Our journal of what we pray is our sojourn of life along the narrow way, even the old paths, submitting to the Bible as a light unto both.
We just thought we’d do a catch-up on the Spanish Longhorns we raise here before we hopefully started continuing to pare down the herd, including the old girls (20 and 22 years old) out in the sun eating hay on a super-scorcher day this past summer…
As always, we are grateful to the Lord for His provisions!
— David
It’s been a while again, but I thought we’d catch everyone up with a Longhorn update!
With two years of drought, we haven’t carried a herd sire in a while. But, try as I might to get the young ones off before being “viable”, we ended up with a few calves this year. Even though unplanned, we do thank the Lord for the provisions!
The only thing, is there were several potential sires, so we really don’t know which is the daddy of each. One of the potential was I think 1/4 Jersey or something like that too.
And then, the neighbor’s Dexter got in with the herd for about 18 hours last year, and two of the calves born were within two days of the normal gestation period from him being with them, so he could be the sire of a couple of them. And judging from the size and color of the light chocolate brown calf in the video, he might be, at least for that one.
So with all those unknowns, we certainly wouldn’t keep any of the calves, since we try to keep the purity of the Spanish Longhorns, and are part of the CTLR, a registry that attempts to do that.
One very sad note though: One of those two calves died on day six. We don’t know what the cause was. She was only the second calf that I’m aware of since we have had the Longhorns that has died early. Very sad, but we know these things are of the Lord, and we always look to see if He is saying something to us spiritually in them.
But now, here is the latest video, including the three other calves:
We are grateful to God for His gift of the cattle!
— David
After our multi-year update from earlier in this year, I thought I’d catch everyone up with some video footage from this year.
It starts from back in February and finishes with an August update.
It’s been a rough year with one of the worst droughts ever here, and we’ve had to feed hay all Spring and Summer, but the Lord has provided, including the “novel” concept of raking up scattered hay back into piles everyday to conserve it. It seems to work great!…only 16 years to figure that one out. 🙂 But, we’re thankful to God for the idea.
Interesting turns of God’s providential workings in our lives: I mention in the video the several heifers that were supposed to go to a local person who wanted them. But, he was concerned the young ones might be a little small and susceptible to coyote attacks. And so, I thought it would be great to get him the older/larger ones first if possible, since we could only do 2-3 at a time, because we have to get them into our trailer and then do a back-back offload into his trailer.
The evening before we were supposed to try to round them up, I went out to check to see if any were in the corral to maybe trap them the night before. And what do you know but the black one, who is the oldest of the heifers, that doesn’t like range cubes, which is the only real way we have to control/lure the cows anywhere, was in the corral. I figured I was going to have to lure the whole herd through the corral to be able to trap her, but there she was. And so, I nonchalantly walked through the gate and to the open end of the corral, and closed it up! Wow! She was in! And then, it wasn’t much after that to get her into the chute to the back of the trailer, and she went in actually like she wanted to be in there. Excellent!
Later that day, the next oldest I also found in the corral, was able to trap her in there and get her loaded too! Wow again!
And so, the next day, the fellow came here, and we got the heifers to swap trailers, and they were off.
Well, a couple of days later he texts me asking if they had normally jumped fences, because they had his, and they were now both in 2 separate herds of his neighbors. Arg. I said they hadn’t, and that I would have at least told him about that if they had done anything like that with us. In trying to figure out what happened, I guess the black one was giving the second/red one a hassle, and red said, “Gotta go!”, and maybe since other herds were around, she/they were trying to find the herd. Or it was maybe just to be with the other herd. But, we’re still not sure what happened.
Continuing, he then said that he was just going to sell them because they wouldn’t be able to handle that situation. And so, sigh, I said he could bring them back if he wanted. And he did.
I found it a very odd providence of God for bringing the situation where the loading of those 2 heifers went so surprisingly smooth, only to have them back here on the land.
And well, that was that, I thought.
But, a week or more later, he texts back and asks about the other 3 heifers, and that he’d like to try with them. I believe he had done some fence work to try to keep them from going over anymore. Ha! More interesting hand of Providence workings.
And so, we were able to get the other 3 loaded and into the trailer the next day, and he came, and we swapped them into his trailer, and now they were off.
And that’s been a couple of weeks now or so, and things are holding apparently, so it looks like those are going to work for him. He also did mention he might like to come back and get one of the first 2 because he thought she was a pretty one, and given his extra fence work, and I suppose because the other 3 are there, and the black one is not, that it might be different this time. Anyway, we thank the Lord those 3 are working out.
I still don’t know what all the rigamarole was with the first 2 and then them coming back, etc., but may we always trust His dealings with us in our lives.
Proverbs 3:5-6 - "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths."
And now, onto the video:
As always, we are thankful to the Lord for His provisions!
— David
The last time we did a cattle update was when a little heifer was born back in 2015! I’m not sure why I haven’t followed up more…I think once I got behind, it just kept being pushed off because of how long it might take to do.
But now, without further ado, I thought I’d try to get everyone up to through last year (note that not all the cattle shown were/are Sue and mine personally)…
At this point, our very kind and generous neighbor was letting us run the cattle on his land…some 400 acres! And so for those years, we didn’t have to buy hay, which was really nice! And so, here they are…
Here’s the herd sire who wasn’t ours personally, Manolete:
We didn’t apparently take many pictures this year, as they are all of cattle headed off somewhere:
This is Mateo who eventually became the herd sire after Manolete in 2019, which you can see as a little calf on this blog post:
While over on our neighbor’s property, we finally put up a somewhat decent corral to be able to…well…corral them for loading into trailers. 🙂
Well, early in the year, our neighbor said he was turning his place into a wildlife reserve, so he graciously gave us about a month to get our land ready, which involved shoring up fences, etc.
And here they are back on the land. It was nice to have them back, actually:
We moved the corral to our place, and here they are during “cube” time:
Ummmm….yeah….
One day, Amistosa, our best looking Longhorn as far as pure Spanish traits, came strolling up really skinny. I thought to give her some special feed, which I had given her before when she had gone down just before one of our worst cold spells here (which you can read about in this blog post), because it had worked before, and I did, but I guess I had given her too much, as she ended up extremely bloated.
We shoved a bunch of baking soda down her, which helped some, but over the next several weeks, including a vet visit, she never quite recovered.
One morning, when I was out of town, Sue found Ami fallen over in a little ditch that led to a small watering hole in our inner area, which is where we were taking care of Ami, and she was just struggling and rolling around, and just looked in a bad way, so Sue made the executive decision that she just wasn’t going to make it, so Sue solicited the help of a neighbor here, and he graciously helped to put her down.
When I got back home, we wanted to move her to a final resting spot under some trees in our north field, and so we hooked up a chain around her horns and towed her up there:
…and then said a final goodbye…goodbye Ami…you were one of our first group of cows for us. We thank the Lord for all the offspring He granted from her…
Continuing on, it indeed was nice to see the cows around the house:
…and out our front porch:
And finally, onto last year…
Here’s herd sire Mateo again, a little older now. However, he started going through and jumping over (after fixing the “going through” the fence”) to our neighbor’s property, the gentleman who let us run our cattle on this land those years ago. He was nice about it, but I couldn’t control Mateo anymore, so I sadly had to dump him at the sale barn. Bye, big guy!
But now lastly, to close this blog post off, here’s the compilation video across the years (I was wrong in the video with the 2 fighting bulls in the back of the trailer about how old they were…it was actually 1 1/2 and 2 years old):
We are always thankful to the Lord for His provisions of the cattle, the meat He’s granted from them, the sales to be able to pay for hay over the winter, and the provisions on the land He’s granted to feed them through the growing times!
— David
Here’s a little around our homestead at the beginning and end of Texas’ 2021 arctic blast!
This was after the first main night — snow and cold, with forecasted windchills down to -18F. These were I believe our worst temperatures we’ve experienced here, even after the 2011 freeze. The thermometer says about 4F:
Here’s the homestead:
I was a little worried about the cattle, given there are some young ones, but thanks to the Lord, they all made it through ok!
During the week, Sue’s “onesy” (coveralls) in front of the wood burning stove was the favorite for the domestics:
On the first day after a week of these freezing temperatures, things started getting back to normal. Here’s our resident stray hanging out on the cistern spigot, which we had double wrapped with blankets the whole time, allowing us to use it too whenever we needed:
And here are all the goat accoutrements hanging on the fence after Sue took them off:
Those were just a few pictures, but we show a lot more in this video, which has the day after the first main night as above, and then after coming out of it 5 days later (including a surpise from a momma cow!):
All throughout, the Lord was merciful in granting all the animals come through (yes, that missing rooster from the video showed up!), and helping Sue and me with strength to do all the care-taking!
We have no grid electric or water, which actually worked to our advantage, as we always had electric and good water as needed. We pray for those still suffering from the effects, but also hope people might consider their situation and on whom or what they depend for life sustenance.
We also saw how we believe God pre-set up provision before we really knew what was coming, even though they seemed a little “cross” to us at the time: the boy goats had knocked off the top of their hay bale, but Sue just took that hay into the barn, and it ended up being their main food for the week; and I had pre-put out hay bales for the cows, and one had been eaten down a lot and spread out by the time the cold hit, and another spread around some, but those also afforded bedding for the cattle. Also, both the tractor and truck starters went out at the same time a few weeks ago, we needed both for this cold front, and so they were ready to go.
Once again, we are very thankful for God’s help through 2021’s arctic blast, and for the gift of the new little heifer calf!
— David
Our tractor and truck recently both wouldn’t start, the tractor with a hay spike for moving hay rolls, and the truck as a backup using a chain to drag them out. And our cows were an hungering, so with some help from the neighbor boys, we did it old-school — rolling it out by hand!
And we take you along for the ride in this video:
We thank the Lord for able bodies to even do this and help from friends, and we thank Him for all His provisions, both temporal and spiritual!
— David
The Lord graciously granted our fifth and final calf to be born in 2015! This time, a little heifer calf, born to our cow Casi Blanca!
And here she is:
When I went to video her, all of the cattle were there…except for Casi. Strange, and worrisome. So, Robert and I headed on out to look for her. We drove down one road, and suddenly two of what looked like owls flew away from the trees above, and then we saw turkey vultures flying above, and then one over to the left….and that’s when we saw Casi. We got out of the vehicle and walked up to her, and she was quite dead, on her side, very bloated. Sigh. She didn’t appear to be stuck in the fence, nor did I see any trauma to her:
But, these are God’s decisions, and His cattle, quite frankly.
From A.W. Pink, “Our Attitude Toward God’s Sovereignty”:
A true recognition of God’s Sovereignty will exclude all murmuring. This is self-evident, yet the thought deserves to be dwelt upon.
It is natural to murmur against afflictions and losses. It is natural to complain when we are deprived of those things upon which we had set our hearts.
We are apt to regard our possessions as ours unconditionally. We feel that when we have prosecuted our plans with prudence and diligence that we are entitled to success; that when by dint of hard work we have accumulated a ‘competence,’ we deserve to keep and enjoy it; that when we are surrounded by a happy family, no power may lawfully enter the charmed circle and strike down a loved one; and if in any of these cases disappointment, bankruptcy, death, actually comes, the perverted instinct of the human heart is to cry out against God.
But in the one who, by grace, has recognized God’s sovereignty, such murmuring is silenced, and instead, there is a bowing to the Divine will, and an acknowledgment that He has not afflicted us as sorely as we deserve.”
We are thankful for the provisions He has granted from Casi; and we decided to call her calf Casilita, in memory of her mother.
The little one appears to continue to be doing well, and it’s been told to us that her granddam Amistosa is letting her suckle off of her. That’s a gracious gift from God if so!
Here is Casilita’s video, and just to warn you, I did include the video of when we found Casi:
We are once again very grateful to the Lord for granting this new little provision of cattle!
— David
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