Ebersole Cattle Company

Well, we avoided the weather for an extra month.  But Mother Nature shure wolloped us this weekend.  She blew in 30 degrees colder with blizzard conditions. 

So when most people were snug inside staying toasty - most of us farmers & ranchers were outside taking care of the livestock.  Water had to be checked, calves moved out of the elements, a sick cow doctored, mares checked & hay moved again to the new wind direction.

It seems like no matter how much you plan & prepare, there will always be some work to be done in the cold weather.  No matter what, the animals come first & need to be cared for twice as much in this cold weather.

But, we wouldn't change it for the world.  I enjoy going outside in the quiet crunch of the snow & checking the sleeping calves.  I will admit that breaking ice out of waterers is NOT exactly my most favorite chore, but it has to be done.

The grass-fed beef are getting supplemented with some great alfalfa cubes & our own hay made on the ranch.

The pasured beef are getting bigger & are certainly enjoy their grains keeping them warm with fresh hay to eat & snuggle in.

If you haven't checked out our new website, stop by & take look because we have some great beef sticks! www.EbersoleBeef.com

Shanen - Mama to the Momma cows at the ECC Ranch

Wow, these couple of weeks have been crazy!!  But, this past Friday was Beef Pickup Day!  I have just tried out a new locker & went to pick up our Grass-Fed Ground Beef.  The new part is that I also had them make some of their AWARD WINNING Beef Sticks!  Remember, this is GRASS-FED, All Natural Yummy, Ebersole Beef!

These Beef Sticks are AMAZING!  Yum!  Just the perfect amount of fat.  Enough that it is Juicy, but not greasy in your mouth.  The spices are great too.  They have a great spicy flavor, but they are still mild enough that the kids are loving them.

They will make great snacks in the truck.  For those days that you are on-the-go and you need a protien punch, but don't want to go thru the Drive thru.  We will have the Sticks in our Local Harvest store very soon!  If you are interested in trying some of our Beef Sticks, just drop me an e-mail.

The Grass-Fed Ground  Beef also turned out great!!  Extra Lean and very flavorful!!  YUMMM!! I have "re-stocked" our Ground Beef Freezer & hope you take a look.

I will soon have more pictures of life on the ranch.  Just think Snow, Snow, & MORE SNOW!!!

Our new Website is also becoming more functional.   Check out EbersoleCattleCo.com

Wow! What a day! Yesterday, we pregnancy checked our cows.  What this means is that we worked them through the chute and our veterinarian checked if they were pregnant, and thier estimated due date.

WELL, the news was great!  We checked 65 of our spring calving cows and only had 4 open cows!  That is pretty good!  Especially considering that 2 of the open cows were 14 and 12 years old.

This means that Lenny, IS a great bull, he bred all of the cows possible, and made them pregnant!!  We did try to Artifically Inseminate about 45 of these cows, but the rate of conception with AI is usally about 70-80% so Lenny had the opportunity to breed lots of cows this summer.

This also means that our cows were healthy and happy, so they were ready to breed, while nursing large calves.

So, I'm glad to say that we won't have too much extra hamburger, and we will have ots of beef calves growing for next year.

If you think you might be interested in beef next summer and fall, drop me a line, and we'll save a calf to finish just for you!

You can get pictures or stories about your calf.

Hope you have a day as happy as mine is!  (I don't have to sell too many cows because they're open!!)  I'm still trying to find a little pasture to keep our old cows, and let them live out their life because they've been so productive and helpful for the Ebersole Cattle Co and our family!

Shanen - Momma to the Mama cows at the Ebersole Cattle Co

Our new website is almost done, so if you'd like take a look, but remember, I'm still working on it!!

www.ebersolecattleco.com

WOW!! Mother Nature sure hit us good this week!! It was really hard to get an accurate measure with all the wind and blowing, but I believe that we had just over 12 inches of snow on Tuesday.   Then Mother Nature had fun blowing it around and dropping temperatures on Wednesday and Thursday.

The calves that were weaned this last weekend all made it through ok.  We rolled out hay & put some soy-hull pellets in a creep feeder for them to eat.  The cows weaned pretty good too, they've all stopped bawling and moo-ing!  That makes the nights a little easier to sleep!  Because, I'm always nervous during weaning that a cow will make a hole in the fence and everyone will follow her out of the hole and run loose in our road.  (Nevermind that we couldn't get any traffic because we were snowed in!)

Beau tried to make it to town on Wednesday & was stuck two times in 3 miles.  Needless to say, he turned right around and came home!  He did make it in to town on Thursday and bought new batteries for our truck.   It was gelled with dead batteries in the driveway.

Some of our pipes froze in the house on Thursday and we had the cow-waterer freeze up too.  Our high temp on Thursday was 12.  With a 25 mile an hour wind. BRRRRR!

All the water is thawed and we now have new heat tapes installed, so we hopefull won't be repeating our experience.

But, the world IS beautiful with this fresh coat of snow, and all of the cows and calves made it through healthy and happy!

We do take two beef to be harvested on Tuesday too!

I hope you are all safe and warm!

Shanen, Mama to the Momma cows at the Ebersole Cattle Co

Yes, the cows came home!

They had a little encouragement, with me honking (calling) them in the Jeep & leading the way.  Beau & Chilli (the dog) followed and brought up the stragglers.  They followed me the mile to the corral nicely.

We held them in a portable corral while we sorted & hauled them the 7 miles home.

Once we had them in the corrals at home, we sorted the spring calves off and weaned them.

The late fall pairs will be sorted off tomorrow and turned out on grass with Lenny (the bull).  He'll be happy to have a couple more girlfriends for a while & it will keep him busy and out on pasture.

Next week we'll take all the spring calving cows to some rented corn stalks for a couple of months.

I hope y'all had a great weekend.  We did!  It might be work, but we enjoy working with our family!

Beef goes to town next tuesday, if you would like any fresh beef, drop me a line & I'll you know what we have available.

Merry Christmas!

Shanen, Momma to the Mama cows at the Ebersole Cattle Co

ebersolecattleco@yahoo.com

Life on the ranch is good if you're an Ebersole Bull.  Lenny is our top herdsire (Bull).  He is 6 years old this year.

Lenny was born here on the Ranch.  Lenny was actually a bottle calf.  He was the first calf for a very good looking heifer.  He was delivered without any problems, but sadly, the heifer hemmoraged & died.  So, we had a little bottle calf.  Lenny was a great little calf & drank from a bottle right away.  He thrived & would follow us anywhere.  When the time came to sell him, I couldn't.  I was too attached!  My husband tried and tried to convince me that keeping this calf for a bull would not be good, because he was a pet & could be too aggressive as a full grown bull.  But, he was my calf & he was a GOOD calf.  He grew amazingly well for being a bottle calf & he was bred great too!

Since we didn't sell him, and another sire died, he was turned out into the pasture with some girls (cows).  He was out back up bull until 2 years ago and our oldest sire died.  WOW!! We missed the boat with Lenny.  Our first calf crop out of just him were amazing!!  So far we have had 2 State Fair Champions AND  2 American Royal Champions!  In addition, the rest of his calves have grown great and increased our weaning and yearling weights.

Lenny is still a pet.  One of our favorite Lenny stories is the day we were 20 acres from the house & saw that Lenny had a sore eye.  We had taken a the truck out to fix fence and check cows that day.  Of course when we checked the truck we didn't have a halter OR a rope. UH OH!  Wait....we do have an electrical cord!  Think it will work??  Welllll, it IS Lenny.  Lets try it.  Walked back to the bull.  Beau rigged u the cord like a rope and took two swings & caught him with a hoolihan (backwards swing)!  WOW!  The cord held when he tried to walk away too!  So we walked up to him & looped it around to make a halter.  Then the fun part.  Did I mention that at this time he was 4 years old & hadn't had a halter since he was weaned at 6 months??  And that we were down in a big gully?  Well, Lenny did great!  We led him out of the ditch and up the big hill and over the next 20 acres I walked him while Beau went the 4 miles to the house and grabbed the trailer.

Needless to say, Lenny is MY favorite bull!

Right now, Lenny is 20 feet from my window in the pasture, and has been pretty close all day.  Poor guy is bored.  All the spring calving cows have been bred for a while.  He was turned out with a group of Fall calving cows 2 months ago.  Now, he's ready to go the barn.  His hanging around the house is telling me that all the cows are bred.  I bet he's right. 

So, tomorrow morning, I will open the gate & Lenny will follow me (and my bucket) to the barn.  There he'll stay this winter with a nice warm shelter & as much hay as he wants. 

Yes, it is nice to be Lenny the Bull at the Ebersole Ranch!

If you are interested in some great beef, we are now taking reservations for summer harvested beef.  Send me a note to ebersolecattleco@yahoo.com

THANKS!! And I hope you enjoyed my Lenny story!

Shanen, Momma to the Mama cows at the Ebersole Cattle Co

I have suffered with low Iron for 9 (diagnosed) years, and probably many before then.

This is what a small scrape will look like only hours afterwards if my Iron is low.  This scrape was barely noticable when it happened.

When I had our son, I had an emergency C-Section and bled aLOT on the table.  I lost over 2.5 pints of blood.  They wanted to give me blood and a transfusion, but I politely declined.  I was also told that my Iron was 6 points too low, and if it did not improve within the next 48 hours I would NEED the transfusion. 

Well, we set out to fix that in the next 24 hours I had eaten over 20 ounces of beef  (EBERSOLE BEEF).   I kept eating beef and everything green under the sun.  Plenty of yogurt too, so that the Calcium would help me replentish my blood supply.  My iron improved several points and I was allowed to go home (while nursing my son) and have my levels checked in 3 days.  As long as I was able to keep increasing my levels, I would not need the transfusion.

Once we were home, My wonderful Husband cleaned out our deep freeze and found every last package of liver possible.  (EWWW)  I don't like liver, but I wanted to keep my body mine and not have a transfusion.

My doctors were impressed.  That is an understatement.  He asked me EXACTLY what was I doing and eating.  I simply said beef, lots and lots of HOME RAISED beef!  Wow, was he amazed.  I don't have high cholesterol, and he now understood how.....  HOME RAISED.  He even went so far as to ask how we raised our cattle.   He was happy to hear that we pastured our beef.  huh?? 

What I didn't know then, was that he had been researching nutrition and the relationship to what each animal was fed.  This led me to start doing some of my own research and observations.

When I am consistent with a low carb, high protein (MEAT) diet, I have NO iron issues.  When I am off track, and we eat alot, and eat a ton of pasta.....IRON problems (like the one you see above).

So, if you have low iron, EAT MEAT, specifically home raised pastured beef!

EBERSOLE BEEF

Eat happy beef!

Shanen - Mama to the MamaCows at the Ebersole Ranch

Well, we live in the middle of nowhere.  When I drive out to go check cows, this is my view for about 2 miles.

I enjoy living out in the country, but it is hard to find good help.  But, having a family farm, means that I DO have some help.

My help is little right now, but they're learning!  My Cowgirl is great.  She can open gates, and with the help of a good dog, she can move cows pretty good!

These are the happy beef out in our pasture!  These cows and calves live the good life!! They get to graze and walk and move to new pasture each week.

Now is the time of year when we are harvesting GROUND BEEF!  So, I have put some of our Ground Beef Bundles on SPECIAL!!  I have added some new bundles of 50#.  If you live in Iowa or within 50 miles of any Iowa Border, I will ship your beef for free (you have to call me).

If you do call my cell, I might even throw in a discount for a reservation of a Refrigerator Sized Bundle of ALL Steaks this week.  Call me and reserve your Winter BEEF Quarter this week.  I'll make it worth your time!

Enjoy the view!  I get to see it first hand, as I go check cows.

Shanen-Mama to the Momma-Cows at the Ebersole Ranch

Wow! It seems like just yesterday that these little guys were trying to walk into my house.

Now, those little guys, are this big out in the pasture. Next weekend, we will have our first round-up of the fall season.

We will be grouping about 50 cows together and driving them about a mile on horseback and up into the corrals set up in the pasture. Its scheduled to be a fun and sunny day!

If you would like to come and visit and reserve your beef for next year, just call me and I can probably get you directions. (btw, we'll be at a pasture that has all dirt roads leading to it)

Take a look at our LocalHarvest Store, I'm trying to put up some new smaller bundles that will fit in a typical, refrigerator/freezer and are very economical! Keep checking, as it might take a couple of days to get to view the new bundles that are available for purchase NOW.

http://www.localharvest.org/store/M24259

Shanen

A happy Mama to the MamaCows at Ebersole Cattle Co

It's summer Show Time! We always have a couple of really great heifers to show at some shows through the summer.

Here is my oldest little Cowgirl with her heifer "Freedom".  This picture was taken at her very first show a couple of weeks ago.  They were named Grand Champion New Calf Crop.

This year we will also have a Fall born bull at the Iowa State Fair.

We'll have tons of fun showing our animals and helping our kids learn.  Right now, my Cowgirl gets up at 5am and goes outside with her Dad to wash her heifer and feed her every day.

I think that this kind of dedication to our animals and hard work will serve her well in her future.

If any of you are coming to the Iowa State Fair, drop us a note so that you can come pet a calf or meet us and reserve your Winter Beef now.

We have 3 beefs that have not been spoken for yet, and we will reserve now for Winter Delivery (you can pick a date from November thru February).

I hope y'all are enjoying your summer and having fun in the sun!!

Well, it is that time of year.  HARVEST TIME.  We have been busy AI'ing cows, and making sure that all of the calves are healthy on pasture.

And feeding the beef.  The beef have been growing great and we have 2 calves that are finishing size.  All of the beef that has been sold is currently "aging" at the locker.  These steers will be aged for 21 days to get the best flavor and tenderness.

I do have 1 more steer that is finished and just needs to find a home in a couple of people's freezers.

So, if you want great beef, with GREAT flavor and tenderness, drop me an e-mail and I will get you a very great price!

Hope the spring rains have treated you well!!

Shanen : )

Well, calving season is REALLY here!  We are almost half way through the season.  We now have our first group sorted so we can start breeding them.

Last week we were able to turn the GRASS FED BEEF calves out to pasture.  They are still supplemented with hay, but the grass is starting to grow.  Such a beautiful sight!  Calves grazing and foraging is a wonderful sight after such a long winter.

Here's a cute picture of a little one who was born on a cold rainy night, and was escorted into the house to warm up.  In the morning, I awoke to him trying to open the door to come IN my kitchen.  He didn't want to stay in the laundry room.  We took him back out to mama, and he drank like a pro!  It's always my worry that I have touched them too much, and then its a ton of work to get the cow to readily accept them again.  Not this mama, she wanted him the second we pulled him (on the sled) into the barn.  YEAH!!

You can see, by the calf in my house (one of many) that we REALLY care for our cattle.  We give them the BEST care possible!

All of our Spring BEEF has been sold, but we do have some fall beef still available!  Stop here and take a look.  We would love to customize your order of a full share of beef.  We can make sure you get the specific cuts and sized packages that YOUR family will enjoy!  We deliver to Omaha, Kansas City and the Quad Cities.  So, odds are, if you are within 300 miles of us, we can make a stop in YOUR area to deliver some fantastic beef.

As always, if you are in the area, just drop me a note and you can stop by the Ranch and see the calves and cows.  We even have a bottle calf you might get to feed, and the chickens ar making plenty of extra eggs if you need any. 

Happy Easter!

Our life on the Ranch has reached the busiest time of year! Calving time!  We also have been able to (so far) keep all of our '08 spring and fall calves.  We have sold several steers in our CSA pay as you go program, and have selected 13 heifers to stay in our herd.

We have 10 (hopefully 11 when I check heifers after posting this) calves on the ground right now.  Most of these early calves are purebred Maine Anjou calves.  We will keep some of these heifers in the herd, and offer the rest of the great ones to other MaineAnjou breeders.

Unfortunately, we must sell some of our calves.  Fortunately, we have Local Harvest, to help us sell some of these calves to locals (we will drive a long way to deliver great beef).  So, we are again having a BEEF SALE!  If you sign up for any size CSA share this month (February) we will also add an additional 25 pounds of Ground Beef.  The ground beef will be delivered immediately upon receipt of your down payment.  This will allow you to taste some of the great flavor that will be harvested in June.

Call us to help you determine what size share will best fit your family.

We LOVE to have visitors, and now is a great time with all of the cute calves on the ground!

Shanen

First of all, sorry for all of the time away from blogging.  Hope all y'all had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

We have 3 new puppies!!!  There are only three, because Rosie wasn't supposed to get bred this time, but Chilli, (our blue heeler working dog) couldn't help but take his girl for a 2 hour run one day.  Theese dogs will be great workers and family members.  If you are interested, just drop us a line.

Meanwhile back at the ranch...We have been busy!!!  We realised in early in December, that the Tax Man was gonna get us this year if we didn't act fast.  You see, he doesn't like it when you sell a large ranch and downsize.  Even if you use all the cash to pay off debt and purchase the new farm.  So, after a couple of meetings with our CPA, we decided to increase our cowherd!   YEAH!!  We don't have to run as many outside cows (cows other people own).  So a shoppin we went.

We bought 15 new cows at two Maine-Anjou dispersal sales.  And, we also purchased 18 new Angus cattle from Werner's in Diagonal.  With some heifers, we bought at some local sales, we have increased our herd by 40 head.  I can't tell you how excited I am for my new girls to calve!!

Our barn finishing touches are coming along, and we will soon have lights and our waterer pads poured.

We have a couple of beef that will be harvested on Tuesday.  We will have about  800 total pounds of LEAN ground beef.  YEAH!!  I have a hundred pounds that isn't yet spoken for, so if you would like to try our beef before you join our CSA, just drop me a note, and I'll arange shipping.

More stories and pictures to arrive soon  : ))

Shanen

First, I have to give credit where credit is due.  This post is inspired by The Beginning Farmer.  Her blog post inspired me to ask y'all the same question. "What is the main thing you would like people to know about your agricultural word?"

I have run itno the same problems as she has.  You would be (or maybe not) amazed by the amount of people that think that Ranchers and Farmers are hurting our environment and the earth.

I am amazed that people say that it is wrong to raise cattle for beef.  So, if you aren't supposed to make that steer into beef, what are you supposed to do with it??  Beef cattle were put on this earth for exactly that reason.  I might even argue that dairy cattle are supposed to become our food once their useful life has run out. 

I believe that we aren't doing Gods work if we don't utilize all of the beef that was put on this earth.  I also believe that most Ranchers and Farmers improve their environment.  We do this for many reasons, most of them profitable, and some for our future generations.

I would like the general public to really understand all of the precautions we go thru to care for our land. 

1 - Personally, we make sure that we leave timber areas tall grass areas.  We leave these areas so that our cows will have sheltered areas to lay in, and calve in, during the winter. 

2 - We don't tear up the land and we don't overfertilize the ground creating run-off to the streams and rivers.  We need those streams for our cows to drink, so why would we pollute them?  We need that topsoil to grow great grass and feed for our cows, so why would we damage it?  We go to great lengths to preserve the earth and improve the dirt so we can improve the grass and grow more beef.

3 - If beef is grown and harvested carefully, it doesn't hurt the animal in ANY way.  That may sound wierd, but its true.  If you raise your beef cattle in a clean and dry environment, they are comfortable and eat, and grow very healty.  If you move them to the harvesting location slowly and smoothly, and you then restrain them properly, they won't feel the pain.  It will (and should be) done smoothly and instantly, to prevent suffering.  In addition, a facility that is so careful with the live animal will (and should) take those same precautions to handle the meat carefully and cleanly, thus preventing harm to the people that eat it.

I know that this may seem a little off, from my usual stories, but I was inspired.  I hope y'all will chime in and tell us what you want people outside of agriculture to know about what you do.  I look forward to hearing from everyone!

Remember, high quality beef is GOOD for you!  And its good for the cattle and our earth.

We still have 2 shares of Grass-Fed beef and 2 shares of Corn-Fed beef.  Send me a note to reserve your shares today and set up your pay-as-it-grows plan.            Shanen : )

The cows are out on pasture.  First, sorry I took a little time-out from blogging.  The business aspect of moving the Ranch has gotten to me, and stolen all of my time.

We had our first real snow here in southern Iowa this Sunday.  It was beautiful!  However, as you know, I don't like cows and claves in dry lots.  It makes for sick critters, and since we don't use antibiotics, we don't like to do it.  So, out they went.  All of 'em.  They love it!  They run and play and have fun foraging thru the snow.  They bed down at night in the deep grass, and down into a low spot with trees.  It is so pretty at night with all of the white snow reflecting the dark cattle bedded down into it.

It is also fun, because that means that I get to call the cows in to feed  and check them.  In the pasture, I shake and bang buckets together and call "come BAAAAASSSS".  Once the first cow hears me, she sticks her head in the air and bellows.  Everybody looks, and starts coming for me.  Some at a run and others slowly ambling along.  After a few days, they get smart and start to run,  because I only feed two to three buckets, and the "pigs" eat the biggest share.   Then the work begins.  Any cow that doesn't come up, gets checked.  If I have my munchkins with me, out in the truck we go, if not, maybe a horse.  Mostly the other cows are just relaxing and enjoying the pasture. No sick or hurt ones yet!

Now, for a short note on the business side of things.   One of the most heartwrenching things for me is taking calves to the sale barn.  I don't like it!  It is conventional farming at it's worst!!  The calves are penned with other calves to be sold together.  Then, after they are sold, they're pushed in semi-trucks with strangers to go who knows where, and be fed in whatever way is cheapest.  The heifers are implanted (hormone implants in their ears) to keep them from cycling, and the steers are implanted to keep them growing like bulls. (I HATE IMPLANTS!! and I rarely use that word).  Then they are shipped again and sent to a packing house and harvested and handled very disrespectfully.

So, this is what I've been trying to figure out.   How do I expand my beef production, so I can keep everyone that doesn't meet the quality to be kept as a cow or a bull?

So, ITS SALE TIME!!!  I would love for this to work!!!  I want to sell shares of 8 more calves by the time we have to take them to market in the beginning of January.  Please, if you are at all interested in the highest quality, most humanely raised beef possible e-mail me.  I will be selling ground beef for a 10% discount, and beef shares for a 15% discount.

I also lowered our base prices to reflect the current markets.  Hurry, before markets go back up, and I have to cave to my husband and increase them again.

I have also made a great "buy-as-it-grows" plan.  You would place a small down payment and recieve some ground beef at that time (to give you a great tase of what's to come) and then you would make installment payments as the beef grows.   This will allow me to make our farm payment in January and pay for feedstuffs as we need them.  I think this arrangement would work best for all of us.  And most importantly to me (and the calves), I won't have to take these calves to the sale barn!

I know that you want the highest quality beef.  So don't go to the store, come to the producer.  That way, you get the best value, and the calves will get the best care!

I hope to hear from you, and find a beef package that meets your needs and budget.   ~Shanen

 Yes, this is a story from Sunday's Moving cows and yes, Beau was taught a lesson.  But it was Very Funny, (at least I can admit it now).  And of course, you can laugh!  I always do!

Well, if you have read my first two blogs on Local Harvest you know that we have moved our Ranch this summer.  Our new barn has been built for some time, and the corrals have been built for a month.  Everyone around here kept asking what we were going to use that BIG barn for.  We kept telling them for the calves and colts.  They would look at us with a question and ask if we had any cows.  You see we have not had ANY cattle on this farm except for the bulls (and they were only here for 1 month).  None of our new Ringold County neighbors had ever seen us with any cattle at our homeplace.  The cows have been at the rented pasture this summer.

As I told you on Friday, we moved the cows home this weekend.  We did it!!  All by ourselves.  Beau had to work in town on Saturday, so we just got everything set up.  We set up the portable corral at the pasture and fed the cows in the corral.  This convinces them that this is a good place to be! ; ) 

Sunday morning bright and early we loaded up the kids, and the dogs and off we went.  Our rented pasture is only 15 miles from the house, so it is a short trip.  We arrived at the pasture, and made our plan.  I would take the 4-wheeler out and around the pond to move the cows to Beau and he would "call" the cows into the corral.  Well, he had more luck than I did.  He locked up ~25 while I was still on the other side of the pond. 

I made my sweep around the pond with the dogs close behind.  The cows weren't happy about being woken up early and were slow to go to the corral.  I managed to push in another 25 or so.  Then it gets tricky!  The last cows are ALWAYS the worst.  They don't want to go in and the want to run and chase.  We decided to haul a load home and bring the horse.

We are able to haul about 10 calves and 12 cows each trip.  Made the trip and arrived back at the pasture with the horse.  This time we switched, I was calling and Beau was pushing on Ozzie (the horse).  We made a sweep and not one cow came in.  We put the 4-wheeler away (I hate those things!) and tried again and cought 5 pairs.  We were both severely frustrated and decided to haul some more cows home. 

We made another 3 trips (I will tell you a funny story about one of theese trips later this week) and we got LUCKY!  The crazy(mean, ornery and taking the rest far, far, away) cow was standing in the gateway.  We were VERY sneaky and we finally got her locked up!!!!  YEEE HAAA!  Unfortunately it was dark and we were done for the night, but they were all locked up at the pasture and at the house. 

I LOVE our new facilities @ home.  We did not have to worry that the cows were going to go hunting for their calves and get out, we had easy fresh water and it was great!  After a long day and another long one to go we could still sleep easy.

If you enjoy these types of stories, leave me a note and I'll keep them coming. 

We did select some great beef calves that will be worked and weaned this coming weekend.  Please e-mail me to reserve your shares.  I think we have 4 whole shares left, so please let me know and I can put your name on a calf.

I will have that funny story from Sunday and the story of Monday later in the week.

Shanen : ))

Thankfulness.  That word is a mouthful, but the things it brings to mind are simple.  God. Family. Farm. Cows. Horses. Nature. Natural.

I am thankful for all of theese things and each one is dependent and brought to us by the others on my thankfull list. 

God gave us our family, and gave us to our families.  We need to remember that without Him, none of theese things are possible.

Our families are a gift from God and we need to treat them as sacred gifts.  We need to make sure that we are always, ALWAYS thankful and loving towards our families.

Cows are also a special gift we are entrusted with.  We show our respect and appreciation for these cattle by lovingly raising them for their intended purposes.  Wonderful beef and great mothering (or siring) abilities.  We should all treat them with nothing but the utmost respect and care for the entire time we have them, including their harvest.  This means we should also enjoy all the beef and byproducts entirely and not waste anything.

My horses are my wonderful luxury.  I am so thankful that I was given the opportunity at a young age to enjoy the love of a horse.  That pony was (and is) my best friend through all of those rough adolescent years.  I am so thankful that he was there to listen to all of my problems, and to help me learn to love each and every animal on the planet.

I am thankful for nature.  This sounds simple and plain, and that is just the way I mean it.  I love each and every sound and thing in nature (even the annoying Asian LadyBugs).

I am thankful that we are natural.  I love that we can put a calf back in his natural environment (grass) and it will grow and mature into natural, wonderful beef.  I love natural pasture and letting nature show us what we need to do to improve. I am thankful that God made it natural for us to love him and life on the ranch.

I am also thankful to the wonderful, creative people that help take care of us and help us to provide natural grass fed beef through a website like this.  Thank you!

I hope all of you will have a wonderful Thanksgiving and stay safe!

Shanen

Just another funny story of life on the ranch and the things a wonderful smart pony can do that he's learned in his 23 years of life.