Cattle news, concrete today, bird woes, sad news

Mama and Grandpa spent most of the day at a stock sale yesterday learning what the going rate is for cattle of all kinds. They also stopped at several farms on the way home. One of those farms was a dairy farm. When they asked about buying some new born calves they were told the going price was $50 per head for day olds and $60n per head if they were several days old. The guy running the farm said they have calves born almost daily but they have a regular buyer. We are going to see if we can get in on that and start building a herd.


What Grandpa and I have been talking about is getting six at a time every six weeks. When we have one group on feed and out to pasture (usually about six weeks) we will get another group. From those purchases we will select the best to keep for a herd, keep one or two to raise for beef and the rest will go to sale. We should be able to double our money since we will sell about two thirds of the cattle purchased. With the sale money we are planning to purchase a good bull.

It is a longer range plan than buying bred heifers to start a herd but we will at least know what we have since they will have been raised from newborns on our farm. It is at least one way to ensure we can pick the best of what we have to start with and since we will have had them from infancy, they should be easier to manage. Not necessarily pet cows, but cows that will be very familiar with us and our farm. There is a potential we will be able to get started today.

That, as it happens, is problematic. The contractor will be at the farm today around 8 a.m. to pour the slab. I am sure it will take a couple hours to get the rebar set in the form but I fully expect to hear that he is done by early afternoon. Unfortunately I will not get to see the actual work being done, but I will see it complete when I get back home this evening.

I am excited. It is the first of many steps to transforming the buildings on the farm into usable space for future ventures. It is actually a small step compared to the full extent of the work we are planning, but it is one of the keys to getting Mama and I settled on the farm permanently. It is a little later than I had originally planned but the timing seems perfect. We will have to lock all the dogs up until tomorrow morning to keep from having their paw prints permanently embossed in the concrete.

The guineas are off again, gone again. Grandpa had them put up but Mama let them out. They were not even in the yard a few minutes before the dogs ran them up a tree. Now they are foraging somewhere else in the county. No one has complained about them so I am not worried, but I cannot convince Mama to just leave them in the coop. “They like to eat bugs.” She explains; so do chickens but they are not left to roam freely because the dogs would kill them. At least the guineas can get to the tree safely, but they have more freedom to eat safely in the coop; albeit, not bugs.

We got some sad news at work yesterday. The wife of a coworker of mine went in for knee replacement surgery yesterday. All went well until they had her in the recovery room. At that point she had a massive stroke that lead to dangerous swelling on her brain. She we pronounced dead at 2:30 that afternoon. She was in her mid fifties. Her husband sent out a short email that said, “Diane passed away today at 2:30 pm. I appreciate all your prayers and concerns. She was great wife and my best friend.”

For the rest of us life goes on. For him, it is put on hold indefinitely.