couple of farmhouses on 9 acres giving us the freedom to have livestock.  We thought it would be fun to raise some cattle and our Papaw, who lives on the farm too, bought us the three calves from a ranch down the road.

Oct. 1, 2010
the day they arrived on the farm

The rancher was a lot of help getting us started.  We spent the year taking care of them and watching them grow.  We had a lot to learn and we found out real quick what worked and what didn't.



Over time the steer became pretty tame allowing us to pet him but the heifers which we intended to breed were harder to handle.  Eventually, they started breaking through our fence and we decided it was time for them to go.  It was May by then and we didn't need to butcher three so we sold the girls.

That left Ribeye to be finished out.

It was an experience taking him to the butcher, one that we won't forget.  But we knew that he lived a great life as far as cattle go.  He had fresh water and plenty of lush green grass or quality hay to eat.  He never had to stand in a feedlot.  He had good grain to fatten him up a little and scratches on the back everyday.  Yes, he had it good.  We provided for him and now he would provide for us as meat on the dinner table.  That is what he was made for and we appreciate him all the more because of that.