Bluewater Bay Bucking Bulls

This is certainly proving to be an interesting summer here in northern Michigan.  We had a warm start, variable amounts of rain and now cool temperatures in the heart of when it is usually hot.  Our tomatoes are having a hard time figuring out what to do.  We've got lush green plants with loads of blossoms but them seem to have stalled.  The early crops all seemed to come in a rush with the early hot weather and were over before we knew it.

We raise a small amount of non certified organic produce here for our own table.  We vend anything extra cooperatively at the local farmer's market in Traverse City, and at a neighbor's roadside stand. We are grateful for the network of relationships that allows this all to happen.

We borrow a neighbor's tractor to push our manure piles.  He comes and loads some of the aged compost and uses it to grow the vegetables he sells.  Dan contributes repairs to the tractor to help keep it running. We sell eggs, and other surplus at his stand, and he sends some of his produce to market in Traverse City with us.

This is especially important in how we conduct our large animal operation. Small though this is, we do go through a huge amount of hay.  We do not hay ourselves however.  We find it more cost effective to buy our hay from producers who already have the large, expensive harvesting equipment to bring it in.

In the five years we have been ranching, we have formed a wide network of interlocked endeavor with our neighbors. Each strand that gets woven between us makes each of us stronger.  And we have met some wonderful people in the process. The main commonality is that we all love working the land, and tending our animals.  I am very grateful for this experience. Many of the people are getting up there in years though.  I wonder about what will happen when they all retire.  Who will take their places?

Whew!  We just had the last calf of the season arrive on Saturday.  We had eight this year and that is a big jump from two.  That bumps our herd to twenty-three head of cattle.  We had three bulls and five heifers.  All are healthy and playful and settling in well.

We are most pleased with our bull Time Bandit's performance as a herd sire.  Not only are his calves beautiful but he has been the most gentle, devoted partner and daddy as each was born. We could tell when each cow was in labor as he deferred eating to stay by her side through labor.  Then he helped lick and get the calves up to standing and nursing.  Come nightfall he makes sure the whole group of new babies is at his side when time to lay down for the night.  Amazing to watch.

All this and he bucks too!  We held our annual Buckin' Buckley event on June 20th and Bandit was the feature.  He bucked well and even had a pretty nice spin before his eight seconds were up.  The star of the day was Little Miss Fancy Pants.  She had an event winning out showing her double bred Mossy Oak Mudslinger bloodlines through and through.

All the animals we bucked looked great. We will be bucking the bulls again shortly so they get more practice in.  We are getting ready to move the three bulls into breeding positions.  Time Bandit will breed back his same herd.  Sirocco will go in with Little Miss Fancy Pants, Tink, and Dream Girl.

Buster will take on Red Baroness, Red Contessa and Cali Rae along with White Lightening.  We will AI Nessa to Fandango and Cali Rae to Ricky Simmons Ozzy so Buster will be clean up pasture bull for them.  This all means next calving season will be even busier yet.  Ya Hoo!

The recent deaths of elite polo horses due to medication error makes all of us that work with animals cringe.  If you work with livestock, you typically use medications and supplements in the course of caring for your beloved animals and we all worry about this kind of mistake occurring.  There are practices that can help make sure that this never happens at your farm.

We ask our vetrinarian about any supplement or medication we consider for our herd.  She is not always familiar with alternative therapies but this is a good place to start.  We verify dosages and potential side effects with her.  We then do a review of the agricultural literature for information about the practices again looking for evidence for and against the intervention and about the use protocols.

Everything we administer systemically we get either from the vet or a commercial preparer.  We calculate the dosages of all medications for the animals based upon prescribing guidelines even if they have been prepared by the vet or pharmacy to try to make sure no error has been made.

We do most all of our own administration but we have two people verify dosage, drawup and then have a system of placing anything to be given to an animal in a bag with it's name on it when we head to the pasture.  All syringes are marked with the medication contained.

Prior to administration again, dosage, administration recommendations, animal are all reviewed for match.  Then we give the vaccine or medication.  Now, on a larger scale, this is not all practical if using a dosing gun, but we do recommend a review of the supplement, routes to be given, side effects, etc prior to use by two people, then verification of dose for each animal, usually based upon weight or age before administration. When mass immunizing or medicating we do one medication at a time.

It does take a bit more time to do the double checking, but better safe then sorry. We do use a slapshot for our parenteral medications and vaccines and that makes shots even for our high strung cattle less stressful for all of us. Our hearts go out to the players, owners and fans who lost thse beautiful horses this week.

I'm jumping back on here fairly close to our last listing because I didn't want to leave the negative, down and depressing entry as the last thing we'd posted for very long.  Though times are hard, we are keeping on, keeping on.

Dan had word of a marine mechanic's opeing and so a job possibility is in the works.  We are moving forward with getting ready for the opening of Farm Market season up our way Mother's Day weekend.  You wil find us at the Sarah Hardy Traverse City Market on Saturdays across from Richard and Diana from Spring Hollow Dairy.

We expect to have composted manure, eggs, maple syrup, starts for some early plantings including table greens buckets planted with snow peas and mescalun mix, bok choi and cressy greens, and swiss chard.  We may have some picked greens also.

We have tincture of thyme, and dried mullien as far as medicinals go and homemade oat bran english muffins and whole grain bread.  You can pickup an autographed copy of Funny Farm if you need a a good read.

We have been having good luck with our mortgage company and credit card companies as far adjusting payments and interest rates so we can stay afloat.  Anyone else in our situation call you company and most all are willing to work things our right now.  Just not Kia Motor Finance Company.

We are sharing this story even though it reflects somewhat poorly on us here at the 4B Ranch, but I think that there are many of you out there that are in exactly the same situation and if we discuss this, it is healthier for all of us.  We racked up another first this week, here at the ranch- our first visit from the Repo Man.

I spend a lot of time smiling and pretending that our financial footing is solid, but that is make believe.  The rest of you that have been scratching along trying to make ends meet, know that we do this so as not to put off customers, make friends and family worry, and to keep our own sanity.  But times are hard for many of us.

We had been doing great since I was forced to retire due to illness and we began our endeavor, originally as my therapy project.  Dan was working a real job and we were on a five year plan for the ranch to move from hobby to full business and become self sustaining.  Then, layoff followed by termination came last August, like for so many of our fellow Michiganders.  Since then we have been trying to cut a year off our time frame and move into the black this year.

Our bills have been geared towards our income while Dan was working for Four Winns and though we certainly did not live extravagantly, we made all our payments.  Not anymore!  We cut fluff like eating out and satellite TV a long time ago.  I stopped taking my M.S. drug because even having Medicare, the $500 a month co pay was more than we could afford.  But with my high medical bills we have not been able to meet all our payments, including the car note for the KIA Rio we bought several years ago for Dan to use to commute to work.

This week, KIA decided to repossess the car though we are only about $400 in arrears at this point.  This is certainly their right.  And we are certainly in the wrong, not making the obligation we committed ourselves to.  But neither the animals nor we can eat the Rio, and we are not living in it, or burning it for heat, so that payment did not rank at the top of our list.  Neither Dan nor I have ever faced the Repo Man before.  What a humiliating experience.  And the fellow, who called here, was very nice.

It has taken us both a week of positive self talk, and pep rallying for each other to keep slogging along, trying to get ready for our Farm Market season, calving and all the other forward looking things happening here.  We tell ourselves that we are not alone.  We try not to feel too pitiful but looking for others that have it worse than we do sure doesn’t make us feel any better, though we know we still have so much to be grateful for.

If you have had a visit from the Repo Man, or anticipate he will turn up soon at your place, keep your chin up.  It is only “stuff.”  Things will get better.  We hold hands with you and keep walking forward along this spring’s furrows.

Today we have more open ground than snow covered turf and the chickens are out of the coop and back at work.  Reddy was out in the front pasture before it was even fully light this morning.  I don't think she trusts that the snow won't come back and so she isn't missing any opportunity to get out and scratch and dig.

 The hens are all working and turning the ground, doing an excellent job of de-thatching the lawn after its been packed down under the snow and ice for the last five months. We have ten acres that run deep from the frontage on the road to the back cattle pasture and my flock cover every inch of it. The Rhode Island Reds take the prize for being the widest ranging so far of all the breeds we've tried.

This year's new flock will be Buckeyes and we have not had them before.  They will be going into the mobile coop that will be stationed inside the back fenced pasture with the cattle. They will have a fence around them to keep the cows out of their coop but I expect they will range well beyond it's confines once they mature.  We had Ebony Star constantly climbing into the chicken coop or removing the stairs last year so we will put up a fence to keep miss cat-like-cow out of the in pasture chicken year this season.

We decided to try Buckeyes this year because they are on the threatened list and need to have breeding flocks established and so I am going to try to do that this year.  They are heavy feathered, brown egg layers and good at mousing and foraging by report so I think they should be perfect for our climate and scenario.  We shall see.  They are also the one breed of American chicken started by a woman.

Our wild birds are back too and I can't wait till it is warm enough to start opening the windows in the morning because our acreage is alive with sound again.  It is such a contrast to the quiet of winter.  The chickens are constantly calling to each other about each worm they find, and the pine tree tops each sport a red winged blackbird setting up territory for the season.  There are grackles and chickadees and downy and hairy woodpeckers too.  Ahh, it is spring!

We have been providing hospice pig care to our 15 year-old pot bellied pig Jordan Hamlet for the past year.  He seemed to have cancer with spread to his liver and we had constructed a special pen for him in our garage with heat so he could get outside on sunny days without encountering stairs.  Jordie lived to be told that he was a "fine pig", and a "good boy" by his Daddy-Momma.  Those words would make his straight tail spin in a circle.

 He was only eating veggie stew with good fixings from our CSA crop box, apples and oatmeal here towards the end. He always loved cats and this past year has shared his garage and heat lamp with our litter of Hemingway snow cats.  Sometimes they'd snuggle under the blankets with him in his straw pile.  Sometimes they'd tuck in on top of him. 

This past weekend, Jordie went downhill and he passed away early in the morning on Monday.  We cremated him in a Viking funeral pyre Monday.  In these parts Jordie was well known for his acting career and school appearances.  He did the Pig Skin Picks at the Grand Traverse Band Casino some years ago and did better at picking NFL winners than the pundits.  He especially loved children with autism, and elders.

We are still reconfiguring our lives around the big space left now that he has moved on.  I found myself making his oatmeal yesterday morning.  As Dan said as we watched his funeral pyre burn, the pain of loss is the price we pay for these friendships and well worth the joy and blessings we recieve. We were centainly blessed to have known this fine pig.  He was a very good boy!

Though it was still below zero last night, today is it a screaming sunny day and all the cows and bulls are less interested in eating today, than they are in sun bathing.  There is a frenzy of grooming going on out in the pasture.  I helped by brushing everyone who wanted brushing this morning, and got lots of mud off some of those big round bellies.  the ice shells have even melted off the donkeys.

If we have too many more days like this, I will start to believe that spring really is on its way.  Dan has been mooning around saying that he is ready for new calves to come. Last years babies are so big they are not really calves anymore. They are looking more and more like yearlings.  One of the farm catalogues arrived with a picture of a red Mom and newborn on the cover and that had us cooing and getting all nostalgic for calving.

 We have a bit to wait this year because we bred a bit later to try to assure that the last of the ice and snow would be gone by the time the calves started to drop.  That means we have to be patient though and it won't be till May instead of April for our first ones to arrive.  So two more months, instead of one at this point.  Ah, well, we can make it.

We will have chicks, ducklings and baby turkeys very soon so we will have some little one to help mark the arrival of early spring.  As far as chickens go, we are going to start Buckeye's this season as well as Auracanas and Buff Orphingtons.  I am going to try to breed the Buckeyes as they are endangered. 

We have not had a breeding flock before so that will be a new endeavor for us. They will go in the trailer and out in the enclosed back pasture, so we hope they will be a bit more protected from predators. They will have the cows and Time Bandit to defend them.  And my gun is cleaned and ready.

Tax time!  Time to look at we do and how we do it.  We are in the state with the highest unemployment in the country and the county within Michigan with the worst figures.  We doubt that Dan will be getting called back to his "other" job at the boat plant any time soon, so we are looking at diversifying a bit more this year.

So far we have kept a pretty tight focus on raising bucking bred cattle and our few other offerings have been byproducts of that operation. Our eggs come from pastured chickens that provide pest control for example. I think we are going to branch out just a bit this year and offer a few more items.

We are going to start another flock of chickens and are going to try the heritage breed from Ohio, the Buckeyes in addition to the Auracanas we have had good luck with. We will have some chicken for sale periodically as they stop laying and are going to try some ducks- Khaki Campbells, and turkeys- Narragansetts also.  We hope to be able to offer some duck eggs for local bakers.

We are going to expand our small fresh herb business and offer more fresh cut meal sized portions and plants for folks to keep themselves. We are relocating our raised beds to a sunnier location as the tree next to the old site has grown so much that it is now throwing too much shade on the old location.  We are excited to see how our asparagus comes up if spring ever arrives.

Our biggest task as we look at these things is to figure out how to do things so that we use recycled materials, and human labor versus mechanization, since at our place human labor is in long supply right now.  We may experiment with using the donkeys and cattle for energy production though.  Dan is going to see if he can engineer a charging mechanism for the fence batteries that can be powereded as the animals walk inside a wheel device.  We shall see.  I remember something like this set up in North Africa when we lived there as a child so we should be able to make it work here.

The exterior wood burning device Dan built has saved us two tanks of propane this winter though we have not been able to efficiently burn cow pies yet. Back to the drawing board on that and we will need to lay in a stock of wood for next winter so we are not cutting it in the snow.

We are becoming much more frugal and doing away with extravagances but I would not say we are suffering.  We are eating well.  We are warm.  Everyone is healthy.  We are occupied and entertained with an assortment of good books and NPR.  Forward we go.

If you don't want to hear another power whine about living through the terrible cold winter, skip this posting. When we headed out to start the feeding and watering this morning, it was gorgeous. BUT, it was 13 below zero.  Oh, My, Goodness.

I was amazed to find that when I got all my layers all on and waddled out there, the animals were all actually up and tolerating it just fine.  Of course they all are wearing fur coats and feathers. Thus far the pipes are holding, the water is staying open with the bucket heaters in the bins and the wood stove is keeping the house warm but boy, what an adventure for the gal from Haleiwa, Hawaii.

Thank goodness for turtle fur!  This is what I call polar fleece. I am a big fan of the stuff.  Especially the variety made from old pop bottles.  Recycle!  We like that.  And it makes for just slightly less bulky cold weather wear.  Back in the day, of course, we had those snowsuits that once you were zipped inside you could not bring your arms down beyond parallel to the ground.

I put on tights, and a polar fleece top, then my quilted overalls, and another polar fleece top and then my Carhart vest.  Three layers of socks, hats, face shields, hunting gloves, fill my pockets with gizmos, dog and donkey treats, pocket knife and I'm ready.  Now, about one day out of the week, I no sooner get all this stuff on topped off with my yucky, stinky barn boots when  nature calls and I need to go to the bathroom.  Wonderful!

AH..... Sunday afternoon.  My secret vice- movies on Lifetime Movie Channel.  Yesterday I was in the middle of a nice, juicy one when my husband came rushing in and yelled, "Baroness got out when I was feeding them and she's running wild, and won't come back in for me!"  Red Baroness or "Nessa" is our herd queen, a four year old daughter of Spotted Fever. A big high horned, 1000 pound Brangus Page cow.

 I pulled on a jacket and some boots and ran outside to find Dan in the drive with a grain bucket lure, and Nessa ignoring him and visiting the back pasture cattle through the fence.  Kisses all around and some special nuzzling for her two sons, Time Bandit and Sirroco.  She hadn't seen Time Bandit since he was 6 months old and weaned.  Bandit had been at Creek Bend Ranch in Ohio till this past September, and when we brought him home Nessa was gone being bred in Big Rapids.  What a happy reunion!

Gathering up the grain bucket, I started calling Nessa and she, good girl that she is came running.  At full tilt right down the frozen two track.  She came racing up to the car park and I thought my Chevy was going to be toast but that gal can stop on a dime.  She peered in the car windows then turned and took off again.

This went on for about 20 more minutes.  Nessa zoomed up and down the driveway, bucking and snorting as she passed her herd on the other side of the fence.  She squeezed past the truck and partied in the road for awhile.  Nessa is about 7 months pregnant now and showing. It was something to see her charging back and forth, front legs spread wide to maintain control and support that great swinging belly on the snow and ice, comparatively little backside tucked tight underneath so she could buck.

She was breathing hard at this point and her breath was freezing and grizzling her whole face with ice. Then she sauntered up to me for a pat and we slipped back into the front pasture, exercise and visiting done.  She poked her head into the grain bucket ready to have a snack and reunion with her herd. That's my girl!

Imagine my amazement when I opened my newsletter yesterday, and there was my baby girl, Cali Rae- bucking the lights out.  I figure there are going to be folks out there who are not familiar with bucking bred cattle and so am posting this entry to make sure you all know that these animals are not made to buck, they are bred to buck and then treated so well that they feel wonderful, and demonstrate their athletic abilities with little encouragement.

 Cali Rae is the first calf to be born here are the 4B Ranch.  That was two and a half years ago now.  The photo in the Jan 22, 09 newsletter was taken at Buckin Buckley last June when we bucked all our unbred females to make sure they had the athletic ability and temprament for this sport.  They had only a flank rope looped around their hips, which they were easily able to kick off in 6 seconds.

 Professionally, only bulls are bucked as females are more valuable for breeding. They have two ropes placed around them, neither fastened both looped and the rider has one in his hand- it comes off when he lets go.  The flank rope like you see in the picture of Cali is fastened with a loop with a couple of inches of slack in it when pulled.  If itis too tight it usually discourages bucking.  Some bulls do best without a flank.  You have to know your animal to get the best performance.

 If anyone has questions about the sport or care of bucking bred cattle, feel free to contact me or add a comment here.  We don't use whip, cattle prods, drugs or beating on our animals.  They are our companions and we love them and their amazing athletics.

When you live in Northern Michigan, everyone from rancher to bull suffers a bit of cabin fever come January.  We all start looking for things to do that are compatible with snow to entertain ourselves, get some exercise and have a few laughs.  Our herd sire,  Time Bandit seems to have decided to take up bobsledding for his winter activity.  He says he is thinking of trying out for the Olympics if he can get enough of the other cows interested.

Last week I was cleaning the manure and dirty straw out of the herd's shed and getting ready to place fresh bedding straw down.  I put some hay out for the herd to lure them out of the shed so I could get at it with the pitchfork.  I heard a noise and looked up to see Time Bandit running towards the mouth of the shed.  My skid that we use to haul straw and hay was sitting right in the entry way where I'd parked it after emptying it.  I realized I was not going to be able to get out of the shed before he arrived at the entrance so I plastered myself up against the side of the shack and prepared for impact.

Bandit made the entrance at a full charge.  He jumped into the air, landed with all four feet in the skid and sat down with his legs stretched out infront of him.  He karoomed through the shed in the skid, whizzing past me and hit the far end of the structure, flew out, landed on all four feet, then stood there looking mighty proud of his grand entrance.  He had the biggest smile on his face.  He thought it was a heck of a good time.  And the sight of this 1200 pound animal cutting up pretty much made my day too.