Happy Birthday Blog

A year ago today I started this blog...

Fast forward 82 posts and just over 4000 page views and you'll wind up today, right here, reading this.

I can't image this blog having this many page views in just a year.  That pretty much equals out to almost 12 page views a day or 48 views per post.  Who are you people?!  I'm not sure but I'm pretty sure your amazing... or easily entertained... either way I like it!

I started this with the intention of no one wanting to read about our dinky little farm and more as a way to look back and remember the past.  It's really been great to get feed back from all of you.  I've started to look for more ways to take pictures of what we are doing around the farm.  Winter is always a slow time, but you awesome readers have stuck with me.

Let's hope this next year is just as great and just as exciting.  Look for lots of wedding detailed posts after July.  I'd love to post about all those small details now, but I don't want to give away anything for the big day!

Arren and I are also still looking for that house.  Hopefully someday I can post about that.  But until then, be prepared for lots of summer posts from the farm!

And finally I guess I'd like to say thanks for taking the time out of your busy days to stop by and read.  It gives me warm fuzzies every time I log on and see one more person has stopped by to read today's post.

Here's to the next year!

Summer Pasture

So we've fixed the fence and now we move the cows.

We did this over the weekend.  There is a lack of pictures in the post because... well because I was working and had no time to snap pics.  Right before we went out to corral the cattle my dad lost his phone in the mud (we found it) and then he insisted we put our phones in the truck.  No phone = no pictures.  I'll give you the low down though.

So it was muddy.  Like really muddy.  Like so muddy that we had to set up a temporary pin.  This pin was key as we wouldn't have to back the trailer into said mud, get stuck, and then drag and fling mud into the yard.

Our first goal was to separate our cows with out calves and the bull.  They would be the first load.  My dad worked them out of the heard while I ran the gait.  We got them in the barn, deloused them, and moved them into the temporary pin.  This first group didn't want to get on the trailer.  It took a good 5 minutes of pushing and shoving to get cooperation and they finally all loaded.

One trek across town later and 3 cows and 1 bull had successfully been moved.

Then it was back to load the rest.  We worked 4 cows with their calves into the trailer and delivered them.  Our cows were happy, running around in the tall grass.  They'd arrived at their summer home!

We left 6 cows at home.  3 of them were the ones who had just calved in April and the other 3 were to calve soon or later this summer.  We've split our cows into these two groups.  1 group goes to the summer pasture with the bull.  Then in late June or early July we head out load up the bull and calves (if we can catch them) and bring them home.

Hopefully sometime soon I can sneak out to the pasture and snap some pics.  I'll be sure to share if I do!

Fixing Fence

We headed out to the summer pasture this weekend to walk and fix fence so that we could move half our heard across town to grassy goodness.

It went very well.  The whole time we only used 2 new insulators and 2 new posts.  My dad was hoping to mow around the fence, but it was way too wet for a mower.  We had to wear our mud boots.

I accidentally snapped the photo above, but it showcases the mud boot-y-ness of the situation.  This picture actually happened right after we found this "little guy".

It's a snapping turtle kind of spring.  We I came up upon this dude in the grass I quickly turned back ans whispered to my dad "snapping turtle".  In my mind it makes total sense that a snapping turtle would attack a loud being moving towards it.

But back to fixing fence.  I love the pasture we get to use in the summer.  Thanks to a family friend our cows get some good eats and he gets a manicured pasture.  It has a creek running through it and lots of trees around the creek.  Which, gives way to beautiful scenes like this..

And this...

Here is where the front of the pasture ends.  For the past 4 years we've kept the cows in the front pasture.  But my dad is bound and determined this summer to get them into the back pasture as well.  This will be a huge undertaking... it's an overgrown mess.

The back fence has to pass over the creek.  It makes for an interesting summer if there is a lot of rain and water.

And here is the front of the pasture... so pretty!

Tune in next time as we moooove the cows... :)

High Prices Everywhere!

May 7th marked beef prices hitting an all time high.  They peaked in late 2003 due to Mad Cow issues but this month they surpassed those prices. 

So it's a good time to be a cattle farmer, right?

To that I answer... meh.

Corn prices are still riding high and with late planting across the Midwest it looks like they are going to stay that way, at least for a little while longer. When inputs are high, your final output product has to reflect that high price.  Luckily, here at Green Acres, we have a deal worked out with a close family friend for a corn source.  But when that runs out, our feeder cattle have to be sold.  It's a lot of keeping track of supply and monitoring how long it will last us.

The severe drought last year caused a lot of small and mid-sized operations to have to sell off their herds.  No summer or fall rain meant low crop yields and burnt up pasture ground.  We struck gold last year in the form of corn stalk bales, otherwise we would have been in the same boat.

The price of calves has risen with the price of fats.  We use to be able to buy 5-10 feeder calves a year for our feedlot.  But this past year we have bought a total of 0, zilch, nodda... Again luckily we've been able to increase the size of our own heard.  So basically the 11-14 babies we raise every year go from Momma to feed lot to hamburger.  Heartless, I know, but keeps our costs down substantially.  We are a small farm and unique in the fact that we feed out our own calves.  We see our calves hit the ground as babies and then haul them off a year and a half later to sadly meet their certain demise.  Most large operations will raise calves and then sell them off to others to be finished on grain.

With all these negatives there are of course positives...

Like I said the price of fat cattle is high.  Next Monday we will be taking 5 Green Acre grown premium shorthorn beefs to the sale barn.  Prices are extremely high compared to just 5 years ago.  We still get excited when we see how much each calf brings per pound.  But to any other operation this is just normal business.

I would never want to be forced to sell off our whole cattle heard.  It's our hobby.  Nothing makes me happier than seeing a green pasture full of red, white and roan cattle with adorable babies running around.  It's a lot of work, way more than the pay off, but we don't mind it at all.  It's how I grew up and I wouldn't trade it for the world!

With being on the verge of summer start looking for more posts.  This weekend should be busy.  We are hopefully taking half the heard to their summer time pasture but before we do that we've got to walk and fix fence.  This weeks rain will put a damper on our ability to get the pasture ready.  But like my dad said if we don't get it this weekend, there is always the next.

Plus Sunday is Mother's Day so go home, hug your mom and take her somewhere nice!

And because I can't just type up a post with no pics, here is one for your viewing pleasure.

Yes he's sticking his tongue out at me... he's a cheeky calf!

April Babes

I'm behind in my posts.  In the past 3 weeks we've had 3 and a half calves.

The half part is sad and not cute at all so if you want to scroll on to cuteness do so now...

Mary aborted her calf.  She was about a month and a half from calving.  We have no clue why she aborted.  We are sad and disappointed that the baby didn't make it, but we are glad Mary aborted like she should have and everything else went OK for her.

On a happier note we've got 3 other healthy babies.

This pretty little girl was born first.  She's almost 3 weeks old now and doing great.  

The second baby is also a girl.  She was born a week ago.  And last week when we went to get mom and baby into the barn it was raining cats and dogs. It's been raining lots of those lately so instead of making the baby walk through the muddy barn lot we took them through my parent's yard.  This induced an episode of Elsie barking drama...

Once we got them inside, little baby found a nice warm spot in the straw to lay down.

She's a pretty thing with a red and white tail.  A day after she was born she came out of the barn to explore the muddy lot.

Here she is almost a week old.  She's one of my favorite calves so far.  She's full of attitude and fuzzy and cute as can be!  In the evenings we've been moving mothers and babies into the barn lot so they can get inside.  This little baby rebels for being forced into a muddy barn lot.  The other night she came right up to the barn door, looked at us and mooed in disgrace.

Then, Sunday we had yet another baby girl!  That makes 3 heifers on the ground for April.  The poor little thing is made like a deer.  She's small boned and so far has only been able to find one faucet (as my dad calls it).  She needs a bit of time to get her footing and in the mean time I think we'll call her teeny.

Missing Fingers

A few weekend ago Arren and I were at my parents house.  It was nice outside and I was mowing while Arren rode the four wheeler around.  Green Acres is right down the rode from a dredge ditch.  It's like a creek but not as cool. 

So there I was mowing along and Arren stops the four wheeler right in front of me.  I mouthed "what" and he motioned me over.  "There's something I want to show you"... "What?"... "A turtle"... "Oh!".  I hopped on the back of the four wheeler and we were off.

By the time we got to the turtle's temporary home he had burrowed and lodged himself in the water and mud on the other side of the ditch.  Arren wanted mud boots to try to catch him.  I wanted nothing to do with this turtle because it was a snapper with an appetite for fingers.

We rode back to the house.  Arren put on some boots.  My dad gave him a tarp strap. "The turtle can bite this and you can get his tale".  The strap was only about 5 inches long...  I proceeded to tell Arren that I wasn't about to marry a man with 9 fingers. 

Much to my dismay we rode back out to Mr. Turtle... in my mind it was soon to be a blood bath.  Arren went into the water.  I threw him a stick.  He worked the turtle out of the mud.  Stuck his hand in the water and pulled out this dude.  Turtle wasn't happy.  I snapped a few pics.  Arren put him back in the water.  The turtle went AWOL and attacked...

Just kidding!

He swam away.

Don't try this at home kids!

Moldy Oldies

We are past the stage of round bales here at Green Nacke Acres.  We've moved onto the ole square bales.  Our cows get 6 bales a night.  We are working our way through some very moldy last cutting hay to get to the decent hay stacked on back.  I have worries and trepidations when I'm breathing in the dust from those moldy bales but then again... the cows have to eat that stuff so what can it hurt!

We open each bale and toss it down into the hay feeders below.  And by the time we feed the next night, the cows have hungrily consumed all 6 bales.

The babies get fed downstairs in there own little get away spot.  They can come in a lay down in fresh straw and munch on some yum-yums!

(Holly & Isis)

These two aren't old enough to really start eating yet.  They will grab a few mouth fulls and pretend to eat.  But Bruce is old (and big) enough, to make up for the little ones.  He comes in and chows down on some grain and sweet feed.  Big guy loves his sweet feed!

(Bruce)