Organic Inspection

Washington State Inspector Les Ecklund inspects one of the fields that is candidate for producing organic hay.  This is a necessary step toward getting organic beef.  It was surprising to learn that cattle can only become organic certified by being born under organic management.  None of the mature animals in the herd today will ever be "organic"!

Driveway Gets Topsoil Skirt

New Driveway

Today saw the new driveway into the cows become a reality.  David's new dump truck  hauled a lot of the gravel.

Berry Boss

Meet Chris.  He is in charge of the new raspberries and has done a great job letting the varieties of  raspberries and blue berries get ahead of the grass.

Cothed in White Rainment

If you ever wondered how those round bales got white- now you can see.  We did 152 today in the point field.

High Moisture Hay/Haylage

As much as I hate plastic I am really pleased with our ability now to put up high quality hay that is preserved and weather proof in the short sunny spells that we get.  Seems the horse market is warming up to the idea here too because of the foot problems that have developed from the high sugar content in our dried hay.  The silage process with the chopped stems properly converts the sugars and eliminates the dust.  Some of the first bales went to the breed bulls before they were let out.  I've noticed all the cattle coming into the winter lot off of green grass  to clean up those first silage bales.  They still smell sweet.

Canadian Cow Comes in With a Heifer

For a week I've known the Canadian cow had her calf but couldn't find it.  Today when we delivered 10 tons of carrots in the newly groomed and seeded winter feed area, she walked in with a large black heifer who was very frisky but easily tired.  She will make a fine addition to the herd with ideal genetics for cross breeding our different lines of whites.  Her mother freshened last year on August 18 so fortunately she is cycling earlier in the summer so her calves have a better start on winter.

New Identification

After years of working with ear tags that fall out and are very difficult to read at a distance we put large numbers on collars on all the cows and calves.  It will take a while to see if this is better but it for sure makes it easier to see who is who at a distance.