Four the past several years, we have been attending the local farmer’s markets. Many people have come by our booth asking about the healthy way we raise our beef. Many of them have read the book The Omnivore’s Dilemma. As a small local producer, we do not use the techniques found in the large feed lots around the country. We do not believe in raising our animals in ways that are unnatural. We have open free-range pastures with luscious green grass.

Here is a video presentation by Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma

This boy loves tractors. From the moment he wakes up, it’s tractors. Saturday around noon my littlest cowboy looked out the window to see this.

It’s fall, which means plowing time on the farm. And if you’re going to plow the fields, why not plow the garden under, too while you’re at it. However, this was highly distracting for my youngest cowboy. He couldn’t pull himself away from the window to eat lunch. I brought his sandwich to him so he could eat while he watched, but he only grunted at me and pushed the plate away.

Since he wouldn’t eat, there was only one thing to do–especially because he’d already put on his shoes and was pulling the door open.

This made a boy happy. Tractors and two-year-olds–they’re pretty much inseparable at our house. My wise ten-year-old understands this connection. Last week this little two-year-old was throwing fits about putting on a pair of pants. My ten-year-old intervened. “Look, your pants are the color of tractor dirt. Do you want to wear your tractor dirt pants?” Of course he did. It’s all about tractors for this cowboy.

Nate and Lisle saddled the horses to go find the cows.

We moved some cows from one pasture to another on Saturday. Apparently, our cows were feeling a bit social and broke through the fence to mingle with the neighbor’s cows. Once all the cows were rounded up, there was a bit of sorting to do before loading the trailer. Nate, Matt, and Ken separated the cows without any rodeos this time around. Everything went pretty smoothly.

Matt, Nate, and the boys watched Grandpa drive away with a load of cows.

Moving cows has its down times. The little boys entertained themselves with the cattails growing alongside the road.

“Look Mom! It’s a bomb.”

Who needs video games for blowing things up when you’ve got cattails?

Booth at Provo Farmers Market

The Provo farmers market has begun and Pleasant Valley Beef will have a booth throughout the summer. We are also planning to attend the Thanksgiving Point Farmers Market and looking into the Heber Valley Market. Please take time to come by the booth and get to know us better. We have ground beef and beef patties for sale. Soon we will have sampler packs for sale as well.

Sorry to be so slow to get this posted.  Today is the 16th and we have 3″ of snow.
Of course, we had the apricots in blossom.  We will be OK if the temperature stays
above 27.

CROPS
- Travis has delivered all the fertilizer and Dad has spread it
- the oats are in and snowed on twice
- the barely ground was harrowed once and ready to be leveled
- the land plain is not working right and needs welding unless finding the right rock will work

COWS
- will haul to Chester but the grass is not growing due to the colder weather
- might need to haul hay out there to feed them
 - we are waiting for one more calf to be born

REPAIRS
- need high water ditches cleaned
- need to  start on fencing once all the barley is in

Thanks for the Easter Party, it was a lot of fun.

Loading the cattle to take to spring pasture

During winter months, we are meeting monthly to review the ranch operations.

REPAIRS

• big tractor:  Air conditioning
• small tractor:  Ignition replaced
• grain drill:  weld or replace main shaft, and fix flat tire
• bailer:  call Mason on computer check (seems to be stuck in manual mode)

FENCES

• fence on 80 acres that Jared has finished with.
• we are removing fence along east side
• need to redo fence on our border with Mowers

DITCHES

• need to clean north high water ditch as Rick destroyed it while putting in new fence. talked about gated pipe for that ditch
• need to clean east high water ditch as it over runs the bank at peak times and runs through fields
• need to clean ditch around the east pond

COWS

• expect calving to start the end of Feb
• Milo (and Brit) preg-checked and found two open: one of the older ones  and one shorthorn
• hoping for no more problems with mountain lions!
• calves are looking good. mild winter temperatures have helped their growth

Matt is to work on seed for the 10 acres of dry pasture.  We need a broadcast spreader

Planning to cut cedar post this Saturday, Jan 17 and Monday Jan 19 (the holiday) so we could use all the help we can get and a bunch of kids to haul them to the tractor.  Remember they will be stacked and any one who helps cut can use all the post they need for your own projects.  Plan to start about 1:00 p.m.

bringing cattle home

On Saturday, November 1st, we brought the cattle home from the summer pastures. The fall weather has been very warm and we were able to keep the cattle on the pastures longer than usual. Our children were involved. Each of them spread out across the fields to create a human fence to help direct the cattle into the corrals. We then loaded them into the stock trailers and hauled them to the ranch. Now they are back to the home ranch. Here they will stay for the winter.

The calves look very good. We plan to have 20 ready for sale next summer. Now is a good time to place your orders for next year. You can place your order by clicking here.

No meeting was held last Monday as Dad was not feeling well.

I have missed reporting on the last 3 meetings so I will up date the farm activity.

Crops

• it was too dry to plow,  will have to wait for a lot of moisture or do it in the spring.
• sold 20 bales of straw
• most people want small baled straw
• Dad cut the south field and got 7 bales of third crop hay
• Jared cleared off about 10 acres and Matt has the range drill to plant the pasture seed.  He has the drill until the 28th.

Cows

• we lost the two cows we had here at the ranch
• one came back but have not been able to find the other
• we will need to bring the cows home on Saturday, Nov 1 and ween the calves
• talk of buying 5 more short horns
• got 2 steers from Mickel’s pasture and sent last 4 steers for processing
• talk of buying a new milk cow as this one we have now will not breed up

Thanks to Chad, Milo, Matt and Travis for help on the shed roof.  It looks great.  Thanks to Chad
for help in all the little jobs I have around here, gathering wheel line hoses, taking down the
trampoline.

The corral is finished except for two gates to be hung.  I finished all the poles and Nate cemented the
chute in.  Now I want Matt to come with his power tools and hang the two other gates.

Last job is the back of the east shed and the big barn roof.  All the other fall jobs have been checked
off the list.  Thanks so much for the help.

Summer has ended and most of the major farm work is complete. We are finishing some late crop harvesting and will start the fall plowing of the fields. We also have a number of small maintenance projects on the barns (including a new roof for one shed that the wind blew off). We are finalizing the construction of our corrals in time for some pre-winter management of the cattle too.

We have completely sold out of our beef this year and have received many enthusiastic comments on the quality and tenderness of the meat. We are planning to raise 18 steers for next year and are now taking orders for those. With the new implementation of a pay pal payment option from our website, anyone can make a down payment for the next year.