Jumping the gun….

…that’s what the smart folks did at Thistle Hill’s recent Open House.  Advertised for Sunday, we had our first visitors on Friday.  Here, Wooz talks about our breeding program with Dr. Bill Walker of South Carolina, Jim Varnados of Louisiana and Regina Tesnow of Tennessee.  Before the weekend was over, Regina was to sell a bull she had purchased several years ago to Jim and Ronnie Bardwell and then buy a new Thistle Hill bull.

Our heifers were a particular hit, the deep ruby red hides are a Thistle Hill trademark and Linda Hendrix and her son, Dr. John Hendrix, would quickly snap up five of our best.  The females will stay at Thistle Hill to be bred.  The photographer, incidentally, was the guest of another Devon breeder, visiting from England and actually born in Devon!  By noon Friday we had sold everything we were willing to part with and we had to hope the food and the scenery would be enough for the visitors at the actual, scheduled Open House two days later.

For most, the pen of young bulls was the first stop.  After years of developing our herd, opening your pastures to outsiders is a tense business.  Will they like what you’ve been doing….will anyone come…will anyone buy.

Well, the answers were yes…yes…yes.   Our favorite endorsement came from a Maine Devon breeder who said, “I’ve visited a lot of farms and this is the best Devon herd I’ve ever seen.”  Warm words that will certainly make us re-double our efforts.

We also wanted to thank our neighbors, meat customers, who accepted our invitation to join the Devon breeders at our Open House.