Saying Goodbye to the Steer & Hello to the Beef~!

Two years ago at our county fair in the petting barn there was this most adorable Jersey Steer! I believe he was a few months old at the time and well my Hubby being the sucker that he is agreed to buy the steer and bring him home after the fair. DD decided to name him Bob...They all had a blast playing with this little guy and halter breaking him. Well the two years have blazed by and Bob was no longer the cute *little* guy he once was, he is now BIG and still kind of cute!

I don't seem to have any pics of when he was itty bitty!



He was definitely a character! Probably higher maintenance than most of my horses LOL!! He was always first in line for feeding and forever chasing the horses off from their food with his treacherous horns. So the decision was made that with Bob grown and becoming a danger to the horses was ready to be housed in the freezer...While I love having good home grown beef I always do get a twinge of sadness when it's time to drop them off. So Bob is hanging out at the meat locker now *pun intended* waiting to make his final trip home...

Last summer grazing the pasture



Over the Winter he decided he wanted to bust out of our horse pasture that he was in and go be with those of his likeness LOL!!




Time to load..









Yes the Hubby did admit that it makes him kind of sad to see him go...









You think maybe he's trying to tell me something?!?!



Goodbye Bob...

I've Been Tagged!!

So I've been tagged! Yes I do love being tagged for fun things, and this one is fun!! So Leah over at Livin' It Up Country tagged me for this; The rules are to post your tenth picture that you downloaded into picaso or photo folder and then blog about it. Then tag 5 others to do the same. If you wish to play along please do so if not that is OK. Well I do wish to play along!!



This would have been last Spring in March when the Hubby started halter breaking DD's steer!! This was lots of fun let me tell ya LOL!! A pretty typical way of halter breaking a steer would be tying it to a donkey for a couple of days and after it's been kicked 1,589,675 times it will quickly follow wherever you lead it! BUT of course we don't own a donkey so we improvise around here.....

















Of course all didn't go as planned after this, we didn't get to work with Midnight as much as we should have but much to our surprise he was NOT a handful come fair time! Which was really good news since he weighed approx 1050 lbs and DD weighed all of 65 lbs!!


















So in following the tag rules I shall now nominate my 5 bloggers to participate in this fun!! And of course if you don't want to play then we all understand!!

LeAnna over at Thoughts and Whatnots

Rachel over at Once Upon A Miracle

Mama H over at The Hohman Homestead

Paint Girl over at Adventures of the Painted Creek Farm

Kit over at Gizzards & Calf Fries

Fat and Happy they are!!

Sometimes in life we get so caught up in the rush of the things that consume our daily lives that we forget to stop and watch the horses! On a daily basis we always have SOMETHING to do! We never have just a free day to do whatever we want.. When those rare occasions come that we are home on a weekend and we have free hours DD and I love to just go anywhere around our place. Whether it be down to the creek to play or out in the back pasture watching the horses graze or just watching the sunset it is such a reminder of how precious our time is. This past weekend we had one of those times with some free hours on Saturday night, DD and I just enjoyed being outdoors and decided to take a ride to the back of our property into the 20 acres where half of our horses call home.

We love going out there to watch them, it just makes my heart light and we love to see what funny things they will do when they finally spot us spying!!

There they graze down in the hills...



Some close gun shots got their attention!!



All is well again as they eat!



Love them....



I like to call these ones "The Three Stooges" HA!



DD's black beauty Ebony..



Mr Handsome Pete



They love to be close :)



Lets not forget Bob our Jersey steer!!

The time is almost here!!

In just a little over 2 weeks it will be time for our County Fair!! Whoot-Whoot!!! I absolutely love fair time!! Yeah it can be a bit stressful at times, but for the most part it is a BLAST!!! We will literally be living out of the fair barn for almost a week straight!! So I might kind of disappear the first week of August...I'm hoping I'll be able to pop in with some updates, it just depends on how exhausted we are LOL!!

Hubby giving Midnight a bath!!


So today DD had her Steer Showmanship meeting!! But before we went Hubby and his brother Cowboy and of course DD worked with Midnight on leading and then gave him a bath and did some trailer loading!! So when we got to the steer leader's house DD had to (well we all had to LOL) first watch an hour and half long video about clipping your steer...WOW...Seriously?!?! So most of the video was good except for the first 20 minutes where the guy showed us every freakin clipper ever made and how to curl up the cords properly...Seriously?!?! Yeah a bit much there....

He really does like this LOL!! Trying to make him lead...Stubborn Butt!!


So for Showmanship we took DD's steer with us, as that used to be mandatory but it is now your choice..Well we decided to take Midnight just because he really, really, really needs the work LOL!! They had a young lady who is a big time steer shower do some demonstrations for us and she even worked with the kids a for a bit. DD brought her steer in (well actually Hubby did, but you know what I mean) to the pen and they worked with him for a little while. Needless to say her and Hubby are going to be spending alot of time with him for the next couple of weeks!!

DD giving her Jersey steer Bob some lovin!! He didn't like Midnight being taken away:(


So it was all fun and tomorrow (Sunday) we will be having our 4H home tour. This is where we all go to each member of our clubs homes and see their animals and they will tell us about them! We will also have a pool party and a dinner!! It will be a great time, we have family in 4H with us so we will get to spend the day with them and also with many great 4H friends!!!!

Getting ready to load him up!!


Cowboy was having to give a "friendly" pat to get his big butt in...The steers butt of course LOL!!


PS~ Please forgive my lack of great pictures LOL, I'm shooting with my old camera...

Runaway Steer???

So here on the ranch today it was pretty quiet...I did some work on my new business, got some things I have been waiting for!!! My sister-in-law and my niece came over after the kids got out of school today so we could talk "business"... So the girls went out to Midnight's temporary pen because Hubby has apparently told DD that she needs to go out when she gets home from school and brush her steer. The hope is that he will begin to trust her more and the whole halter/lead breaking will be easier...Well that is not what happened today...When DD and her cousin went out there and climbed the railings to get in with Midnight he apparently freaked out and decided he needed to get away from these girls at all cost. So what did he do?? He jumped into the HUGE water troft and jumped out on the other side where I have my Geldings. This is a replay of DD and Cousin when they came in; DD-UMMM we we we were uh uh trying to uh uh Midnight he jumped into the the....All at the same time Cousin is saying in a much louder voice; uh ahhh ohhh Midnight...we didn't...ahhh....he's with...Then me; GIRL'S ONE AT A TIME PLEASE!!!!!!! So we find out that Midnight thinks its ok to swim in the troft...NOT!!! So DD calls Hubby to find out what he wants her to do, so her and cousin go out and try to lure him back...Well that wasn't necessary because he just jumped into the troft and went back to his side...Crisis averted!! So we thought...not even 2 minutes later he has jumped back through the tank and is with the horses again AHHH!!!!!! Of course these things always happen while Hubby is gone....Meanwhile at the top of our hill where my Mares are and one who is expected to foal is in an area all to herself, well my SIL and I where watching her and we have decided that she is in labor!!! She is in a great amount of pain, as she is walking in such a way that resembles having (pardon my candor) a cob up her rear LOL!!!!

So hopefully soon I will have beautiful baby pictures to post!! Nothing is greater than having babies:)

Busy day

So today was a great day here on our ranch!! Hubby decided today was the day for halter breaking DD's steer that she will show at the 4H Fair in August. We got the steer about a month to a month and a half ago and he has never been halter broke but has been handled. So early this morning Hubby and DD loaded Midnight up in the trailer to go weigh him. When we got him he was 800 lbs, today's weight was 900 lbs!!! Then they put him in the cattle chute and got his halter on him.

He was left tied to the railing for a couple of hours to get used to it all. And then we went back out and DD did some warming up to him to try and teach him not to be afraid of us. She did a great job, with some Hubby assist as well.






Then they led him around the pen a bit. He was trying to restrain at first and then finally he gave in. So he did good considering this was his first time. So then DD and Hubby did some more loving and scratching on him, which he really loves!!







J came out and he is such a great help for us, he came over and did an evaluation of him and believes that he will show pretty well at the fair. He says he has a couple of flaws that may be corrected by fair time and that the judges don't pay much attention to one flaw that he seen. So overall he gives Midnight a passing grade!! It is so awesome to me that my 14 year old son is so knowledgeable about livestock, it's great!!








We finished our day with a run to town to get some much needed sports equipment for the kids' sports. Tomorrow is a big day!!! My sister-in-law and I have a meeting with a Regional Manager who is very paramount to our business success!!!