State of the Homestead

Well I said I would be back after it rained, and well. . .it rained.

We received a little over an inch last night. And the overcast today have finally ended the 40 straight days of 100F+.

We have spent weeks watching the storms come toward us only to split and go around or vaporize.  Last night during dusk we saw it coming. I was impressed with the show of lightening. I didn't get my hopes up. But the winds picked up to around 80 mph. We didn't get any damage, but I heard many other's did, as well as a lightening strike catching a house on fire.

We lost power a couple of times in the evening. But around 5 am Small woke me up with "The cows are out" I jumped out of bed, grabbed the flashlight and looked out the door. As I stood there scanning, Small says "Or maybe not. Could you turn the electricity on?"   I could hear the power company working with their trucks somewhere nearby and explained to Small that it was me, and that it would be back on soon. I didn't realize it at that moment, but he was frightened about being in the absolute dark. About 6am the air-conditioner kicking back on had me jumping out of bed with a start. Oh, well I had to be up in the next 30 minutes anyway.

So, onto the state of the homestead.

We have to downsize our cattle by 30%. This is hard because right now it is calves, breeders and milkers. I wasn't expecting to have to make this decision. Yet here I am writing down names, and reasons why and why not to keep them.

Mama will be butchered first.

This was hard, but had to be done. She is only a few years before she is too old for breeding. And I don't want her to up and die on me loosing all that meat. It's hard to let her go as she is an OC (original cow).

Now to go through the list of the rest of them. It will be a difficult decision.

X is being sold for less than 1/2 of what he is worth. I have little choice in the matter and am lucky to be getting that much for him. Other cattle are going for even less.

We will be butchering all the lambs next month. None will be kept for breeding purposes.

If we don't do these things we will not be able to afford to feed them all over the winter.

Our plan is to make it with a lot of personal sacrifice until next spring. And if the weather goes back to something resembling normal, we will be able to sell of the calves for a very very decent profit. Then, we will almost be starting over, yet again.