Punchy Picture Friday

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Happy Memorial Day weekend from those of us at home on the range. 

The Working World

At home on the range.  Now that schools out for the summer, its time to once more join the real world; or rather the working world.  For the first summer ever, I am not returning home to work on my family's farm.  Despite that, I am still working as hard as if I were home.  This summer I am working for River Creek Farms in Manhattan helping with miscellaneous farm and ranch tasks.

River Creek Farms is a diversified operation as it has a Simmental and SimAngus seed stock operation as well as a corn and soybean facet. Thus far, working for River Creek Farms has been enjoyable and educational.  I always enjoy learning new tricks and methods to do things and this endevour is no different.  You can check out River Creek Farms at their website: www.rivercreekfarms.com to see what they are all about.

So for now I do my best to work hard in Manhattan as if I were at home on the range.

-Colin

School's Out for Summer

At home on the range. School's been out for a week now, and already the summer is going by too fast. The weather, although a bit on the warm side, has been bright and sunny and just perfect for catching some rays.

Without much keeping me in Manhattan this summer, I returned home to spend some quality time with friends and family. It was difficult to leave Colin (he's got a  new job that he'll tell you all about later), but knowing that I'd see him again in a few weeks made things much easier.

So far my little bit of summer has been quite relaxing - Colin's going to kill me for saying this, he's been working while I've been lounging around. In a week I've gone from cattle and book work to sitting out with the dog and reading just for the heck of it. I've got to say, I love my life on the range, but this one is nice too!

Some major thanks go out to both Coin and my parents. My parents have so kindly allowed me be lazy for a bit and Colin's parents have been keeping an eye on our cows.

Happy Summer from Colin and I at home one the range!

-Alissa

Punchy Picture Friday

At home on the range. We are going to try something new. Every Friday we are going to try and post a picture that embodies ranch life.

In our industry the term "punchy" refers to an individual who is the real McCoy when it comes to cattle and ranch work. Originating from the term "cowpuncher," another word for a ranch hand, punchy embodies the way you work, dress, and live. It's a term of endearment and something all true cattlemen and women inspire to be. It's a way of life out here on the range.

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The intent is for these pictures to stand without words. We will follow each photograph with the link to its original source. We encourage you to take a look at the photographer's other work. All of us do a little something different while working cattle or simply living life, and this is a perfect opportunity to see how the other half lives at home on the range.  

A Bunch of Bull

At home on the range. This past weekend Alissa and I made our way on about a 5 hour drive to eastern Colorado; the fruits, or rather beef of our labor was a Wagyu breed bull.  For years my family has used Angus breed bulls on our commercial cow herd. Alissa and I however are trying something different.  With the hopes of direct marketing meat, we are breeding our commercial Angus cows to a Wagyu to achieve a higher quality product. "Wagyu" essentially means Japanese Cattle.  The U.S. no longer imports Japanese cattle; however, the genetics are still in the U.S. in a breed simply named "Wagyu."

Why Raise Wagyu?
Wagyu cattle are known for their excellent meat qualities. Despite that positive, the breed takes much longer to mature making them very unpopular in a world that values efficiency. Our goal is to capture the excellent carcass traits while taking advantage of the heterosis of cross breeding to Angus cows.  Heterosis is also known as hybrid vigor, or in lay terms: the selection of superior traits of each breed from parents of two different breeds. Angus are known for excellent growth and good maternal dispositions, and crossed with a Wagyu bull we hope to keep good growth while improving the quality of meat.

Our Bull
The bull that we drove so far to get is a registered half-blood Wagyu bull. Like any typical Wagyu bull, he has strong shoulders, but his hips and back end leave something to be desired.  Wagyu were bred to be a pack animals in Japan giving them a large front end.  The hind end on the other hand is quite small compared to most beef breed bulls appearing to be weak.  We feel however, that this will not cause issues.  To most cattlemen, he isn't a very good looking bull, but for us, he'll do just fine at home on the range.


-Colin

Road Trip on the Range

At home on the range. It's been quite the week around here. Finals are finished up, school's out for summer, and Colin and I have been running around half crazy getting things wrapped up. Lately we've been living life at break neck speed.

So for a while now we've been talking about getting a bull of our very own. We searched high and low and eventually found one that we thought would do the trick. So, with school all finished up and not a whole lot to worry about,  we loaded up the trailer, gassed up the tank and drove our rig down to Eastern Colorado.

This guy drove.  He drove far and well.  

This gal acted like she knew the way...She did not. 

And this is our rig. She is a gas hog. 

The drive was a bit on the long side, but we ended up finding quite the oasis in the high plains at Prescott Ranches near Ramah, Colorado. At the Ranch we had a nice time talking cattle with the owner and his ranch hands. We also picked up this guy: 

As the newest addition to our herd, he's got quite the job ahead of him. Our gals are anxious for a new fella to woo and we're pretty excited to see what he can do. We've been working hard and we are beat. At home on the range, we are ready for summer. 

-Alissa

Mighty Mineral

At home on the range. It takes around the neighborhood of 20 lbs (dry-matter) of grass to feed an average cow each day.  Although 20 lbs seems like a lot of feed, it surprisingly does not provide a cow with all that is needed to fulfill her nutritional requirements.

Enter in mineral. "Mineral" is a granulated feed supplement of both micro and macro nutrients such as calcium, phosphorous, sodium, magnesium, potassium, and selenium, as well as many others. These important nutrients help the cow's body function properly and if deficient, can cause serious problems.  Most of these minerals are found in such small amounts in grass that it is essential to supplement cows in order to maintain the health and condition of the herd.

In a way, taking vitamins is the same concept for humans.  Human bodies can function without vitamins if a well balanced diet is being consumed. On the other hand, because of the variability of grass quality it is essential for cows to have mineral available. The lack of the vital nutrients could potentially inhibit bodily functions.

The mineral is placed in free choice tubs located throughout the pasture. When a cow is lacking a particular mineral, she will actively seek it out.  Typically the tubs will be placed in the same place each summer. As creatures of habit, cows can easily relocate mineral tubs year after year when a craving strikes at home on the range.

-Colin

Playing Chicken

At home on the range.  By now you've all gotten to read about how we go about fixing fence in Northwest Kansas. It's not glamorous work, but it's something we all have to do to keep our cows in and other cows out. Being from a region in Kansas that makes a pancake look bumpy, it never fails to surprise me just how rough Kansas terrain can get.

Take this new pasture for example...they don't call it the Himalayas for nothing! We did most of the fence fixing on foot, normally we can "leap frog" of sorts with the 4-wheeler, but because of the steep hills and creek cutting through, we covered ground the old fashioned way.

Colin, by far more adventurous than myself, thoroughly enjoyed crawling down creek banks and shimming down ravines, I on the other hand peered cautiously over edges and made my way down slowly and surely.

The cattle will do just fine on this rough ground. Their footing is much better than our own, and unlike me, they are willing to use a little fancy footwork to get to water. 

Needless to say, they are much more brave than me. See that little speck up there? That's me. Too afraid to come down. Granted, there was a little safer way down about 50 yards away, but I was much, much more comfortable a good five feet from the edge. I'd watched Colin make his way down and I was not going to try my luck just for the heck of exploring. I'd been down before (there's a road on the other side of this creek and if we would have had my way, we would have taken our time, driven out and around and back up to the creek entrance and hoofed it to this very spot), but Colin had efficiency at mind and was not willing to burn the daylight. It's times like these that I say many Hail Mary's to remain sane and at home on the range.

-Alissa 

Detour

At home on the range. Driving home this past weekend we ran into quite the doosey.

The sky got darker and darker and the clouds began circling overhead. The radio confirmed that we were driving right into grapefruit sized hail and possible tornadoes. It didn't take us long before we knew we needed to head south.  Fast. We found a back road and drove until the sky lightened up. We felt lucky to have escaped the storm. 

And then we saw this: 

And then this: 

As a sucker for old barns and even more of a sucker for old, falling down houses, I was quite at home waiting out the storm beside these two beauties. Finally it look like the storm had moved far enough east for us to be on our way. Nothing like a spring storm, and old farmsteads to remind us that we are at home on the range. 


-Alissa 

Happy Put Your Cows to Pasture Day

At home on the range. It's May 1st here at Kirchhoff farms and that means it is finally time to put cows and calves to pasture. The grass is green and nutrient full and the cattle are itching for some fresh forage. Most ranches around here use the 1st of May as the unofficial day to move cows to grass, but since we're making a bit of a commute to our ranch,  we turned them out this past Sunday.

We know our gals are about as happy as they can be and truly feeling at home on the range.