4 Year Time Warp

 I last blogged back in June of 2017, almost 4 years ago. I will admit that over those 4 years, the farm has struggled to be a high priority in my life. I ran for the Iowa State House in 2017 to 2018. I worked as the General Manager of the Iowa Food Cooperative in 2019 to early 2020, and I ran again for the Iowa House in 2020. Needless to say, the farm has taken a backseat for several years, but I am committed to get back on track .

2018 Iowa House Run

Working at the Iowa Food Cooperative

2020 Iowa House Run (Pandemic Broke Out 2 Weeks Later)

 

In late 2018, we added a farm we are managing. We have the home farm and down the road three miles we have a 50 acre badly run down farm that will be a prolonged work in progress. We started by installing a water system in November and got it operational just after Christmas 2018. This was the short window after the 2018 election and before I started working at the Iowa Food Cooperative. 

Hydrant Base Assembly 2018

Trenching into the Building 2018

Cobett Base Installation 2018

Open Trench Line 2018

Cobett System Install 2018

For most of 2019 and 2020, little progress was made on that farm. New rock got laid down, the power system got updated, a short section of brand new fence go installed, and an old building or two got burned up but there is a lot to do that just did not happen. 

Spring 2020 Fence Install Looking North

Spring 2020 Fence Install Looking South

Burning Up Old Collapsed Buildings

This brings us to 2021. I have been cutting low quality trees right a left, clearing old fence lines and working on building new fence. I have six goals on this farm this year. I want to finish getting the west fence line cleared out and fully replaced, create a fenced repository for hay storage on that farm, fence the cattle lot, clear out around the old house site so I can bring in a concrete breaker and get rid on the foundation. Then we can use the foundation pieces to help make culvert crossings on the farm. Finally I want to  continue to cut trees to increase the accessibility to parts of the farm that are hard to get to or inaccessible now. 

Burning Lots of Brush Piles

Clearing Trees from Fence Lines

Lots of Trees in Fence Lines

Cleared Fence Line, On to the Next

Sinking Fence Posts

Burning Spent Hay Residue from Feeding Cattle All Winter

On the home farm, we did get the barn fixed up after the hail damage of June 2017, created a permanent divider in the barn between the livestock and the equipment, replaced our livestock trailer, bought a tractor, sold the same tractor, and bought another tractor. We also got all of our tractor loaders swopped out to skid loader quick attach systems for a serious quality of life upgrade.

Replaced Hail Damaged Roof

Permanent Livestock Divider

Newer Livestock Trailer

Bought a White 2-55 & Sold It (Decided Cab > 15 HP)

Our Pair of New Holland 2120 Tractors

Quality of Life Improvement Skid Loader Quick Attach

One for Both Tractors

With the Pandemic we have seen insane demand that greatly exceeds what we can produce and what our local food system has evolved to handle. We sold more beef quarters in 2020 then we have in all of the 13 years we have farmed previously. We had to book all of our 2021locker dates back in August 2020 and ran out of ground beef in late November. In 2019, we struggled to sell our ground beef, now we can't keep it in inventory. Our poultry locker plant closed in late 2019, and in 2020 we were down to one last state inspected kill poultry locker running in all of Iowa. Because of that we can now only sell whole chickens and can no longer sell individual parts. A feed issue where our mineral got changed out for a diluted mix plagued us for most of 2020, but got cleared up in time for our turkeys to finish out fine. With the pandemic, we were conservative with the number of turkeys we raised, only to find demand strong there as well, despite limits on family gatherings. With the solid demand continuing into 2021, we are hoping for a good year. The first 2021 broilers are off to a great start and look really promising. 

Last Operating Inspected Kill Poultry Locker in Iowa 2020

Picking Up Beef From the Locker 2020

Less Than a Week Old Broiler Chicks 2021

That is a quick summary of the past four years. We are a little run down by the toll 2020 took on us but making and seeing progress on the land and in the facility improvements is motivating. I look forward to seeing our customers again. Until then thanks for reading and supporting us, and keep your fingers crossed for rain. 

One Last Surprise for 2009

It has been a busy day. I woke up and hit the wii fit first thing before chores. When I went out to the out building I had two lambs. They were not more then an hour or two old. They are two little ram lambs. They are all black with a white spot on the top of their heads. One has a white spot on one of his legs.

The ewe lamb born on Christmas Eve is getting along well and enjoys slipping away from its mother and romping around the larger pen with the rest of the sheep.

Janice and I also made a trip up to Paul's Grains for our local organic flour, organic rice, and local organic oatmeal. We make a trip up to their farm about once every three to four months to stock-up. We have been customers for three years now and we highly recommend them.

We also caught a movie and came home to a quiet evening at home With home-made ice cream. To the folks that read this blog and are curious about us and the progression of Wild Rose Pastures. Happy New Year, eat fresh and eat local in 2010.

Post Tamping, Cattle Shopping, Truck Shopping, & Company O My

I had planned on mowing our grass planting this spring, and after servicing the tractor and getting everything ready to go, it would not start. It has not spark so I suspect the starter. I am going to ask a neighbor for a second opinion before I go spend any money. The planting looks pretty rough. I walked it and I can't say that I was able to identify any of the plants that were seeded amongst the weeds. I probably should have planted it with annual rue grass or some oats, but I dropped the ball and did not think of that. I would like to add some eastern gamagrass seed to the mix. I am thinking of ordering 5-10 pounds of it and taking my little yard seeder out there and just broad casting it. That should be done before I mow so the reactor tires can help act as a roller and get the seed into the soil. Ideas like this are great, but executing them is not always that easy. I have to get the tractor running and the seed here before this is going to work.

With the tractor out of commission, I went back to tamping dirt in around my wooden posts. I will be doing this for a very, very long time. I really have to pick up the pace. Using tamp in posts, like Power Flex fiberglass posts or metal t-posts looks more attractive all the time. By next spring I want to get the whole southern half of the farm fenced and get the corrals re worked. This includes fencing cattle out of the water ways. We will have an Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP) contract from the Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) to put some of this fencing in. The contract is also providing some cost share money on a new livestock well. We are still finalizing all of the bids on the well. That can be a really daunting process with a lot of money involved. I look forward to locking that in and getting the well set-up.

There is this weird pressure to get cattle. It is like once you have cattle, then you are a real farmer. I can not get the contract that I wanted from the NRCS, because I did not have cattle. I want to have grass-fed beef in the future, but I don't want to make a mistake and buy cattle that won't perform on grass. Most of the cattle out there won't finish on grass. They have been selected for grain finishing and are too big, too leggy, with small guts, are poor milkers, and are black.

Big animals need more feed just to maintain body condition and make it hard to finish livestock and build marbling. One advantage to a small animal when direct marketing is that it is easier to sell whole, halves, and quarter animals to customers when they are a bit smaller because it keeps customers costs down. You can also run more smaller animals on fewer acres. Our goal is a mature cow around 1,000 to 1,200 pounds.

A leggy animals with a shallow gut will not finish out on grass because they do not have a large rumen so they can not eat enough grass to put on proper weight. A good milking cow is important to rearing a good calf on pasture. According to Greg Judy in Comeback Farms, a cow "has got to be able to suckle a calf 10 months, be growing one inside her, and breed back on schedule every year while maintaining good body condition" and having a deep wide gut and good milk is a huge part of that.

If you see cattle in a field, you will likely see black cattle. The reason you see so much black is because there is a price reward for black animals in a conventional market because they can be sold as Angus. These cows do not actually have to be angus, just black in color is close enough. The problem with a black cow is that it gets hot. On a summer pasture at around 80 degrees, they run about 10 degrees warmer internal temperature then a black animal. This mean more stress, more water consumption, and a greater need for shade. To me, a red animals is a much better investment.

In my quest to figure out what cattle I would like to work with, I have started by visiting Hazybrook Dexters outside of Cambria, Iowa. I met with Dan Thomas and saw his herd. I have included a picture of Dan with his two gentle bulls Harley (black) and Pepper (red). They are both beautiful animals, although I though Harvey was slightly more to my preference. They are good looking animals, but they are not cheap either. They are about 1.5 times what I might pay for some other breeds and they are close to 2 times what I might be able to get at a sale barn. I am going to have to think long a hard about this. What I am leaning in the direction of right now is perhaps to buy a bull calf from Dan bread it to some shorter cattle from the sale barn. I have not put any money down on the table yet so I am still free to explore my options. I did pick-up some steaks from Dan so I could give dexter cattle a taste. I will also talk with Ethan Booth around Knoxville. He just brought home a beautiful bull that is shown on his amazingly well constructed and written farm blog: http://thebeginningfarmer.blogspot.com/2009/08/meet-tama-sundance.html

My F150 is 15 years old and needs some expensive work done on it. I am in the process of determining if that is a worth while expense or if there would be another used truck set-up that would work better. I am actually looking at moving to two trucks. One with 4x4 and a larger cab to haul kids, get around the pasture, and get us out in the winter, and adopting my grandfathers good old pick-up. That 1990's chevy only has 80K on it and is in great shape. It is a basic 6 cylinder 2 wheel-drive full size truck that pulls 6,000 lbs and gets 18 mpg. My ford pull 11.5 to 12.5 mpg, and the 4x4 replacement vehicle should be running right around 15 mpg. I am not expecting gas to stay cheap so we are planning on that for the future.

We have good friends coming down this weekend. I was hoping to get help tamping posts, but it should be near 100 degrees tomorrow and I don't want anybody getting heat stress. We will likely play a few board games in the evening and try an auction tomorrow. Until then, with the rain I am inside I will be working on some consulting work that has languished for too long.