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PS to TDA 35…
……in the previous post “Introducing TDA 35” (see below)I talked about a moment 10 years ago when I first saw the young bull’s dam. Moments after posting I recalled Wooz was handling the camera at that moment. So I dug into the archives and sure enough there it was. Ivan Rowe, my Cornish mate, pretty much owns all the pastures around St. Just…right down to Lands End at the southwestern tip of England. The cow is Norah 14…and his herd contains 100 more just like her! Ivan gave us the pick of the herd and we chose her to mate with Millennium Falcon. Read the next post to see one…
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Introducing TDA 35….
It was 10 years ago that I walked out in a pasture Cornwall, England with a grizzled old farmer named Ivan Rowe. Ivan was introducing me to the best herd of cows I had ever seen! More than that he was offering me my pick to breed…flush the embryos…and ship back to the States. It took at least an hour to walk through the herd but it wasn’t a difficult choice. I spotted my candidate almost immediately and said “how about that one”? “Well you did choose the best,” Ivan grumped. And from that point on he’s always called me “mate”…the highest honor I’ve ever received. Ivan is a lifelong…
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The next generation…
…and a picture of the result of mating our oldest American cow with a young British bull. The dam is 17 years old and still producing. But Church has decided it’s time to work in her replacement. This 16-month old heifer will be filling some mighty big hooves. Mom produced a string of outstanding bull calves. So it was an easy decision to set aside F212 for the main herd. The sire is Traditional Devon Highwayman…descended from the finest bull I ever saw in England…Ashott Barton Millennium. So we feel we’ve bred the best of both worlds…English and American! David
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I see bacon in our future…
It was a moment of celebration…the day pigs made their renewed appearance on Thistle Hill pastures. Nothing tops the flavor of fresh, naturally raised pork. I put it right up there with fresh off the vine tomatoes and off the stalk corn! Meat from these pigs will be available in the fall but you can reserve a half or a whole right now. More on our new residents is on our home page. Incidentally, try fresh corn sometime. Do what my wife’s farm family did years ago and carry a kettle of boiling water into the field…plop the ears right in…and have a feast. Fifteen minutes from stalk to stomach!…
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Before it’s too late…
The question of foreign ownership of agricultural land has been simmering just below the surface for some years now. The US is fortunate that it has the resources to feed its population for the foreseeable future. But some countries already are being forced to plan against starvation and increasingly are buying farmland here. The Saudis are feeding their dairy herds hay grown on land they own in Texas…and their farms are drawing water from California’s limited supply. It’s estimated that foreign interests already own an area the size of Ohio…and that’s a figure two years out of date! The current controversies over borders and tariffs could well become insignificant compared…
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Hanging out with the guys…
…three of our bulls doing their own version of intensive grazing. On the left Guardian, a Rotokawa-bred animal, and then two of our English bulls, Essington and Highwayman. The last two are both sired by the great Ashott-Barton bull, Millenium Falcon. My guess is they’re all favoring the grass right there because an underground stream is just beneath. David