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Sticking to the plan…
Once you start the process of embryo transplants or artificial insemination, you have to stay on schedule. And again this year, as it has for the past two, Nature decided to see just how serious we were about this business. The cows certainly kept to their schedule despite the snow; they went into heat early in the morning and now at the end of the day were ready for artificial insemination. Once again, Rose Hill Veterinary Clinic’s Jane Narrimore was in the chute. At least Jane could drive to work. Last year we had to load her boss, Dr. Tom Massey, into our tractor’s front loader with all his paraphernalia, and plow…
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Turn at the sign….
To make it easier for both our meat and Devon customers, you can now look for this sign at the entrance to Thistle Hill Farm. We’re on Crest Hill road (647), 2.2 miles west of Leeds Manor Road (688). The sign was fabricated by Quail Run Signs over in Hamilton and we think John Ralph and his crew did an excellent job. They delivered our vision and made the job fun. We can certainly recommend them.
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Thistle Hill Farm South
We just made a quick down-and-back trip to North Carolina to check on the embryo cows we are raising there. Clearly they’re thriving on the eastern Carolina grass. And is it just my imagination or are the Angus standing back as this princess crosses the pasture. She’s a line-bred Rotokawa 688 daughter, one of 10 similar calves that we are now raising in our own line-breeding experiment. So far, so good. In a little over a year we’ll have to decide whether to continue concentrating the genetics in these animals or quit while we’re ahead.
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Once more, from the beginning…
Veterinary technician Jane Narrimore begins readying Thistle Hill cows for the transplant of fertilized eggs from England. We’ve been working with two American partners and a half dozen British breeders to find the purest Devon genetics available…mate those cows and bulls…freeze the embryos and bring them to the United States. Some of those embryos will be implanted here in Virginia; the remainder in South Carolina. The first step is to synchronize our cows cycling so that the implant occurs precisely at the time that particular embryo was flushed from the English cow: at the age of 8 days! Watching Jane is Jerry Hall, who came over from Delaplane to help…
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Tree, spare that fence!
Too late! Good neighbor Ira McDowell clears away one of three trees that came down on Thistle Hill fences in the past few days. It’s a combination of the heavy rains and the wind. We were lucky to find Ira at home. This is deer season, after all! Actually it’s surprising the fence held up as well as it did. This is a lot of weight. Might as well give Gold Cup Fencing a plug. They do good work! Because of the flu, I’ve leaned heavily on neighbors for the past week. Some, like Jerry Hall, came all the way over from Delaplane.
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New Year babies….
This bouncing baby girl is minutes old and Mom is just setting to work cleaning her up. She’s more messy than usual, because she wound up in a pile of leaves; but it makes a nice bed. Grandma has never had anything but heifers; and now this daughter has had her first calf, a heifer. So much for the laws of probabilities. Even more remarkable is this proud mother, the sole remaining member of Wooz’ original Angus herd. She is 15 years old and this is her 13th straight calf! Unlike most of her original herdmates, she was able to transfer to an all grass diet and it probably prolonged her life…
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Somebody does it better….
….and her name is Sylvie Rowand of nearby Washington, Virginia. For those of us who like eating food as much as producing it, her website is a delight, an inspiration, a must-read! Born in France, Sylvie and her husband now live in Rappahannock county where she has her own business: “Laughing Duck Gardens and Cookery”. My only worry is once you visit there, you may not come back. Besides designing her own website, what does she do? Well she offers: “cookery services, in-home catering, cookery workshops, food gardening workshops, private cooking lessons, and kitchen gardening coaching.” She can also serve as your personal chef for a dinner party and is…
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‘Tis the season….
…to start feeding hay. And at Thistle Hill, rather than put the hay in rings or feeders, we unroll it onto the ground. It’s the way cows are used to eating, of course, but just as important is the extra organic matter that finds its’ way back into the soil. And by taking a new area each time, we spread not only the nutrients but the cows do their part by spreading their manure. Saves on fertilzer costs. This is the view from the rear window of the tractor cab as the bale in the foreground is un-rolled. The lighter colored cows are Senepol; the darker are Devon. Some farmers…
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Doc Wooz makes a house call….
…on a two-month old heifer with a cut on her leg. Normally we’ve been waiting until she’s nursing and then she barely notices the slight sting of the medicine. (It’s in the spray bottle Wooz is holding in her right hand.) But on this day she thought it would be fun to play tag and it took three attempts. The calf would dodge away, but never go so far as to discourage Wooz from trying again. Fortunately, Wooz reports the wound is now completely healed and no further treatment will be necessary. At least that’s what I think she said. She was breathing pretty hard.
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Vegetarians: Blood on their hands, after all?
There’s not much question that humans, their teeth and digestive systems, have adapted over the years to eating meat. Not much question either that eating natural meat is good for you. Not even any question that eating natural fat is good for you, too. The argument vegetarians advance that many have trouble answering is the ethical one; that is, we’re using our power to kill another sentient life. Well now, wait a minute. According to a study in Australia, producing grain for protein results in 25 times the number of animals killed per kilogram of meat. Forget the slaughter caused by a reaper in a field of wheat, that wheat also…