Beef

When I was growing up, my dad had an Angus beef cow herd on our farm. Some of my earliest chores were throwing hay out of the haymow into the feed bunk and pulling the water wagon out to the pasture to fill the water tank.  I also spent many hours as a boy cutting thistles out of the pasture.
The cow herd left the farm when I was an early teenager (ancient history), and Dad concentrated on grain and pork.

Since we stopped farrowing, we have some empty open front sheds that we started storing machinery in.  A young man from town asked us if we would be willing to let him raise some calves in one of our sheds.  We agreed to let him if we could buy a couple for ourselves for him to raise along with his own.  We would like to try to raise our own freezer beef.  So, some changes were made to one of the sheds to retrofit it for cattle and this week the first calves were delivered to the farm.  We provide the facilities, and he will do the chores and purchase the feed.  We will pay our share of the costs.  This should be an interesting experiment!




Gus making friends with the calves
 

A new (to us) utility tractor arrived on the farm this week.  It is a John Deere 6300L with a loader.  It has MFWD which will be real nice for the muddy seasons, and the stronger front axle will be a benefit for heavier loads, including moving round bales.

And the Lord thy God will make thee plenteous in every work of thine hand, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy land, for good: for the Lord will again rejoice over thee for good, as he rejoiced over thy fathers:
Deuteronomy 30:9