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Second stop….
….on our summer vacation Devon tour: Don and Heather Minto’s Watson Farm on an island in the middle of Narragansett Bay. We met Don at the very first North American Devon organizational meeting….worked together on the board…and planned NADA’s second convention at his Rhode Island farm. No one has done more for Devon than he and Heather…and our friendship has survived the association wars! Watson Farms current herd bull is R46…a line bred Rotokawa 93 sire out of a 688 daughter. There are Watson Farm bulls in a number of herds and we credit one…R58…with putting us on the road to success. R46 sired 33 calves for the Mintos last…
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What we did on our summer vacation….
….visited Devon farms, of course. And there’s none prettier than John and Patsy Forelle’s “Folly Farm” near Pine Planes, New York. You may remember it as the scene of the glamorous closing banquet of the then-new North American Devon Association. John and I served on the NADA board for several years before finally deciding we could do more for Devon by concentrating on our own herds, and Traditional Devon America, a joint project importing pure English Devon genetics to this country. John has now sold his herd but retains three heifers, sired by the TDA herd bull, Cutcombe Jaunty. And those heifers are now calving. This…
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Jerry Engh on the mend….
We thought his many friends in the Devon world would want to know: We saw Jerry Engh at Lakota Ranch today. Jerry suffered a stroke a few weeks ago but he’s not only up….he’s running. And supervising things at Lakota from a 4-wheeler. He does have some mild paralysis but my non-professional diagnosis is that it will pass. The major problem, Jeremy tells us, is holding his Dad down. Jerry says he expects to be on hand for the joint meeting of the two Devon associations in September…a meeting that should heal the breech between the two organizations.
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It’s about time….
The boards of directors of the major Devon organizations in the United States have now voted, in principal, to a merger of the two associations. While the proverbial “devil is in the details”, this is the first time after two years of flirting, that a date for the marriage has been set. The expectation is that the final agreement will come at a joint membership meeting of ADCA and NADA in North Carolina September 26th-28th. NADA split off from ADCA six years ago in a bitter dispute over then-president Gearld Fry’s plans to enlarge the board and change some of its officers. He left ADCA and established the North American Devon Association,…
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Drought claims noted Devon herd….
Quite a few cattle owners have decided to throw in the towel because of the drought, and now we’ve heard from Devon breeder Bill Roberts that he’s planning to disperse his herd. 12 Stones Grasslands Beef is one of the outstanding Devon operations in the country. Bill kept it in the Midwest when he moved to the Phoenix area because the desert environment was more hospitable to his allergies. However, looking at the ravages of the drought…and the rising price for hay…and worse to come… Bill has decided to sell all but the five or so Devon that make up his hopes for the future. Bill is a longtime Devon…