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A good mineral program is essential to the health of your cattle. Just like your own body, when your vitamin and mineral intake is out of balance, your overall health can be affected. Many cattle feeds have additional minerals added to provide a more balanced nutritional package. However, with grass and hay fed herds, a good mineral program is essential. Even if you are feeding or supplementing with grain that has added minerals, it is still very important to feed additional minerals. Offering free choice minerals to your herd allows them to intake when and how much their body is craving.  Minerals are found in the ground, which in turn are absorbed in the grass, but if your ground does not contain sufficient amounts of minerals, these will not be available in the foliage to your animals.
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Life is full of seasons... Seasons of busy... Seasons of rest... Seasons of waiting.... Seasons of change.... And lots of seasons in between.  The last year has been a season of waiting, planning and hoping. We have had dreams and plans, but there were lots of moving parts that needed to align in order for us to be able to fulfill our wants and dreams.
The biggest moving part was the right timing. The right time for us, the right time for others and the manpower (Isaac and Walker) to do everything we want to do. Some may say that the agricultural community is the foundation of our country. The unseen heroes that work from sun up to sun down providing for their families and the rest of the world. They are the ones with the true grit and determination when everything is against them. From fires and drought to disease and unpredictable financial markets, they never give up. Farmers have a deep founded love for the land that flows into an unwavering love for our country. If you were to ask most people in agriculture, I bet almost all of them would tell you that they got their start in 4-H.  For our family, 4-H is where it all started. We live in a rural community so it only made sense that our kids would be a part of the program. What we didn't know is how much it would teach us. We had no idea what we were doing and we had a club and club leaders that held our hands through that first year and taught us what we didn't even know we didn't know.
When 2021 began, we were all excited to put the year of Covid behind us and return to normal life. While 2021 was more normal, I can't say it was the year of moving on that we were all hoping for.
We thought things couldn't get much worse than 2020, but our 2021 brought some epic challenges and roadblocks that we never saw coming. We survived, but I can honestly say we are anxious to put this year behind us and move on to a better 2022. Frosty the snowcow was a jolly happy cow
With fluffy ears and curly coat and two eyes that looked so sweet. Frosty the snowcow is a farmers tale they say. He was made of fur but the children know how he came to the farm one day. There must have been some magic in the old trailer that came that day For when they opened up the gate he began to run around. Blast is becoming the yo-yo bull.
Born here on our farm, sold, bought back, sold again, and now he is home again. We love this bull...but four mature bulls on our small farm is just too much...so Blast was the one that always had to go. As usual, summer goes way too fast. Isaac and Walker are both back in school and we are starting to adjust to a more normal routine. Because...nothing is routine around here in the summer...except for routine chaos. I always think summer is busy...but I have no idea what happened to this summer.  Walker was the main farm hand this summer because everyone else was working full-time jobs off the farm.
To be quite honest... there hasn't been a whole lot going on with the herd this summer. Which is how we want it to be. A couple of weeks ago, Isaac graduated from high school. As parents of our first high school graduate, it has been a little strange walking through the emotions. To be honest, I have done much better than I ever expected. He has helped to prepare us for this transition as much as we have helped him.  Isaac's senior year was not typical of most seniors. He attended a very small private school and this year he ended up being the only senior. A graduation ceremony of one is a little awkward. The school also experienced a tragedy when their administrator passed away unexpectedly a few months ago and they finished the year without their leader. We knew we were going to throw an epic celebration for Isaac, so we asked the school if we could just combine the graduation ceremony and the party all into one at our house since this was such an unusual year. They graciously agreed and it was a perfect celebration of Isaac...and he didn't have to give a valedictorian speech!
This spring has been an unusual season for us here in Ohio. We have had a normal back and forth of temperatures. Shorts weather one day and snow the next. Just this week we watched the spring blossoms break forth on the fruit trees, only to be covered in inches of snow a few days later. It has been an unusual spring for us in the rainfall totals. Normally, this time of year the cows are belly deep in mud and manure. The winter build-up of muck that gets saturated to the point no tractor would ever make it out of the paddock. But, this year has been perfect cattle working weather. We haven't had much moisture (other than the 4 inches of snow this week that quickly melted) and have had the unusual opportunity to get in the paddocks, pastures and fields for the after winter clean up. I don't ever remember getting all the winter paddocks not only cleaned out but the manure spread on the hay field in the spring.  The warm days have also given the grass an early boost.
Farming is not an easy life. You spend most of your days at the mercy of the weather and have animals that can get sick at any moment. Our jobs are to be problem solvers and if you haven’t learned to be flexible, you are going to have an even rougher time. It’s no secret that last year was a pretty rough year here on the farm. Just about everything that could break did (see here and here). We were pretty fortunate on the animal front and didn’t have an excessive amount of vet bills, but we always have enough to keep the checkbook on edge.  When we first got into Miniature Herefords, one of the goals was to build our herd to the point that we could sell a few animals each year and pay for our kid’s Christian school education. Every year about this time we file our taxes and ask ourselves why in the world we do this. We would be farther ahead to just pay the tuition and forget the farm.
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AuthorHello! I am Heather... the city girl turned mom to manure loving country boys. My husband and I both grew up in the city, but spent weekends visiting grandparents in the country. We are first generation farmers who learn best by almost always doing things the hard way. I hope you enjoy following along with our adventures down on the farm. Archives
April 2022
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