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Thistle Hill alumni club….
….it was a good weekend for heifer calves. This little one (and again not so little) was born at Linda Hendrix and son, John’s, farm in South Carolina. We sold mom as a bred heifer…the “bred” by Thistle Hill U2, who has done great things for our herd, too. Mom incidentally is a line bred 688 daughter.
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Winter morn….
…breaks over Thistle Hill. But no time to savor the view over a cup of coffee. Animals to take care of and meat to deliver. At least a little warmer—20 degrees—but more snow in the forecast. Photo by Wooz.
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The best things in life are….
….made with grass fed beef! Like this beef stew. (Pardon me, my daughter the English major may see this: Such as this beef stew!) And it was only the proverbial “gilding the lily” to toss in some Hennessey’s. We first tasted it at Linda Maurer’s house, she of Springhaven Farm near Madison (sorry, address not available), and it was absolutely the best stew we ever had. Linda being a dear friend, and quavering only slightly due to the gun pointed at her, volunteered to share her recipe. She called it “Parker’s Beef Stew”. Well, being a fanatic about such little things I had to track down “Parker”. Turns out he was a…
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From our house to yours…..
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
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Why didn’t we do this sooner?
Workmen lower a propane tank into place to power Thistle Hill’s new 20kw emergency generator. Until now we’ve made do with an older and smaller version that could not supply all our appliances, particularly 5 freezers, at the same time. Just as bad was walking down the hill to the pump house when there was snow and ice and messing with jerry cans of gasoline. This unit has all the bells and whistles including automatic start when it senses a failure in the power line. Somehow it also phases in the freezers so not all the compressors hit at the same time. Let it snow, let it snow……
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A Traditional Devon milestone….
….readers of this blog know that Thistle Hill, in cooperation with two other American breeders, has been selecting the best of pure English genetics (semen and embryos) and importing them. The project is now 3 years old and our first heifers have finally been delivered to the vet for breeding. The heifers are out of the English champion Tilbrook Cashtiller, who we bred to a great English bull, Cutcombe Jaunty. The embryos were brought here and implanted in recips. We decided to take the heifers to the vet because the early winter weather has been so unreliable we couldn’t be sure the AI process, once started, could be completed. In…
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What more could you want….
….a nice warm bed in the center of the action with Mom nearby. Actually, it’s pretty common for calves to plop themselves down in the middle of a hay ring in the winter….particularly when there’s snow or ice on the ground. These two calves are a month old by Thistle Hill Reality. There’ve been times that they’ve gotten themselves in and then can’t figure how to get out. Once we get rid of the ice on the hills—though more is forecast for the weekend—we’ll return to unrolling the hay and then there’ll be a bed for everyone. Believe it or not, we still have grass available but it can’t be…
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Back in service….
It appears the Comments feature of the blog is operational again. Sorry for the frustration.
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Temporarily out of order….
….our blog “comments” section, that is. Sorry, we understand some of you have been trying to get in for some time. I was thinking maybe I had done something wrong. Wooz has been telling me I need a shave. We’ll announce when it’s functioning again and I hope you’ll resend your observations. They’re the best part of this effort.
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Everybody sing…..
….”working in a Winter Wonderland”! Lah-lah-lahhh! Actually this last mini-storm was the worst kind: a sheet of ice under a little snow. Footing and traction are treacherous and the netting is frozen to the bales of hay. I use the front loader to crack the ice somewhat and I even drop them from about eight feet…..but it’s still a job for Wooz to rip off the netting. We keep telling ourselves this keeps us young!