I am a better farmer than a rancher!

It has been sometime since I last posted a blog, as life has been a bit busy the last year, After several attempts of raising my own beef I finally have one in the freezer.  I first got a steer over two years ago and put it in the front pasture.  I was told that it should have a friend because cows are herd animals and can die of loneliness.   Yea right?  He (T-Bone) was approaching 9000 lbs and looking strong and healthy and eating good.  I came back from a kayaking trip to find him dead and bloated.  I never figured out what caused his death and it was such a waste to loose him as he was very close to slaughter.  I was happy I have a backhoe, but the experience was defiantly not pleasant and the smell gut wrenching. Did T-Bone die of loneliness?  It was a rough day and as it turns out not the only thing I lost that weekend, but that is another story.

So I am not the type of person who takes defeat well.  I have a cattle rancher friend in Colorado who was looking to sell some cows the fall before last.  I also had a project going on in Aspen, CO (that is defiantly another blog) at the time so I decided to drive instead of fly and bring home some girls (heifers). Yes I was going to double down on raising beef.  I was planning on bringing home two but being the dumb ass I am I took a third.  She was the runt of the other twin and in the spur of the moment Paddy came to California with us.

Paddy did not handle the 14 hour trip well, or she was sick from the start?  She developed a cough and while my friends were eating Thanksgiving turkey I was giving my first shots to a cow.  Yes that was a shit show.  She did manage to get better for a spell but  only to go south again.  The two other heifers were getting bigger and stronger, but she was loosing weight.   Paddy had chronic pneumonia and after another round of shots, another shit show, it was determined by the vet it was best to put her down as she would not recover and I had no intensions on consuming meat pumped full of antibiotics nor would I do that to my friends of family.  Paddy died before I had to do the dead and I still wonder if that was good or bad, but now I have purchased a total of 4 cows and have buried two- 50/50- not impressive.

When I was putting Paddy in the earth, I isolated and distracted her twin sister Kava with grain.  She came to the site as I was backfilling and she went totally nuts.  Kava was running and bucking around the entire 4 acre pasture, coming back to smell the earth and doing it again.  It was totally crazy and I just stayed on the tractor and did not want to be walking around.  At one point when she came up to the grave I saw a tear fall from her eye as she kept smelling the ground.  I do have the stomach for this sort of thing but walked away with a very different respect for cows.  Meanwhile, the other heifer, Miss Piggy was indifferent.

After a long summer which lead into fall, it was time to harvest a cow.  I decided to slaughter Miss Piggy (yes me and the kids name them and we have no problem with that) first as she was the larger of the two and I really did not want to deal with two cows at the same time.  The event went well enough and finally have meat in the freezer, finally!  The deer on the ranch got a pass this year.

So I still have Kava left and she is starving for attention and find myself having to go visit her several times a day as she bellows for attention.  She tolerated me when she had friends, but without another cow in the pasture, she has put her attention to me.  When I go out there and call her name she literally comes running to me like a dog and proceeds to lick me from toe to tits.   We actually go for walks, to avoid all the licking, and I think I could probably take her for a walk down the road.  She will be harvested at the beginning of the year, assuming she makes it, and will be missed as she has taught me a lot about heard animals and myself.

My garden did great during my rancher phase and the cows did reap some of the benefits of that, but I have realized I am a better famer than a rancher.  I am done with cows but the experience will remain!

Maybe Sheep?

The World According To Jeff

Update:  Kava did make it to slaughter so my ranch record is now 50%.  I am happy I did not quit my day job.

TWATJ