No Bull; Yes Bull

It has been a busy week as usual, my Army buddy Duane came down to check on his place and stayed with us for a night and then we went to check out his new place and had lunch at a Mennonite bakery and butcher shop. We then had to go to the VA hospital in Columbia to get evaluated for another couple surgeries I am pending (sigh) and met up with Duane again on his way to St Louis and had dinner, Judy had company from Alaska, we had a county wide FEMA MASSCAL/HAZMAT exercise hosted by the VFD we are members of and on top of that we had a bull delivered today as the first step in expanding our herd. We are a bit behind our business plan due to my back surgery and the massive drought but we are getting back on track. Future plans also include raising steers next year on the 8 acres of pasture that we share crop with a neighbor and selling them at butcher time next fall.

As for the VA, I have had some criticisms of them, mostly that they are slow and the education program is completely broken so I didn't expect much from my visit to the VA hospital. Thankfully I can report that it was a very nice facility, they were efficient and professional, and we couldn't have been treated better. We were really pleased and at least in Missouri, the VA Hospital and staff are top notch.

Meet Caesar. Caesar is a Limousin/Hereford cross bull that belongs to a neighbor and he will be staying with us for three months or so in the hopes he impregnates our three heifers. He was a little feisty when he was dropped off but he seems to have settled in quite well and our heifers follow him around like he is truly the conqueror.

Once our heifers realised they had a visitor they made a beeline for him and the poor guy got chased for about 30 minutes.

 

Cattle are very social animals and after some get to know you licks and sniffing they pretty much settled down without problem and we have already noticed some preliminary mounting going on.

 

Interestingly, right around the time we normally give the heifers a little grain Caesar followed them down and we were able to walk right up to the trough and give them some grain and Caesar acted like he had done this for months.

Caesar couldn't get any relief even when he was eating and the heifers seem to be competing for his attention.

 

 He is a well built and good looking bull about 2.5 years old and he has already sired a string of calves so we are hopeful he can be successful with our cows.

So after a couple hours getting used to each other, they seem to be all getting along and we have been watching them graze and socialize. Pretty satisfying.

Holly and Judy also did the first harvest of sweet potatoes today. Much less yield this year due to the drought and they are a lot smaller but we have already eaten some and they are very tasty...I actually prefer the smaller ones.

 

Finally, this is a shot looking north that again shows the beautiful fall colors we have gotten this year. There is a 300 acre land trust across the road from us that is almost entirely forested in red and white Oaks and there is nothing over there except coyotes, deer, wild turkeys, a reported black bear or two (we haven't seen them yet) and tonnes of birds....no people, no buildings, and we like that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fall Color and a New Chicken Run

After such a long hot summer we have had a fantastic fall and after a couple nights of frost we have had the most colorful display of foliage since we moved here. Days have been mostly warm and sunny with crisp cool nights and we have really enjoyed the mild weather.

It also continues to be busy at the Rock House Farm, the sewer project is making steady headway, we are in the process of replacing the culvert to our driveway and widening it, we continue fencing, and we lucked into a deal on expanding the chicken run.

Speaking of fencing, last night we were working on the chicken run and Holly looked up into the pasture and saw one, two, three, four...five...cattle then a couple more when we only have three right now. Turns out the neighbor has a bull, we have a couple of heifers in heat, bull decides to visit our heifers and a bunch of calves and one of his heifers follows. So we called them up and we all soon got them sorted out and back where they belonged but we could only temporarily patch the fence because it was getting dark. So this morning we cut out a section of fence and strung some field fencing and a couple strands of barbed wire and the problem is solved. During all of this we also made plans to formally expose our heifers to his bull this week end so we will see what happens.

This picture is across the fence behind our pole barn shop and that heifer is one of the escapees that came for a visit last night.

Our wood lot is also displaying a vivid color scheme.

 

A wider view to the north across our pasture fence; we are surrounded by color.

Our back pasture has some huge Oaks and they have had a bumper acorn crop and are giving good color as well.

 

This picture is across our back pasture fence looking East; a sea of autumn color and the pasture here is full of deer and wild turkeys in the morning and early evening.

This is in front of the farmhouse looking south just about sunset. Its hard to get the brilliance of the colors to come across in these pictures but its warm in this picture (about 75 degrees), there was a slight breeze blowing, leaves were gently falling in the breeze and it is very peaceful.

 

Even the Oak grove behind the big barn is colorful.

One of the things we like around here is that we have a succession of flowering plants and this is the second blooming of Mums this year.

 

One of our neighbors is a bachelor and after the raccoons got most of his chickens he gave up the ghost and got rid of the rest of them so he had a 10' x 10' dog run he had used as a chicken run for sale for $100. We had planned on expanding the chicken run anyway but were holding off because the heavier duty runs like this one cost over $300 so we took advantage of the opportunity.

We already have a small chicken door to the outside from our existing run so this was easy to set up. We assembled the run, laid some chicken wire over the top, and cut a hole for the door from the existing run to open into the new run. We will let the chickens have access to their new run during the day and then lock them up at night. The chicken wire over the top is just to keep the hawks at bay and keep the chickens from flying out as we don't clip their wings.

 

Just some fall scenes from the Rock House Farm.