Beef to Chickens

Bruce and Jesse have been working away since the first of March, tearing out one half of the beef barn to have a place to keep chickens. We were fortunate to get layer quota for 1000 hens, and this is where we will put the cage system.

Bedding up the cows

Here are two pics of Jesse spreading sawdust into the freestalls with our new sawdust thrower that we got with the new skidsteer at Christmas.

Goodbye Gus

Yesterday we buried Gus, our old horse. He died in his sleep this week, we think he was around 32 years old. Here is a pic taken of him last year, with Carrie.

Tanya's Family

Here is a pic of Tanya's family...her husband TJ, Tanya, Emma, and Madilyn...and soon one more.
She was supposed to send me a picture after she was here on March break, but Bruce , Sarah, and Carrie had to drive up and take it themselves at her home in Glassville. But they got to enjoy a marvelous Easter dinner with them and TJ's father, brother and sister.

Bradford, Stacy, & Nanny

The Future

Here is a pic of Jesse, just out of a phone booth but minus the cape...hmmmm...

Manicures

Thursday we had our foot trimmer in and clipped the toes of 15 cows. We send them in a chute, flip 'em on their side, and it makes it so easy.

Milk & Beef

Here is a pic of the milk truck taking a load of milk this morning.
We also sold a bunch(23) of beef calves to a feed lot today. Here are a couple of pictures of them waiting for the trailer to arrive.

#2011's new calf

Just to show this is actually a farm, I had Carrie take a pic of a new calf we had on Saturday. A nice big bull calf. We like heifers, and have had lots so far this year, but we are now raising all our bull calves for 3 months or so for veal, so this big calf will do well for us.

Gibson

We have some catching up to do, so I'm going to post a pic of the newest family member now. He is Bradford Hyde Matheson, born February 15th (notice the r in February, Stacy?) . Proud sister is Kara, and her Mom and Dad, Gilbert & Stacy. Bradford is named after his paternal grandfather, and the Hyde is his great, great grand mothers maiden name.( and a good excuse when there is too much work to do..)

Willard's First Blog

Hi all. I thought this was going to be easy, but I guess things don't come to a llama as fast.
I thought a few pictures of our March break high lights would be nice. Carrie was off to Quebec for 5 days with her cadet group. The Simmonds Air Cadets. Here is a pic of Carrie getting ready to go. We also had a visit from her big sister Tanya, her daughters Emma & Madilyn, and later in the week they were all back with some guy called TJ. He said something to me out in the barn that wasn't very nice. I'm going to get Tanya to send me a pic to post.

Welcome Back!

After a 1.5 year break this blog is under new management. We will try and update it a little more regularly. This is Willard, our most recent addition, and he is responsible for the blog from this day forward.