British White Cattle for Sale in East Texas - Have a look at the Herd

Wow, talk about a drought busting stretch of rain!  It was odd to wake up this morning and realize the sound of thunder or rain on the roof had not woken me up all night - as that has been the norm for a stretch of days lasting almost a week.  Some days it seemed we were in the tropics, it would just gently rain and rain and rain all day.  I can't say for sure, but I think we've had at least 9 inches all together - our newly adopted dog decided to see how the rain guage chewed, so the only measure is from a 5 gallon bucket.  I do hope the rest of the country sees some relief soon from the drought, and maybe finds some hope in the pouring rains of the Texas/Lousiana coast that likewise suffered through drought last summer.

Here's a look at some very impatient British White cows, they had let me know a day or so before that they were somewhat irritated at the conditions in the adjoining pasture and were quite ready to move on - and they moved on in a hurry.  Can't say I blame them, the grass was looking mighty fine on the other side of the fence.

Most all the cow/calf pairs offered for sale are in this group.  If there's a particular cow in the video that catches your eye, give me a call, she may be available as well.

Day's Long Gone -

No - It's Not a Pic of a Cow - Working on Finding
One That Would Be Appropriate!

I tend to recall this poem every summer about now, so thought I'd share it again . . . hope all those overwhelmed right now with drought conditions in the USA and around the world, have some relief soon and hear the welcome patter of rain drops on their roof tops.

Slip-N-Slide Junes

It’s hot as Hades in the noonday sun.
Sweat drips and runs and cuts through the dust
Of my reddened face, as my breath comes harsh
In the June heat that once was meant for fun.
I wipe my slick brow, my eyes sting with sweat --
and my hot mind rolls back to days long gone.
. . . in the days long gone of Slip-n-Slide Junes.


We slipped our bums down the wet yellow sheet -
no worries about a third degree burn.
Barefoot and bareheaded we ran through the woods,
no fear of a clearing causing scorch to our nose,
or our brains slow baking like a casserole.
Many miles we walked the neighborhood streets,
never a care that we’d blister our feet.

And mud-puddles! What a supreme delight!
Our bare feet splashing each puddle in sight!
Many’s the time we snuck soft out the door
While the thunder rumbled and the rain still poured.
Our giggles of joy, our screams at the glory,
seem a faint memory in the days long gone.

A rope we would string between two pear trees,
and a blanket we would pitch o’er the top.
And in our TeePee we’d camp for the night,
tell scary stories, play the old Ouija,
tryin’ our darnedest to stay up all night!
Seems a faint memory in days long gone.

Hot are the days, but as well are the nights,
like a smothering blanket of clinging heat -
a hot flash like yo’ Momma don’t need,
like an evil conjure from old Ouija.
It's hot as Hades in the noon day sun -
in the June heat that once was meant for fun.
In Slip-N-Slide Junes of days long gone.

Copyright ©Katie.Flippin 2010, All Rights Reserved


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Thinking of Sprigging a new Pasture? Harvest Bermuda Sod with a Two-Horse Turning Plow Instead . . .

The health of pasture grasses this season, after the really hot late summer drought we had here, is a constant topic of conversation - even if only in my own mind with my own self.  I've seen lots more weeds this year, and some even look like new varieties to me, and some of the pastures are growing thinner stands of grass than last year.  I've been exploring having the back pasture plowed up and sprigged again with one of the new bermuda grasses.  But Ouch, it costs a lot to do, and I don't know that it can be justified except in a hay farming operation where irrigation is available - unless you are really good at predicting healthy spring and early summer rains.  Otherwise, there's lots of risk your money will go right down a dry drain.

Here's a look at an old-fashioned approach to establishing bermuda grass pastures in 1898 Mississippi. 

"You will find it growing well on the sandy soil of the piny woods, and on the red clay hills and on the black lands of the prairie belt.  Since Bermuda grass very rarely, if ever, matures seed in this latitude, the only safe method to propagate it is by transplanting the roots or the underground stems. This should be done in March.

After the land has been prepared as recommended above, then with a bull-tongue or narrow shovel plow open rows two feet apart. With a short spade shave off sod two inches thick; or, a cheaper and quicker method would be take a two-horse turning plow and set it to run shallow, and turn or edge up the sod.  

The sod can then be hauled in large pieces to the field and there be broken or cut into small pieces and dropped in the drill two feet apart, and covered with a light harrow;or, a better plan would be to go over the field with a heavy roller. This would firm the loose soil around the sod and at the same time level or press down the ridges left by the plow.  If the pieces of sod are entirely covered there will be no harm done - as soon as there is moisture enough in the soil the roots will take hold and the grass make rapid growth. In this climate Bermuda will furnish excellent grazing from the middle of May until the middle of November, and often as late as the middle of December."

From:  Winter and Summer Pasture in Mississippi, 1898, by Edward Read Lloyd

Here's a look at the cows in the back pasture a couple weeks back.  This pasture was once a dedicated hay pasture and received constant commercial fertilizers like clockwork in the growing season for probably 20 years.  It has been the poorest growing pasture for years now, and I have to wonder if it's not because of all that commercial fertilizer.  Cows never grazed the land to give it back more complex natural fertilizer, it just lived on N, P, and K. 

 

British White Cattle Association Annual Meeting in Snyder, Texas

Make plans to attend the annual meeting of the BWCAA on June 8th and 9th in Snyder, Texas.  Members and non-members alike are welcome to attend, and it is a great opportunity to learn more about the breed and meet breeders from around the country.  The BWCAA meeting events will be held at the Coliseum Ag Annex in Snyder.

The Western Swing Festival will be in full swing in Snyder that weekend as well, with lots of live entertainment and good food to enjoy.  For more information on the Festival visit http://www.SnyderChamber.org . 

I'm hoping some rain will 'swing' our way while we are attending the Snyder meeting.  We're dry as a bone and the flooding rains of spring seem like a dream.  To remind me it was real, here is a video of the terminally low pond on our place.  It was brim full in April, the floating dock was actually floating for the first time in years.  Fortunately, it is still floating, but the pond level has dropped . . . . quite a few feet already.

Cattle Are Sentient Creatures - And I wouldn't have it any other way . . .

J.West's Elsie Edna and J.West's Clementine, April 2012
Best Buddies, Born 4 Days Apart

There are times in this cow business when I find myself considering, fleetingly, becoming a vegetarian; when I keenly understand why some folks are so adamantly anti-meat.  Some particular event happens that makes me think a little deeper about the 'feelings' of my cows, or at least some of them.

I then mull over in my mind many of the fairly ridiculous stances of a lot of the extremist PETA types, most of whom no doubt have never stepped in cow manure or certainly never resuscitated a newborn calf -- but yet are emphatic that cows are 'sentient' creatures and therefore shouldn't be eaten.  Which leaves them in a sorry life in a zoo in some perfect future vegan world with zero meat consumption. Wait . . . That's also the FAO arm of the United Nations' long term plan! But I'm not going there this morning, discussing the FAO right now would give me a headache and make me nauseous, and my health care has already gone up 40% in the last two years, so I have to be careful not to go to the doctor, that might be an excuse to raise my rates another 20% next year. Oops, digressing . . .

Elsie Edna and Clementine, April 2012

I recently sent Elsie Edna and Clementine on to their new home in Oklahoma.  These two heifers are really bonded, more often than not found together, and I think would really have been traumatized to have been shipped off to separate pastures.  Eventually that strong tie they have now won't be so important, but at 2 years old the bond is still very strong.  Clearly, these two demonstrate that cattle are indeed 'sentient' creatures, as they have 'feelings' toward one another.

I 'had' two other heifers who were very much pasture buddies, born 7 days apart - J.West's Boopsie and J.West's Lassie.  Unfortunately, I never took a photo of the two of them together, but I do have a 'picture memory' of the two of them from last Sunday.  They both walked up to the cattle guard by the house, checked it out, looked at me, and presumably listened to me (okay probably not) when I told them not to walk that cattle guard.  But, they did promptly turn around and prance off together . . . and that's the last time I saw them alive and well.

Sunday night we were hit by the worst of thunderstorms and the lightning was very bad.  Boopsie and Lassie died under a grove of hickory trees, lying about a foot apart.  Fortunately, the rest of the cattle in that group were all fine, and so was every other pasture group.  I had moved this group in to the pasture by the house on Sunday so they could get shelter under the barn's big tractor shed, which they generally immediately do when the rain gets hard.  For some unknown reason they didn't this time.  The ground outside the shed was smooth and slicked off from the massive flow of water run-off from the barn roof (we had probably 11 inches or more of rain), so clearly the cows didn't exit the shed after the storm, they simply weren't there.

J.West's Boopsie in August 2011
Boopsie was Carter sired out of a Popeye daughter, bw 66 lbs.

Could it be something wasn't safe that night about the shed?  Oddly, when we finally got power back on Monday, all the power to the barns was still out, and that's never happened before.  Something caused the main breaker to all the barns to trip, and I have to wonder if it was a lightning strike directly to the barns or a hit to the ground around the barns.  They are metal pole barns, with tin roofs and walls of course, and I've not ever considered the possible danger to the cattle from being under a metal structure during severe lightning.  So far we haven't found a thing to indicate a strike on or around the barns, so it will remain a mystery.

J.West's Lassie as a newborn, her dam is J.West's Taylor Maid
Lassie was Carter sired with a bw of 37 lbs.

The sight of those two heifers lying dead and bloated under the hickory grove was a shocking sight.  Their walk to the cattle guard, their quizzical looks at me and down at the rails of the cattle guard, and that quite prancing turn and exit off to the pasture was all I could see in my mind, the contrast startling, the end of that life lying in the mud.  Rational or not, this became one of those moments when I question what I do, and think of the 'sentient' creature argument of vegans against eating meat.

But, even so, as the days have passed and I've thought about my own personal reaction to the loss of the heifers, I suspect it is me being too sentient of a human creature about my cows, or at least about some of them.  Yes, I do think cattle are 'sentient' creatures, many seem to make eye contact with us humans with something ticking in their brains and coming through their eyes that makes a total lie of the 'dumb cow' phrase for sure, could be their eyes are just so pretty I imagine it though.  Look at little Lassie pictured below - she had the sweetest eyes ever.  But sentient creatures or not, beef has been critical to the human diet since time out of mind.

J.West's Lassie, June 2011

So, I'll not be tossing out all the grassfed beef in the freezers, or turning the ranch in to a petting zoo, and for sure I also won't stop caring about the well being of my cows and trying to tune in to what they need in a 'sentient' way.  I'm glad I had that odd last encounter with Boopsie and Lassie; you have to wonder, or at least I have to wonder, about the timing of that and their death mere hours later.  I couldn't tell you one thing about any other cow or calf in that group from the afternoon before - just that picture memory in my brain of Boopsie and Lassie . . .

Yes, cattle are quite the sentient creatures, but I wouldn't have it any other way.