Tractors, Trailers, and Pasture, Oh My!

Happy June!

We had some awesome things happen last week.

First, our fourth grader received a response from a business letter he wrote for his English class.  He wrote the marketing division of TOMY international, who markets 1/64th scale tractors, mainly for John Deere.  He wrote to them over a month ago, and had come to terms with the fact he might not get anything back.

Well....he did. And it was not just a letter!  It was a box, with requested catalog AND a few "samples" of their products.  They also enclosed a neat letter to him.  We were all very surprised!

Trust me-he was way more excited than this!

Secondly, we made a big decision here on the farm.  We decided to sell the remaining dry cows!  We are currently milking 127.  Having only about 115 acres of grazing land available on the home farm, we are well stocked, or even overstocked within the milking herd.  We kept one cow of  kid #2, an open heifer for freezer beef, and a heifer that did not get bred that belongs to Kid #4.  We're going to give her another shot this year.  So, we only have one more cow left to freshen!

It was actually difficult to sell those extra cows.  The normal mindset of a typical dairyman would keep anything that was healthy, and only sell the cows that had problems.  However, one of the benefits of grazing is a very low cull rate (% cows that leave the farm), so unless we are constantly growing exponentially, we have extra cattle to sell.  We handle this two ways.  We only keep a total of 30 heifer calves each spring, and sell the remaining heifer calves-up to another 35-40.  Can you imagine how many cows we would have if we kept all those heifers?  Secondly,  we cull cows a little more freely here because we have had so many replacements available.  We will still have to cull a couple from the milking herd before the end of the year, but that will actually be a good thing. By the time we go into winter, we need to have the herd down to about 120 or we will not have enough space at the feed bunk.  Winter is also the most expensive time to care for a cow, so why not milk more during the grazing season, and a few less in the winter?

Rick and I shared a good laugh about some of our favorites before they left....

Good-bye, dry cows!  Thank you for your years of service!  Best wishes at your new farm!

AND.....we had a pasture walk!  A pasture walk is where a group of forage focused folks meet at a farm and literally walk the pasture.  We talk about new seedings, old seedings, grass mixes, fencing, lane construction, anything that has to do with grazing.  We gave a farm overview near the parlor, discussed the compost barn, then a took a walk down the new lane.  We walked all the way to the north end of the farm to the new seeding where we have our regular pasture mix and pasja turnips planted. THEN, we walked all the way back to the house for ice cream and toasted marshmallows at the fire pit.  We had a great time!  It's always good to gather with like minded people to gain insight, new ideas and suggestions.

We've been finishing up first cutting this week.  High quality hay is important to us, so we waited until the alfalfa was in the bud stage to cut.  This means that our first cutting was a tad later than some of the other farms, but that's okay!  We are content with 3-4 cuttings of the best hay we can make.

Row #1!  We put up almost 400 bales for 1st cutting.

Sometimes important things get neglected during these busy spring months.  We go from calving to planting and from planting to haying.  But we try to find those little ways to remind each other that we don't take the other for granted.....

One of the kids said "We're just going to have to keep those bales together somehow!"