This blog is more newsy than opinion.   We had our last calf in June, once again a successful season with no pulled calves and two sets of twins.  The 916S and 714T calves are born easy and jump up and nurse.  The disposition of the cows was great upon calving and tagging went like a dream,  I will tell you what though; you don't want to wait too long to tag these calves as they are pretty athletic.  

Haying has been very challenging, We got a lot of rain from Memorial day on and had some equipment problems, but to date we have baled over 500 round bales and have the barn filled... what a blessing. 

The pastures are excellent this year, with plenty of grass and the cows and calves are looking great.  This afternoon I took the bulls out to the cows and believe me the bulls were very happy to be back with the girls if you know what I mean.  :)  

On the pig front, we are the proud owners of 6 gilts.  They are crossbred gilts and are named:  Blackie, Gert, Evelyn, Cleo, Mathilda and Flicka.  They came from a confinement operation where they were kept in 8x8 pens, 3 to a pen.   When we got them home, they were frightened by standing on dirt.  It was very sad.  But, they soon learned how to be pigs and are now grazing, which they had to learn how to do, rooting things up and laying around in the mud.  In short they are being pigs.  We plan to breed them to a Berkshire boar in February and let them have their pigs on pasture, next May, so there will be some good pastured pork available in October or November of 2011.

We are also, now the proud owners of a feral Kitten.  The dogs treed it on the feeder near the woods.  I grabbed it and for about 24 hours we kept it in a dog kennel in the house.  It would hiss and run to the other end until day two.  By day three we were holding it and it was purring away.  Now she is into everything and attacks us when we move around and is an all around joy to have.  She has been rather hard on the house plants though.  

Our county fair was last week and Ian got grand champion angus steer.  It was, however the only angus steer there.  I told him not to let it go to his head.  :)  We are proud of him and his ability to bond with his animals in a short time.  We call him the cattle whisperer.  

That is about all of the news, for now, any of you that would like to come out and see the cows or walk the pastures are always welcome.  Nothing is too fancy, but it is functional and unlike the ads on tv for the California dairy cows we actually do have happy cows.  

                                               Greg