Where's the beef?

I was sitting at my computer in my living room trying to catch up on reading everyones blogs.  The dogs started barking like someone was in my driveway, so my youngest went to look out the door.  She starts yelling "the beefers are out!"  I look over and yep...both the show heifer and the show steer are looking into our front door windows.

I grab a coat, shoes and bolt outside.  They stand in my front yard just watching me as I run to the barn to grab halters and a bucket of grain.  As I approach them (shaking the bucket of grain), the just watch me and Melinko (the steer) starts to eat my little apple tree.  They let me get all the way up to them, I put some grain on the ground and walk up to Melinko...he takes one look a the halter and walks to the other side of Arianna.  She looks at the halter, puts her tail in the air and runs...oh C#%P!

I decide that if I stay with Melinko maybe Arianna will come back; and she does.  This time she snorts and runs past Melinko, circles back and heads down the driveway to the road.  Melinko takes this as his queue to run with her.

I run for the garage to get the truck; get my phone out and call my father-in-law.  Last time the steers ran on me he was a great help.  No answer there.  I call my Dad; he doesn't know much about large animals, but any help will do right?  Nope, he is out of the area.  The beefers headed west...I only have one neighbor to my west and I just saw them come home.  I call them...their line is busy.

Meanwhile...I get the truck stuck in the driveway AND it will not go into 4-wheel drive.  I jump out of the truck (grabbing the halters again) and run down the driveway hoping they hadn't gone onto the next road.

As I get out of my driveway I notice that they are in my neighbors ditch and turning back towards me.  I called to them and Arianna stareted towards me.

I started backing up, literally walking backwards with Arianna jogging towards me and Melinko following.  As they got to the driveway I walked forward forcing them up the driveway.  I had purposely left the door to the barn open with the thoughts that they might return to their comfort zone.  Which is, luckily for me, exactly what they did.  I followed them into the barn and put them into their stalls.  Believe it or not, they went to their own separate stalls with no help or issues.

I went out to check the fence.  They did not break it...the horses did.

My farrier was out on Monday night and told me that Ellie had a cut on her front left.  No suprise to me, I looked at the fence and it was still up.  Ellie is notorious for going through the electric wire.  Today, however, in the daylight I can see that at the corner by the gate, where the snow is almost over the fence, the top wire is down.  I go over and find that the fence is not only down, but stuck in the snow!  The horses could have walked out at any time over the last 4 days, but just didn't choose to.  They know where the hay is...the beefers, however, thought the grass might be greener on the other side of the fence.

I fixed the fence and all's well that end's well.

County Fair Weigh In

I have got to learn to carry my camera wherever I go!  Everyones blog is so filled with beautiful pictures; and my blog is usually picture free because I never seem to remember to grab it or it isn't ready.

Today was county fair weigh in's for the beef project.  My daughter has a beautiful black steer that she named the Great Melinko.  He is a Maine Anjou crossbred and weighed 940 pounds.  For us that means he is right on track and should weigh between 1400 and 1500 pounds for the show.

We usually raise a show steer with a freezer steer so they have each other as company.  This year due to our economic situation we decided to raise this years' show steer with the heifer that was shown last year.  The heifer was bred after fair and is due on June 24th.  We are very excited as we have always had steers...this means we will be having our first beef baby!  Is anyone else getting ready for the upcoming show season?

Last year's show steer on left; last year's show heifer on right.

County Fair 2009

This may be a bit late, but we are proud of our kids and how we did at Manitowoc County Fair.

My (middle) daughter is learning a lot in the beef project and this year joined a 4-H group to compliment her FFA group.

This year she took a heifer and a steer. The red one is her heifer, she took Reserve Champion Market Heifer and her steer (the black one) took second in his class.

We are VERY Proud of you Midget!

Our youngest daughter showed in the "kiddie showmanship" class for the second year.

We also had three cows in the "Culver's Manitowoc County Futurity". The problem is that I am usually holding the manure bucket so I didn't get any shots. Sorry, I know pictures exist, I just don't have them. Hope I have better luck getting them next year. :)

Down on the farm...What a day

What a day!

It all started when the roller mill would not work. This put the morning helper I have behind...he has to leave for school by 7:00 a.m. Then, I don't get the chores done, but have to get home in time to take my middle child to school...my youngest is going to stay home sick and my oldest is so old he moved out.

2007 Manitowoc County Grand Champion Steer

Raised by my daughter

I get home and my 5 year old greets me at the door. Instead of hi mom, I get; Sissy is staying home today, sick. I check on my 14 year old and sure enough, she is staying home sick. I say ok, this will give me an opportunity to get a few of the undone chores done right?

I go back to the milking barn, finish a few chores, go back to the house where I start chores in the horse barn. Keep in mind the day before the hydrant was frozen in the heifer shed and I had to have a specialist come out and thaw it. Here we go...

I unload some cat food, horse grain and leave the garden hose for later. The door was left open as I had to go back out to get the hose and it let more light in. I decided to start with grain...gathered the amount needed for my daughter's beef steer project...open the stall door and instead of using the usual bucket, I used the grain bag. This spooked Patches and he and Cowboy bolted past me and out the side door.

Panicked, I ran to my front door and beat on it until the kids answered. Told my daughter to get her stuff while I grabbed the truck and headed down our road. The steers had already gone quite a ways away.

I called information and tried frantically to reach the neighbors about a mile down the road hoping to cut the steers off from the highway. No answer, tried information again for the neighbor's on the other side of the road. This time the operator did not speak good English, nor did he understand the spelling of my neighbor's last name. After trying to spell for him 5 times; I said "never mind" and hung up. In between me and my neighbor's at the end of our road (where the highway is) there is another neighbor (my husband's father). I, however, do not get along with this particular person at all. Now what? The steers are already more than a 1/4 mile from home with my daughter trailing us on foot.

I swallow my pride, say a prayer and call...he says he will come! Prayers do work people. As I hang up the phone the steers seem to be mellowing, they turn and look at me so I slowly get out of the truck. My best hope is to get around them...I think!

Just as I get around the truck, the steers start heading back towards our place. I look down the road and see my daughter coming towards us, I try shouting for her to get back and stop them at the drive way; she is too far away and can't hear me. Finally, we get close enough and my daughter starts to move back. At this time, we have more than 6 inches of snow on the ground and the steers had been staying on the paved areas. My thoughts were that they might go back up the driveway. Just as they turn up the drive, my husband's father comes up behind me. I park the truck at an angle in the drive to block the steers exit, open a gate to the south pasture and start running around the side of the house, circling the steers.

I shouted for my daughter to get some grain and sort of cornered the steers between two fences. The south pasture is vinyl fencing and the north pasture is electric wire. Patches, the larger of the two steers, decided to bolt through the wire fencing to visit the horses.

What Patches doesn't realize, is that the paint mare (Ginger) does not like strange animals. Ginger starts chasing Patches and Cowboy has not decided which way to go yet. My daughter comes out of the barn at that time and Cowboy then commits to running through the fence where Patches did.

We get the animals separated and all is well...I send everyone back to their homes and try to calm myself enough to finish chores. I get them all fed, go out to the truck for the hose and find that in all the excitement the hose has already started to freeze. Not that it ends up mattering as the hydrant is now frozen as well.

I guess having the hydrant guy out is much cheaper than having to replace my daughter's steers.

The moral of the story is, prayer works and NEVER leave a barn door or gate open!