Garden Beds Ready for Spring

The picture above does not do justice to all the laying out of cardboard, shoveling, and raking it took to get ready for next spring. I'm hoping to put another two beds down this winter to quadruple the size of the garden and perhaps actually get more than a dozen cucumbers and ten thousand jalapenos. I'll be adding red wriggler worms to the piles as they outgrow the vermicompost bin to get the horse compost jump started with worms.

I'm still torn between bringing in a tiller for a one time jump-start and digging in each of the transplants with a post hole digger and backfilling the hole with compost, egg shell, epson salt, etc. Don't be surprised if I do a bit of both to see what works best. I'm also going to mulch with paper like I did on everything in Idaho to keep the weeds down. Another project just waiting for spring.

I left a path between the two beds, we'll have to see if the we can keep it bare. 

I also have a hundred yearling fruit trees coming for the Missouri Extension Service that are going to go into 4 gallon pots, somehow we're going to work that into the garden to maximize water usage.

Don't Tell Me Your Plans, Show Me Your Results

When I was coaching men I heard all the things they were going to do. Rarely did their visions of grandeur match up to the reality. It seemed the ones who told you least about what they were going to do were the ones who accomplished the most.

In my old age I've come to realize that I can't affect much outside of my family and maybe 20 friends. That's it. That's all I can try to help, save, change, influence, call it what you want. All I can do is take care of my family and do my best to plan for them to be taken care of them.

I have friends that span the gamut politically, as I'm sure everyone does. I find the wailing and gnashing of teeth about the only person elected to nationwide office just as useless this time as the last two time the current President was elected. The day to day effect of the Obama administration on my life was almost negligible, as I'm sure President's Trump will be. Do I feel less threatened by the upcoming Trump administration? Yes, but government, at it's core, is political power exercised at the end of a gun.

The F-You vote that was Trump will be fun to watch, that I can't dispute, but how much it's going to change my life I just don't know. It looks to be a reprieve, a few years to continue to finish getting out of debt, pay off the house, install solar, the ponds dug, a well put in, and the food production ramped up enough to feed us and have a bit to sell and give away.

I hope your family is striving each day to be more independent, more self reliant, and more loving to one another.

Graduation Day

No plan survives first contact with the enemy. All of our Thanksgiving leftovers were placed in a feeder, along with their normal ration of feed. Bacon jumped right into the trailer, Chorizo on the other hand wasn't having any of it. As we tried to coax him into the trailer, he figured out that the hog panels were no longer secured to the posts, and made his way under the panels in short order. Chorizo apparently is much more of a salad connoisseur than a lover of stuffing and cranberry sauce.

Much swearing ensued. I was a jerk to my sweet wife, honestly at times I don't know what she sees in me, but I digress. The 4 wheeler once again proved invaluable, that and Chorizo's lack of focus on cardio. I was worried I was going to have to shoot him if he made it out of the pasture. Disaster was averted as we got him back into his old pen. After a few more minutes of swearing and trying to coax Chorizo into the trailer, he finally made his way in. There was much rejoicing. And much apologizing to Andrea.

I picked up the Red Wattle hogs back on August 13th when they were about 10 weeks old. So the 28th of November puts them just shy of 6 months old. They've proven easy to raise. Happy in both the heat of summer, pouring rain, and coolness of early fall.

Raising them really couldn't have gone better, the pen was cheap to build, and they didn't escape until their last day on the Snow Compound. The last thing we have to do is load them and take them to the butcher. I'll let you know how much they end up weighing.

Remembering the Alamo

So this Thanksgiving weekend we did took a day trip down to San Antonio to visit the Alamo. On the way down we stopped at Buc-ee's Gas Station just outside of Temple, Texas. To say it's a Texas sized gas station is still not describing how big it really is. If you get to Texas, make sure to stop in.

After an hour inside, I finally convinced the girls to get back inside the SUV and get back on the road. Pro-tip, if you're traveling from the DFW area, to San Antonio, pay the toll and avoid driving through Austin. Ask. Me. How. I. Know.

180 years later people are still remembering the Alamo. I hope the men who gave their lives there in the cause of Texas independence know their sacrifice has become a beacon to the world I heard a half dozen languages being spoken, and from the looks of the folks I saw, another half dozen more were touring the grounds of fallen heroes. The Ideal that is Texas has always been one of the most powerful ideas to inspire Liberty, outside of the Revolution by the Founding Fathers. Being at the epicenter of it was humbling.

I tell my kids all the time that death is not to be feared, as we all die, what matters is how we lived. Treading that hallowed ground made that more real to me.

If you get a chance, go visit. The Riverwalk is a few short blocks away, and really is one of the most awesome downtowns you'll ever see.

Obligatory Thanksgiving Post

Flash Fried Beltie

If there is another job that makes you realize how little control you have, try homesteading. Outside of being donated to the Army in the middle of a war, it'll make you Thankful like few other occupations.

I'm Thankful for my Wife. I couldn't get half of what I get done without her. She's an amazing woman. She's kind. She understands me. She's beautiful. She loves being a teacher and works her booty off at it. She's a wonderful mom. I won the lottery when she chose me.

 I'm Thankful for rain after it's been dry. I'm Thankful after the thunderstorm has passed that I don't find Belted Galloways that have rode the lightning. I Thankful that all my cows' calves lived and seem to be thriving this year.

I'm Thankful that there wasn't a late frost this year and that we got to have a really good second year harvest.

I'm Thankful for a freezer full of FrankenChickens that turned out better than I could have ever have asked for.

I'm Thankful for the hogs that have been healthy and easy to raise.

I'm Thankful for wonderful eggs from the 2 chicken survivors of the roving gang of feral dogs

As I told my players every year, I'm Thankful for flush toilets. I'm Thankful for ice. I'm Thankful no one is trying to kill me on a daily basis.

I'm Thankful for this outlet, and the half dozen people in the world that actually read my tripe on a semi-regular basis. Thank you.

So You're Getting a New Puppy?

Mad Dog Mattis

My wonderful wife, brought home a beautiful puppy for me last week. You would think that after raising Katniss just a couple of years ago that I would have remembered what a pain in the keaster a puppy could be.

As always here are my lessons re-learned the hard way.

Find out what kind of dog food he's been eating. Even if it's the $50 a bag, organic, vegan, non-GMO, free ranged, dolphin free whatever it's worth continuing that feed as you transition to your preferred brand. Better that than swapping whole cloth and the projectile diarrhea that can go with it. Ask me how I know. (We have pictures. Looks like Jason Pollack decided to pain with only browns on a tile floor.)

We were able to get him pooping solid again with a simple 1/3 chicken broth, 2/3 dog food for a couple meals.

Kennel training should never commence on a work night. If you don't want to kill yourself and a small family of 8 illegal Hondurans on their way to pick strawberries. You won't sleep a wink. Your wife will hate you. Again. Ask. Me. How. I. Know.

Get to know quickly the difference between the whine that means I miss you, and the whine that means I'm about to go Jason Pollack on your comforter. It's an important distinction. Ask Andrea how we know...

Know that the week you get the puppy, the partner not responsible for the puppy will have an illness that makes them snore that sounds the best components of Darth Vader and a Kazoo. You will not sleep a wink.

Chew toys and kid proofing the house are essential.

Don't buy cheap dog toys for big dogs unless you enjoy finding decapitated toys all over for years.

Make sure the expensive toy doesn't squeak, or it will be the only thing that keeps him happy in the kennel...

Everyday Carry - Kershaw Westin 3460

I've been looking for a replacement for my Benchmade Infidel that I lost when I rolled my Civic, after hitting a horse. All things considered, I still came out ahead in that deal. 

Aside from stabbing ISIS in the face, quickly, easily, and repeatedly, the Infidel wasn't much for practicality. Cool? Absolutely. Practical? Not so much.

I've rotated through a really big Gerber Tanto blade, it was too big. I went back an older, shorter and smaller Kershaw, but it was just too small. I was living with the big Gerber, but I watched a few minutes of a Nutnfancy review and took a flier on the Westin. It came sharp as all get out, though the one side being textured black plastic and the other side metal is odd.

It showed up in the mail about a week ago, and for me it's the most "right" knife I've owned. It feels right in the hand, the blade size is right for me, and the length, both opened and closed is exactly right for me. I really like how it opens with just a bit of pressure on the back of the knife. If you're looking for a good size knife, ruggedly built, take a long look at this knife.

A New Pup for the Homestead

I'll be honest, my wife is pretty amazing. What she sees in me, I don't know, but everyday I'm thankful she chose to fall in love with me. I've told her, more than few times, how much I miss Katniss, and she was listening. I think my wife may know me better than myself.

Sophia's dog Bear, has been awesome to work with. He's kind, patient, and a really a big cuddler. In short order he's learned to sit, shake, lay down, roll over, and wait to be released outside. Yet, as well as he and I get along, he's Sophia's dog. His temperament has really impressed me though and I've said as much to my wife several times.

I sent her a link on a German Shepherd and Great Pyrenees puppy that popped up on my local Facebook feed. Little did I know that she had already contacted the family and made arrangements to pick up the puppy prior to me sending the link. I come home to an empty home last night, assuming she stayed late at school or stopped by the store on the way home, only to be surprised with a new pup. He's around 9 weeks old, black as midnight, minus a tiny white streak on his chest, and like all puppies cute as a cow's ear.

In less than 24 hours he's already taken a shine to Bear, and vice versa. Benji on the other hand does not seem to appreciate a puppy bigger than himself. Right now I'm basically serving as a shuttle service to try to get him outside before he relieves himself on the tile, but when he plays with myself or Bear he is quite cute. I'm sure you'll be seeing a lot more posts about him here in the future.

Wildflowers on the Homestead

If you're read this blog, and I know at least 3 of you personally, you've probably seen more pictures of wildflowers than any sane person would post... Why? We're growing soil here, and to do that successfully we need bees to pollinate everything. That means that we let the wildflowers grow everywhere we find them. 

It was 84 degrees on the 16th of November here on the homestead, so the flowers are still blooming and the bees are still hungry. All the wild sunflowers are still covered in bees and butterflies, as are the basil plants, and peppers that are still producing heavily the week before Thanksgiving. 

I hope we've done our part to feed the bees, and trust they've put enough honey away to have a comfortable winter here in Texas.

Prepping the Spring Garden Beds

You thought your job was crappy....

Part of homesteading for me has been simply returning to natural rhythms. The farm revolves around the seasons, not arbitrary dates on the calendar. I put down grass seed after a rain, not on a certain day. There's a lot of work, there's always 10 projects that I'd like to have done, but the beauty of the farm is things can also wait. 

On Veteran's Day I had to work in the morning, but took the afternoon to go pick-up a load of compost. The joy of finally finding a compost supplier is beyond words! Compost, loads of really high quality compost, are what have really been missing the last two years in the garden. Due to the recent rains, I only brought home about half of what I could have, I didn't want to get stuck! A full trailer will grace the trees next February, if not sooner.

Saturday we spent down in Waco watching the Baylor Women's Volleyball team dominate West Virginia, followed by dinner with some great friends at Catfish Plantation over in Waxahachie. It was amazing, if you ever get close, you have to eat there. Split a cajun plate with someone you love.

This also meant that the compost didn't get touched. Strangely enough it was still waiting for me.

Sunday morning I finished cleaning out the grass clippings that I'd used as deep litter bedding in the chicken coops. I put it on top of cardboard (the theory being that it'll help kill the grass underneath, yet break down by next spring). I spent the rest of Sunday, with the trusty scoop shovel pictured above, putting down about six inches of horse manure on top of the 3 inches or so of chicken manure composted with grass clippings and nitrogen rich feathers. 

We're going to double the size of the garden space for next year, and I'm hoping that the addition of the compost will help increase our yields. I'm also really excited for the asparagus beds. Next year marks the third year they've been in, and will also mark our first harvest.

It was well after dark before I finished, but I'm sure I'll post the final product along with my vermiculture experiment soon. 

Putting Your Free Range Chickens to Work

Cow Patty

So the basis of Permaculture is minimizing inputs, and maximizing outputs, while improving the earth, and giving a reasonable . Joel Salatin routinely says that his egg laying tractors and broiler chicken tractors following his cattle grazing are there to spread cattle manure, add chicken manure, and lightly turn the soil, the eggs and meat are just a bonus.

Chickens at Work on a Patty

It's just been the last couple of weeks that the Ideal 236 layers have really started to go to work on the cow patties, but it's been a revelation. The cow patties within a couple hundred feet of the barn have all been reduced to the photo below.

Fertilizer and Soil Amendments 

It seems that each day the range of the layers increases a bit. We're doing our best to minimize predator pressure, and though I'm sure we'll lose some to hawks and feral dogs, I think that we've finally got things figured out to be sustainable moving forward. Right now the 27 chickens we hve on site are being fed roughly 3 pounds a feed per week, in a mix of cracked grain/corn at night to encourage them all to come to the coop daily, and a bit of the feed that I had left over from the FrankenChickens.

All in all I'm really excited about the layers coming online in early February for the eggs, but I'm also trying to find a couple of broody bantams to raise replacement chickens moving forward. The tractored chickens next spring will continue to help spread the manure and improve the soil on the homestead.

Why Are You Going With Oreos?

I had one of my former players, who grew up in a ranching family and community ask me this question. I went back through my posts and found I really hadn't put forward a detailed answer. So here it is.

First, much like my friends labeled Deplorables, Libertarians, Constitutionalists, libertarians, anarchists, survivalists, homesteaders, hippies, and everyone else who tries to limit the amount of money that Uncle Sugar picks their pocket for, they serve as a tax hedge here in Texas. You need 4 horses or 4 head of cattle as a minimum to qualify for, and keep, an Ag Exemption on our place. This limits our tax bill and increases money kept in our pocket, which allows that capital to go to work in other places.

Our piece of land is black clay, which to start with is a poor growing medium. Irrigation is too cost prohibitive to make sense here, so we were also looking for drought tolerant cattle that could survive on poor range/pasture/hay. The place had also been over grazed a bit with horses so there wasn't much growing on it for the cattle to "make a living" off of to begin with.

The Galloways are generally thought to be only second to the Texas Longhorn in their ability to not only survive on poor pasture land, but gain weight and thrive on poor range. That proved really true with my two heifers that I purchased at 4 and 6 months old respectively. They received no supplemental feed other than a salt block and a bucket of grain to follow as we take them from paddock to paddock. Those heifers are now cows and are thick and meaty. I trust the three young steers will follow that pattern.

This is a very part time job for me until I retire, but I'm trying to build something that is scalable for after my retirement. The Belted Galloways have to make a profit for the farm with little time or capital input. The Belties are easy on fences, other than my bull who has figured out that he can walk through barb wire strands alone, but won't get close to hotwire. They are easy to manage in paddock shifts, so that's a big plus for us. Land carrying capacity here is around 1 animal unit per acre (I'm at in North Texas) the Oreos are somewhere between .5 and .75 animal units, so the hope is to carry a few more total head than I could with conventional cattle that spreads my risk.

If I carry full size cattle I could probably get away with a bull and 3 cow calf pairs. If I sell at 2 years, we'd be carrying 10 animal units +/-. If I lose a calf, I lose 33% of my potential profit. If, with the smaller Belties I carry a bull, 5 cows, still selling at 2 years I'm carrying 8 - 12 animal units. If I lose a Beltie calf, I've only lost 20% of my profit potential.

Risk management on the homestead is different than on a working ranch and I'm the first to admit that. Just weight-wise 3 two year old large framed cattle, grass fed and finished should have a dressed weight of around 1200 pounds each for around 3,600 pounds total. Where 5 two year old Belties should dress at about 675 pounds each that's only 3,375 pounds, but losing one of each puts the full size net beef at 2,400 pounds where losing one Beltie still nets 2,700 pounds of beef. It's less meat overall, that's true, but it also allows me to put aside an area to graze, not overgrazing during drought years, and focus on our primary mission of growing soil.

Belties are half to three quarters the size of conventional cattle and I'm not nearly as nervous working them by myself as I would be with full size cattle. They're easy birthers, great mothers, and each cow will birth up to 18 calves in a lifetime. They have a compact productive frame, meaning they have a carcass yield of meat usually over 62% for steers, and that equates to cash in the pocket for us.

The last thing is as the slow food movement grows more folks are looking for grass fed, grass finished beef. I live within an hour of more than 7 million people, I only need to find a dozen or so folks that I can sell premium products to, who are also willing to pay a fair price to the producer. Part of the process is in educating our customers that grass fed and finished beef takes longer and thus simply costs more. Providing recipes on how to cook ever cut they pick up from the butcher, and giving them a bit of the experience of the farm.

Finally, I saw commodity farming growing up, it's a tough way to make a living. I'm willing to cater to folks from a marketing and customer service standpoint to make our homestead work.  There is real market demand for this type of beef is real and growing.

Every Day Carry - CamelBak Backpack

I was issued this pack back in 2006. It sat, more or less, unused until I retired from coaching in 2010. I started riding my bike 8 miles each way to work and it became a fixture in my life. As my Go Bag, First Aid Kit, Suitcase, Get Home Bag, Lunch Box, Mobile Office, and Hydration Solution it did it all for me.

I logged over 750 miles walking/hiking in Rhode Island according to my GPS App, all with at least 25 pounds in the bag. It has held it's shape, the stitching looks new on the entire pack, and nothing has failed on the pack, snaps, buckles, or zippers.

To give you an idea of the usable space while I was in Rhode Island I carried a large water proof Plano 1412 Shallow hard case inside it, with a change of clothes, mole skin, suture kit, aluminum splint, duct tape, Katakyn Filtration kit, and some fire starting materials. There are the Maxpedition Fatty and Pocket kit bags in there. Another Waterproof Hard Case from Outdoor Products that has my serious first aid supplies in it. A pair of Vibram 5 finger shoes. A hammock with bug net, 50 feet of 550 cord, and three carabiners. There are always a half dozen cliff bars in there as well. I do my best to cycle through those, but every once in a while I'll come across a really old one to gag down.

Do I have too much redundancy in the pack? Absolutely, but here is my reasoning. I am used to carrying a heavy pack (minus water) if I ever have to rely on that bag to get me home it gives me three options. Cache things I deem unnecessary at the time (either in place or along the way, share with friends going a different direction, barter along the way.

Pros and cons to the pack itself. Pros, bullet proof construction, MOLLE straps all over it that aren't noticeable until you're inside 10 feet. Great use of space. The hip belt does a great job of taking weight off your shoulders. Big plus, the Hydration Pouch is insulated well enough that if you fill the bladder with ice it keeps your water cold for a full 12-15 miles of walking on warm days.

Cons: The shoulder straps could be a lot more ergonomic. A few more interior pockets would make it easier to keep organized.

I was recently issued an Urban Assault Pack from CamelBak that replaced the old MULE. I'll have a review up on it soon.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to ask questions or comment.

Learning From My Mistakes

There are so many learning opportunities on the homestead, and it seems as though I have one almost every day.

On electric paddocks with new born calves, I learned that I should have put the bottom strand closer to the ground.

I've learned that calves can get out of an electric paddock on a fairly regular basis, but rarely, if ever find their way back inside.

Whatever you tools/items you think about buying but don't you'll immediately need as soon as the store is closed, it's raining, dark, or a combination of the three.

Snakes will find your eggs, and your hatchlings. Wooden eggs will end your egg snatching, but it won't bring back your hard work on the hatchlings.

If you're buying a calf to introduce into your herd, always try to buy two instead of just one, they'll integrate a lot easier into your herd, and they won't be lonely. Nobody likes the emotionally needy.

Hogs are easier to raise than you think, don't be afraid of raising them.

Cornish Cross chickens are weird, but man they're tasty.

Finding a local butcher that cares as much about your meat as you do is like winning the lottery. Ask around, and listen. Start at the feed store, they hear directly from the farmer who does good work and who doesn't.

Growing Soil

Even after living for years in both the desert of Idaho and the lush greenness of the Pacific Northwest I still forget the joys of rain after long periods of dry. After three days of drizzle intermediately mixed with short periods of heavy rain it's been amazing this last week to watch the lush green sprout from the earth. It's always comforting to see the green return.

As I was putting out the rye grass the sprouts of life waiting on the rain were already appearing. The grass that had gone dormant has already put about three inches of growth on. Enough so that we've been able to turn the cattle back into one of the paddocks during the day to supplement the cattle pasture. Nursing has really increased the cow's appetites, and where last year a bale of hay lasted two weeks, they've burned through a whole bale this week.

We'll see how it goes, my neighbor still has quite a few bales of hay, but the overseeding will hopefully supplement their forage this winter. Last year I put down a few hundred pounds of winter wheat, not nearly enough to fully seed the field, but saw a lot of sprouts. This year I put enough seed down to hopefully really make a difference.

Winter Forage for Cattle

Today's project was overseeding the 8 acres of non-paddocked pasture. Last year I put down 450 pounds of winter wheat with a yard push mower. I've done a lot of stupid stuff in my life, but that exercise has to rank near the top. My little walking app on my phone said I walked 14 miles that day, it felt like more...

This year has been so dry that I had to wait until the second week of November to put out annual rye grass seed. I bought 200 pounds this year, along with a 50 pound sack of winter wheat that I overlooked last year, and spread it behind a 4 wheeler, it was night and day how much faster and easier that is.

I'll update pictures in a few weeks to show progress. Our hope is to supplement the hay we bought for the cattle, along with building the soil. Looking at this as a building project between now and 2020 finally gives me a reason to look forward to the next presidential election.

A Calf Named Smore

It's been almost a week now since we welcomed Smore into the world, only to see her almost slip away. I was terrified she was going to die on our floor. Then I was sure that her mom wasn't go to take her back. I fully expected after she walked into the night with her mom, that I'd find her lifeless body the next morning.

Each day has been a joy to see her alive and growing. Her mom doesn't have a large udder, or a lot of motherly instinct, but she's trying.

I learn something everyday, be it at work or here on our little homestead. The Reds amaze me everyday, especially when I don't think they're listening, they'll pull a line of wisdom I thought they'd ignored and use it at the appropriate time. I don't understand why or even how my wife loves me so unconditionally, but everyday I fall a little more in love with that woman.

The farm has taught me to love deeper, to know that it's not me in control but that what I do matters, it's the doing that really matters. Do I work hard at work? Do Iove the people I work with? Do I put my wife and family first? Do I continue to hope and dream? Those things matter.

Honestly I think I have a half dozen friends reading this blog, and I hope you all know how much you each mean to me. Thanks for being a part of this journey.

Salad Bar Beef

So the calves above are doing well and growing nicely. Thanks to their Scottish roots the rain we've received in the last couple of days has brought nothing but cute frolicking and the calves seem none the worse for wear. Which brings us to the next step, wait, what's the next step? I'm glad you asked.

We grow soil. It's the most important thing that we do, improving the soil so that each year the farm's soil is a little richer, a little deeper, and a little better. We're doing this through paddock shifting our cattle and letting our chickens spread the cattle manure while leaving behind their own. Each year the soil should improve and hopefully we can have a lush pasture year round by year four or five and cease buying hay.

So what are we going to do with the excess fertilizer plants? Out of the three bulls above, our hope is to be sell them to families looking to fill their freezer with grass fed beef. Our plan is to let them graze from 20-24 months before they graduate to the freezer. Right now we think $3.25 a pound hanging weight will be our goal price. When combined with processing fees final price per pound will be around $4 a pound. We're hoping that the steers will be around 600 pounds hanging weight.

If you're interested in trying Belted Galloway grass fed beef send me a message in the comments or snow.farms.tx at gmail.com and we'll get your family on our list.

Every Day Carry - Maglite 3 D Cell Flashlight

Most mornings when I feed, it's still dark outside, and from mid-November until early spring most nights it's dark by the time I get to the barn. I carry the 300 Blackout a lot, but with the addition of the hogs and the FrankenChickens I went back to a Glock and a big flashlight, the Maglite 3 D cell LED. 

I bought this light back in mid-May of 2016 and changed the batteries the last week of October after using it at least twice a day 5 days a week over that 5 month period. Battery efficiency, check. It has an aimable beam that goes from flood to spot. It's water proof, and if need be you could brain several would be prowlers and keep on working.

Yes, it's $23, but for something you're going to use daily for years, it's cheap. Don't hesitate, pick one up today!

My Wife Says I'm a Pessimist...

I am always planning for the worst case scenario. Be it the drive home from work, shopping at Wal-Mart, or expecting apocalyptic pestilence on the Snow Compound. This weekend found us having to pull a calf out of Rosy, the youngest heifer, and that took up most of Sunday afternoon.

While we were focused on that Tito, the smaller of the two Belted Galloways, managed to let her calf escape through the electric paddock. We realized around 6:00 PM that Smore, her calf wasn't doing too well. It was time to move the cattle back onto the main pasture anyway, so I started moving the Belties first, thinking that we could get Tito (so named for her Jerry Curled resemblance to Tito Jackson) and Smore into a pen together.

Tito wasn't having it. Regardless of what we did she wasn't going in the barn. At 6;35 Smore was limp and non-responsive so we made the decision to pull her into the house due to what looked like dehydration. I jetted into town beating Tractor Supply's closing time by a couple of minutes, picked up some colostrum, a dog bottle due to how small Beltie calves are, and a Mister Pibb because it was already a stressful day and having Dr. Pepper was too much to ask!

Andrea went to work getting fluid into the little girl. Strawful by strawful Andrea was getting water into the little calf. I got back and we did the same thing with the colostrum. She wouldn't swallow much, she was cold, and pretty much limp. We put her on the dog bed and wrapped her in a towel and blanket. I fed Smore every hour until she woke me up at 1:30 with a pile of pee and poo and her doing her best ice skater impression on the tile. She wouldn't go back to sleep, so I figured I'd take her out to the barn and see if I could entice her mom into a stall.

No dice on the stall. I begged, I pleaded, I put a bucketful of sweet feed inside the barn to trap her, but she was having none of it. Exasperated, and with Smore starting to fade, I pulled her out of the stall and placed her down by the feed. Momma went nuts, as did the neighbors dogs, and wouldn't stop mooing. Smore perked up, and Momma stood still long enough to let her nurse for a few minutes, before realizing she may not really like this mothering thing after all. They dance with one another for another 15 minutes, Smore trying to nurse, Momma moving every few minutes.

Then Momma just headed to the back 40 with Smore following behind. I left it to Providence to look after the calf. I told Andrea when she woke up that the calf probably wasn't going to make it (about the 10th time I'd predicted death for Smore or Meatloaf, she just hugged me, kissed me, and told me to stop being such a pessimist. I went out after sunrise this morning to find Smore chilling in the back of the pasture and Momma grazing contentedly not too far away.

Only time will tell if Smore is going to make it, but if she lives through the week, the odds increase dramatically.

Giving Thanks for Great Neighbors

It's said that good fences make good neighbors. I think it takes a lot more than that. You have to engage, share, be friendly, give space, and treat them the way you want to be treated. I'm by no means perfect, but I've been really blessed with awesome neighbors everywhere I've lived, and Texas has not been an exception

Today we had the last heifer give birth. She, like all teenage mothers, was not ready to be a mom yet. The downside to running a bull with your herd is that nature is in control  of when your heifers get pregnant. Sophia and I were out this morning looking at the dun full blood Beltie that was born overnight when we realized that Rosy, the young Dexter heifer (+/- 19 months old at the time of this writing) was about to give birth.

I always get nervous with first time Mommas. You don't know how they're going to handle the birthing process, and in this case she's still growing and not yet to size. My worst fears were realized as only one foot appeared while the calve's head was more or less out and things had come to a standstill after 2 hours it was time to act. The presentation of the head and one leg out is called, simply enough, "Leg Back" though I didn't know it at the time.

I knew we had to get Rosy tied up and help pull the calf out. My neighbors saw the circus going on out in the paddock and Andrea, Sophia, and I were trying to get Rosy restrained. Comedy ensued, as Rosy bolted through the electric fence into their previous paddock. I had left the gate open back into the pasture this morning anticipating moving the cows back later this week, and Rosy saw that open gate and thought she was making her escape.

My neighbor Joe was in the field, along with his wife, George made his way over, Andrea, Sophia, and even Emma made their way into the field to herd Rosy into the barn. We got her into a stall and here's where my neighbors went above and beyond. We got Rosy into a rope and tied her off on a stall bar. Joe, George, and myself took turns trying to find that leg and get the poor little calf out, to no avail, we just couldn't find it. After about 5 minutes I sent the girls out of the barn, because we'd decided that we had to pull the calf out.

As I'm writing this I don't know if the calf is going to live, and to be honest it'll break my heart if it dies. That said, there's simply no way Andrea and I could have pulled that calf out, my neighbors and I are all over 200 pounds and it took everything we had to get that calf out. I don't think we hurt Rosy, but only time will tell.

Calf Number 3 in 2016

With first time birthing heifers, you never know what you're going to get, but so far both Belties have had their calves without incident, and both at night strangely enough. We think that this calf is a heifer, and if so the girls have decided on "Smore" as her name. She's Dun colored and really is a good looking calf.

Today she did give us some excitement as she kept escaping the paddock and chilling just out of reach of Momma. She doesn't seem to mind us at all, unlike her half brother from the other Beltie who is skiddish as all get out. Hopefully we can get the electric fence grounded well enough in the dry conditions we're facing to help discourage her from roaming about.

She will be the foundation of our homegrown breeding stock moving forward, provided her genetics look right. The cuteness factor at the Snow Compound has gone up considerably this week!