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Third stop….
….on our Devon summer tour: the famed Rotokawa herd in Hardwick, Massachusetts. Few breeders could be under more pressure than Henry Hauptman. For the past few years he has owned the famed Rotokawa…and his first big decision was to withdraw the animals from the marketplace while he worked to restore their luster. We think Henry’s “there”….he thinks it will take at least one more year. There are imitators, but Henry’s are still the original genetics imported by Ridge Shinn, Gearld Fry and Chuck Lacy. And Ken McDowall remains in close contact with Henry on all the breeding decisions. After being transported from New Zealand….and then trucked around the countryside here in…
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In case you were wondering (I wasn’t)….
….somebody was, though, and decided to find out what a cow would look like after a visit to the beauty parlor. Shampoo and blow dry, please.
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A “star” drops in….
….the Chick-fil-A mascot, Kate the Cow, paid a visit to our booth this weekend. We were taking part in a fund raiser for the Marshall United Methodist Church.
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A well-balanced farm marriage….
….depends on the right woman, of course! Thanks to Juliet Cleave of Cornwall for pointing this out on her Facebook page.
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For your summer party….
….a Tamworth pork salad! Recipe from son, Church!
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On the road again….
….we’ll be taking the Thistle Hill tent to the Family and Friends Fun Day at the Ruritan Park in Hume, Virginia Saturday, June 28th. Lots of features for the whole family…..moon bounce, bands, baseball, food, face painting, you name it! And again we’ll be offering our burger at a special low price as well as a chance to win $100 worth of Thistle Hill beef. Both new and old customers are welcome to enter for the drawing. No purchase necessary of course….but how can you resist. The day is sponsored by the Marshall United Methodist Church so please come by. The fun starts at 11 a.m.
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Jack London: did you know….
….he got there first. (Well, sort of) Back when I was writing as “ED” for the old NADA website I re-discovered Louis Bromfield. As a little city boy in Chicago I can remember my parents reading aloud Malabar Farm. Clearly it meant a good deal to them since they not only read it to each other but to their kids. And we couldn’t have been farther from farming. But we all sat around the kitchen table after dinner and speculated about a life we’d never know. Fast forward another 50 years and a time when Wooz and I determined to be better stewards of the land. I came across Bromfield once again and quoted him often in…
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Pity the farm kids….
….they miss out on all the sophistication and stimulation of urban life. They even think playing with a new calf is fun. The picture is on a Tennessee farm. We could have titled it our “Alumni Club”….the baby bull (a Devon cross) is backed with Thistle Hill genetics.
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Gotta get one of these….
….not. Here we have been spending all this time (and money) training Pokey to bring in the cattle and for $300 we could buy a drone to do the same thing. A few more bucks and it can be equipped with a camera that we could monitor on our iPhones! http://farmofthefuture.net/#/video/drone-range-0 Thanks to Dan Epps of Terra One for the link.
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Who knew? Brad Pitt is a farmer?
Well maybe this is just a cheap ploy to get more “visits” for our website….but finally something good about one of the Hollywood types. http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2014/05/30/brad-pitt-loves-farming-and-learning-about-land/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fentertainment+%28Internal+-+Entertainment+-+Mixed%29