Farm living

What a treat - we woke up this morning and went to do chores and were greeted by a brand new life. Maggie had a pretty little heifer calf. Maggie is Aaron's cow so his boys got to do the honors of naming her and so Maxine is now a part of our farm.

We had to move her and her mom into the barn so that she could warm up because it was fairly cold this morning, although her mother picked a good day to give birth - it made it into the 20's today!

Check out the pictures of Kent checking on the little one. In the one if you really look you can see Momma snorting and looking like she may charge. The pitchfork is so that she has something to have to maneuver around before she stomps Kent - which she didn't. Typically Longhorn cattle are very docile (I even saw pictures last night of someone who trained them for saddles!) and I think I would trust them over a beef cow any day, but common sense and respect teaches that sometimes it is important to be courteous to a new mom who is very protective. Beyond that she had her baby taken and moved to a new location...enough to make any mother a little crazy. She never even really made a move at Kent, just kind of put on a show. That's a good thing - it shows that she is taking care of her little one which is better than the alternative which is having a bottle calf to take care of everyday because the mother ignores it.

Make a Smilebox greeting

We then spent the remainder of the morning and until 7:00 tonight butchering beef and making sausage. Kent and I used all of our pork for breakfast sausage so when Aaron got the idea to make breakfast links we had to get creative and decided to try all beef links and guess what? They are better than the pork links...at least we think so.

We butchered our half of the cow Dale gave us - thank you Dale and made a ton of stew meat chunks to do Cream Can Stew this summer for the family reunion. I saved all of our corn on the cob and we can get carrots and potatoes from Ilona and Shirley so we will be set come reunion time this summer. We also kept about 20 pounds of Prime Rib and the same in regular bone on ribs that we plan to smoke this summer for a family picnic. We got some yummy looking steaks out of the mix and can't wait to try them, but first tomorrow we must have eggs and sausage for breakfast.

Make a Smilebox postcard

Thank you everyone who chipped in to help with the work today. While I am glad to be done with the butchering it has been nice to get everyone together in an activity.

Over 24 degrees today! This is the warmest it's been since November I think!