Progress and Patience...

Well, already our Belties have (apparently) gained a small following. As we were grocery shopping yesterday we had a few people stop us to ask about them and we also were met with questions at church!

On Friday I went to water the cows because I knew their water was low... well, it was a little lower than I thought and they were having trouble reaching it. As soon as I showed up, so did they! They were close... closer than they've ever been! RIGHT on the other side of the fence. It took a lot of self-control to not try to pet them, but I knew I still needed to bide my time on that.

Saturday when my sister was here to see the PBR with us, the cows wanted little to do with us and kept a "safe" distance.

But yesterday... ah-ha! We had a breakthrough! We knew that these cattle had been raised grass-fed and weren't familiar with grain. We've been trying to bribe them with sweet feed, which obviously isn't working out so well. So Kevin suggested we try giving them some of our good second cutting hay in the feed trough. I was a little skeptical, but it was snowing like crazy, we had to go get hay anyway, and I was having fun spending time in the snow with my husband, so I agreed we should try it.

We showed up at the field with an armload of second cutting hay and 1104 immediately trotted for the trough. He was interested!!

The other three cattle were at the other end of the field, but their ears perked right up when they saw 1104 headed for us and the trough. It didn't take long before two more had joined him.

(As you can see, 1001 is pretty happy with his treat...)

They didn't like for us to be RIGHT beside them, so we backed up about 10 feet and they were satisfied with that distance.

While everyone else was excited about their hay and didn't mind us being there too much, 1102 is pretty wary of us still, and he decided he wasn't quite sure about this ploy on the humans' part, so you can see his progress in the pictures below... pretty comical. He wanted that hay so badly but just wasn't sure if we were safe...








"I don't really know about this..."












"But I really want some of that hay..."

"Okay...I got a little.. this is good... but those people are still standing there..."











"Alright...I'm not going to miss out just because of the people...I guess I'll just keep an eye on them and eat up!"








Anyway, we were pretty excited! It seems that after having been a week since we dumped them off the "tin can," as Kevin calls the trailer, they're finally settling in to their surroundings and to us!

(After 1102 finally settled in... that's the look of contentment we were hoping to see!)

(You can see the crazy March 24 snow in this one! We were getting pelted out there!)

The lesson Kevin says we learned yesterday is: When trying to befriend grass fed cattle, don't try to bribe them with grain they've never seen before! Huh! True! Wish we'd have thought of that about 5 days ago... Oh well! Just one of the adventurous lessons we're learning as we go!

New Faces on the Farm!

We have new faces on our farm as of Saturday! They're very furry and look like Oreos... 

but they're cows! 

Oreo cows! 

Belted Galloways! 

Belties! 

Whatever name you prefer. 

Friday evening we left right as Kevin got home and trucked across the state of PA to spend the night in Mechanicsburg. Then it was up at 5:30 Saturday morning to hit the road for our cows! Being that close, we of course stopped and had breakfast with my grandma. After a quick visit we stopped by the cemetery and then were back on the road to get to the farm and pick our cows. We were both filled with nerves and anticipation! We were finally going to purchase the first of our chosen breed!! 

We chose our heifers first and left them there to be bred. Then we chose our steers and the farm owner and his helper loaded them into the trailer. If you look at the picture of them being loaded, you'll count 5 belts, but only see 4 in the pictures below... 5 of these boys wouldn't fit in our trailer! Oops! Lesson learned... so we left one behind. 

These are our boys... well, technically, they are 3 steers and 1 heifer... but we're calling the heifer a steer for our purposes. She was a twin and apparently twins are sterile, so she will be a feeder for us! Aren't they cute? 

These guys have only been grass-fed. We like to do primarily grass fed as well with just a grain finish, so it works great for us! The only problem is that they don't know that we're bringing them "candy" (as my father in law calls it :) ) when we show up at the trough since they're just used to grass and hay. That's alright... They're learning quickly! See that hay hanging out of 1102's mouth? Well, he's eating it only because he just scarfed down the grain that we hid underneath. In less than 48 hours they figured it out! (Yes, I know we're pathetic for bribing them to like us by using grain... but we had to do something.)

However, even those they've improved vastly in their disdain for us since Saturday night, look at this picture... This was their typical response to us showing up on Sunday. Every time we got near the pasture they would turn around and high tail it out of there in an Oreo line!

With a little bit of patience and a while standing in the cold of Sunday afternoon, we were able to (sort of) convince them that we're not the enemy and Kevin was able to get this close to them. Yep - that's all the close we could manage! I keep saying that all I want to do is pet their fuzzy ears, but Kevin laughs and (rightly so) tells me that will probably be a week or two down the road. Until then, I guess I should be satisfied with the progress I saw last night - I was able to stand at their water tank while they were at the trough. Instead of running away, they looked at me with a lot of curiosity! (Personally, I think 1102 wanted to come check me out, but peer pressure kept him where he was!) I just know that they're going to come around and I'll be petting their fuzzy ears soon... I just know it!

As a parting photo, here is Kevin, visiting his new steers before we began the long journey back home on Saturday... He's so excited (as am I) about a new beginning on our farm with a breed we've both fallen in love with! Look them up - they're so unique and special! 

Stay tuned for a post about King, our royal bottle-baby goat later this week! 

*As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord*

It's Been A Long Time...

Well... yes, I'm apparently having a rocky start to my blogging! It's been roughly 6 months since my last (and first) post!

A lot has happened since then, so I'm going to do my best to write a brief recap and tell you what's coming up, Lord willing!

To begin - this blog was originally created so that I could update my grandpa who lived pretty far away and always wanted to know what was going on with Kevin and I. He loved farming and hearing about it was a great source of entertainment for him when I would tell him stories about our goofy goats, cows, or a wayward chicken. Unfortunately (for us left here), my Pap entered the presence of his Lord and Savior in November and no longer can see my blog. However, I feel that this blog can become a market tool for us as we seek to grow our farm.

Kevin and I thoroughly enjoyed our first Christmas together as a married couple. We went to a Christmas tree farm to harvest our own fresh tree and had a great time decorating it together. We were able to spend Christmas day with my family in PA and then hosted Kevin's family Christmas later in the week.

In January we began butchering our steers and to our pleasant surprise had an overwhelming customer list. We had several people who ended up wanting to buy, but we didn't have enough meat before it was said and done!! All five are now in people's freezers and we get compliments on the quality, flavor, and leanness of our meat on a regular basis. This year we're hoping to grow slightly and then really expand next year when we gain some more ground to work with. We're also working on getting a license that will allow us to sell cuts so that people can choose what to buy as they need it.

On January 1, our mama goat delivered twin girls. A few days later one of them died, but the other is alive and thriving! Sammy is quite blocky and such a sweetheart. We enjoy her a lot! We also adopted a bottle baby buck from our neighbor. He's named King because of a white "crown" marking, but it's an apt name for the little guy. He's quite the character and takes his kingdom with him wherever he goes. He thinks he runs the place... shh, don't tell him we're really in charge! (King will have a post all of his own very soon!)

There will be many updates coming! Some of the upcoming topics will be: Belted Galloways, Idaho Pasture Pigs, our goats, some experiments that I've tried from Pinterest, some recipes I've been playing with, and just general updates on what goes on around here these days.

It's been a crazy few months with so many blessings from God. We remark often to each other that it's hard to believe how far our Lord has brought us in the past year. As a couple we pray often that God will continue to grow our fledgling farm and use it to glorify Himself. As we seek to honor Him with our work here, we invite you to join us on our journey and visit our farm through our blog!