Goodbye to 2023! It was a difficult year. Lost my dad in March.
2024 looks good! We will be continuing our meat drops this winter until the first outdoor market April 13. Let us know if you’d like something. Thank you.
October 2023 Update
October 18, 2023
We’ve probably had over 10 inches of rain in September and October. It’s a little late after a dry summer, but it’s nice to remember how productive our pastures can be with the best fertilizer, which is rain.
We plan to wean our spring calves next week and then we’ll be able to graze everything one more time before winter. The cows, free from the burden of nursing a calf, will put on weight before winter.
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August 2023 Update
August 6, 2023
Welcome visitors! Check out our pages for more information about our meat or buying a quarter cow or half hog.
We live and Farm in the driftless region of Southwest Wisconsin, which means in the last Ice Age the glaciers split and went around us, resulting in a geologically different area than the surrounding land.
Underlying the relatively shallow soils is limestone and is referred to as Karst geology. I don’t fully understand the reason why, but the resulting grass which grows here is incredibly rich and perfect for grass fed cattle. There are a few other areas in the world similar to here, Kentucky , an area in France, probably others I’m not aware of.
Anyway, we feel blessed to live and farm here and hope you enjoy our meat!
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Pollinator Friendly
May 26, 2023
I’m not sure what kind of flower this is, but our out back pasture has a lot of it.
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Book Giveaway
April 26, 2023
I don’t normally do this, but this author must’ve caught me on a good day, so when she asked if I would do a book promotion for her I said sure send me the book and I’ll read it.
And guess what? It’s a good story and she’s a great writer.
It’s young adult, so not my typical reading, but it is very readable and that’s the number one quality I feel for good writing.
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February Litters in March
March 15, 2023
Litters are doing well. I’m amazed at how tough the piglets are as they start to venture outside.
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February Litters Due
February 20, 2023
We are excited for a couple of litters ready to pop any day now. Hoping they avoid farrowing during the predicted winter storm Wed/Thurs, but probably will, as a dropping barometer tends to induce labor.
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Old Farmer Tip #3:Bedding Cattle
January 19, 2023
I don’t have a good photo of bedding cattle, so I just threw this one in here of a nice heifer calf from this fall.
Bedding cattle, for those of you who don’t know, is the practice of laying down forage, usually straw, to give the cattle more comfort in winter or in muddy conditions.
For those of you who bed cattle on a hillside, here’s something to try. The natural inclination, for me at least, is to bed around the contour of the hill, which works fine.
But one day I decided to bed up and down the hill, and I saw right away that the cattle prefer and utilize the bedding better when it’s bedded up and down the hill.
Strange but true, at least for my herd. Give it a try, and let me know if it works for your herd.
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Old Farmer Tip #2: Hydraulic Hose
November 20, 2022
The second tip in my series is about hooking and unhooking hydraulic hoses. Took me a while to figure out why sometimes it seems there was pressure on the hydraulic hose when I went to hook it up and then I realized if I unhook the hydraulic hose with pressure on it then there is pressure when I go to hook it back up again.
So to make sure there isn’t pressure I almost always shut the tractor off and move the hydraulic lever back-and-forth to release all pressure before I unhook any hydraulic hoses. Let me know if this helps any of you.
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Old Farmer Tip #1: Sorting Livestock
October 2, 2022
Old Farmer Tip #1: Sorting Livestock
Contributing to the axiom, “Nothing is given so freely as advice,” I’m starting a new series of tips and tricks I’ve learned over the years.
You don’t need to corral livestock to sort them. If you have livestock which come to you and are used to going through a gate into the next pasture, which is true for most of us rotational grazers, you can sort at any gate by simply moving a few steps back and forth.
Sorting animals who are facing you, wanting to go by you, is a breeze. The challenge is to have patience and work slowly enough so you don’t make mistakes.
My buddy, who also farms and markets at DCFM, came over to help me. I told him what I was doing, and to watch my right side, as I would primarily be sorting to my left, and its impossible to watch everywhere when the animals are moving aggressively.
Our herd has about 90 cows and 90 calves. We sorted 80 cows through the gate into the next pasture in maybe ten to fifteen minutes. Because we hadn’t been pressuring the rest of the herd, they felt comfortable staying near the gate. So we simply moved around them and drove the entire herd down the lane into the corral where we finished sorting.
A video would show this a lot better, but I was too busy to film. I may make one in the future though, as I’ve started using tiktok, which makes it very easy to make short videos. Search Curiousfarmer if you would like to see some of the videos I’ve been making. Or check out this link of moving the herd a few weeks ago.
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