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From our house to yours…..
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
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A bacon explosion!
I yield to no man in my love of bacon! (As long as it is Tamworth bacon!) But these folks do seem to be carrying their passion a bit far. You may want to file this away for warmer weather. http://www.bbqaddicts.com/blog/recipes/bacon-explosion/
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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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I’m from the government…..
…and I’m here to protect you. Not! The USDA is announcing a plan to open our markets to cattle and beef from Brazil….despite the fact that that country is plagued by Foot and Mouth Disease…the most deadly disease that can infect cattle. Apparently the plan is to chop down the prices US cattlemen have been getting for beef. Brazil’s herd is about three times the size of the American herd, so this should do it. Thanks to Bill Roberts for this link: http://r-calfusa.com/news_releases/2013/131220-Brazil.htm When they get here, the meat and live animals will presumably be inspected by the same crack teams that have passed these chickens. (not to mention all…
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‘Tis the season….
an entry in a Christmas parade in England. (from the Farmers Weekly)
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Milestone (continued)….
….we mentioned in the previous post that there are two English heifers being bred in South Carolina (at Walkers Century Farms). This is one, TDA 03. Her dam, Tilbrook Cashtiller….who recently passed away….swept all the English competitions. Her equally outstanding sire, Cutcombe Jaunty, is also no longer with us. So we have, indeed, accomplished a small part of our goal in saving pure, traditional English genetics. It wasn’t so much death we have been concerned with as the increasing practice on both sides of the Atlantic to dilute the purity of the Devon breed, in the search for some elusive “super Devon”. We think they’re super enough and are content to…
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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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243…the formal portrait…
….well, actually we liked the one we ran the other day, 243 fresh from work, splattered with mud and head covered with hay. But Ken McDowell cleaned him up so here’s New Zealand’s finest: Rotokawa 243. Ken’s not saying but that fact that he went to all this trouble and gussied him up and put a label on the picture tells us that the shortage of 243 semen here in the States may be about to be remedied.
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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.