The week has flown by and there's new little specks of green grass popping up everywhere. A reminder of how important our land is, and if we take good care of it, it will take good care of us.
I wanted to share a few highlights from the week with you. This week has gone by particularly fast with our full house. DJ's home right now, as is his good friend, Jay, that came up from CA to help DJ's cousin on his ranch, and Indy is still with us! On Monday they all leave - so I will go from a full house to an empty house, and I already know I'll be missing them!
I loved getting to share the Big Girl experience with Indy. We harnessed them up and fed the cows - Indy was impressed with how well the Big Girls work off of voice commands and she loved being around these gentle giants, as she said most of the horses back home in England are ponies.
We got to saddle up and ride through the cows. We are checking the beef herd here, you can spot the size difference in the cattle. Some of these cattle will be in our Summer Harvest and some will be in our Fall Harvest. There are even a few smaller ones that won't be ready until next year - we will give them the time that they need to fully and naturally mature.
The black one, closest to Indy, is one of the bigger ones that will be ready for our Summer Harvest - deposits open April 18th, these cattle will be harvested the end of June, and the beef will be shipping out in August - I opened early bird pre-sales to our Beef Family, everyone that has bought beef in the past, and want to thank all of you that have been placing your orders already! It's incredibly humbling to feel all the love and support from you, and I can never thank you enough!
I have a feeling this harvest is going to sell out quickly, so be sure your calendars are marked for April 18th!
Dad, Indy, and I got to tour a butcher facility on Tuesday. I always really appreciate when the butcher opens their doors to us and lets us see all the behind the scenes, to experience each phase of the process firsthand. Indy had never been to a butchering facility, so this was a great learning opportunity for her, and it was a fun little get away for Dad and me.
On Wednesday Indy spent the day at the vet clinic with my good friend, and our ranch vet, Betsy (on far right of picture above). Indy got to see all kinds of things at the vet clinic, including surgeries, large and small animal appointments, and even a neutering of a sugar glider (kind of like a flying squirrel).
And on Thursday, Indy and I went to tag calves and do morning chores with Betsy and Reece, my life long dear friends (and Reece is DJ's cousin....DJ and I first met at Betsy and Reece's wedding almost 11 years ago!).
I was excited to take Indy to see a bigger operation, Betsy and Reece have way more cows than we do, and I wanted her to get to see the differences and similarities in how a small vs large operation do things.
We continue to have more and more babies, and all is going really well!
I had to share a couple of pictures of our white-faced babies, as they are my favorite. Three of our four white face momma cows have calved. They are all sisters and the 3 of them calved right in a row.
We often notice that mother/daughter duos or sisters tend to calve close together as their cycles tend to be synced up with each other.
The last white-face cow to calve is Biscuit's momma (our broken legged calf from last calving season) and I'm REALLY hoping for a white-faced heifer calf so we can keep her as a replacement heifer to go into the mother cow herd.
Last night turned to winter again (luckily no babies born through the night) and we woke up to a Winter Wonderland. It's already melting off by mid-afternoon, and this makes for great Spring moisture which helps to make up for our shortage of snowfall.
This new baby was born this morning. There was a cold wind, so we got the baby and momma in the barn to warm it up and keep it from catching a chill. This is the first baby we've had to put in the barn.
I hope that you've had a great week as well. As we get closer to pre-sales opening on the 18th, please let me know if you have any questions. I'm here to help and I'd love to connect with you! You can email me here or call/text at 406-239-3418.
Forever grateful for you!
Your Rancher,
Anna from Montana