Ronnie and I started out with our cattle as a hobby back in the mid 80's. Needless to say we grew from a hobby to a full blown business. Over the years we have made our share of mistakes. One of the things we discovered is that just because it works for one operation doesn't mean it will work in ours. So many factors influence a cattle operation, environment, genetics, management just to name a few. We love getting out and visiting with others in the cattle industry, but between managing the farm and working a job off the farm it isn't something we have been able to do as much of as we would like. As of July 1st that has changed a bit. Ronnie has been semi retired from our family business for the past two years, but I have still been working. As of July 1st I stepped away and we can now start checking off items on the ole bucket list. Our big adventure began on July 11, 2017, thanks to our eldest son Lucas who loaned us his motor home we have hit the road, just the two of us and one of the dogs.
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| Cuddles getting her first look at MO! |
Beautiful country
We drove to Mo the first day and stayed the night in a Sam's parking lot. This worked out great for Ronnie, however I soon realized that I had indeed watched to many episodes of Criminal Minds so sleep was not in the cards for me. We started out early Wednesday morning for Kansas we had reservations at Farnum Creek Campground for Wednesday night. We arrived around 3:00 and finally got set up around 6:00, discovering the importance of level campsites! The thing that surprised me the most was the heat. It hit 104 here late yesterday afternoon, it was HOT! I will say that it is a different kind of hot, 104 in Florida is worse but it was still miserable.
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| 104 now that is hot! |
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Beautiful morning drive over to OCC and the temp was low 70's!
What a difference a day makes! |
We had contacted Tim Ohlde of Ohlde Cattle Company to see about a visit while on our adventure. We have used OCC cattle for a number of years and sure like what they bring to the table. The Ohlde cattle are thick and deep with beautiful udders, and they make a living on grass! We met Tim at the Ranch around 7:30 a.m. and started out looking at the herd sires he had penned. They were what I expected deep, thick heavy muscled bulls. We have used OCC Juneau 807J, OCC Missing Link 830M and OCC Paxton 730P with Paxton and Missing Link being favorites. I wanted to see what up and coming bulls I would like to use in the future. I can't say we found a favorite, because we found several that we want to use, I will say the top two would be OCC Big Time 746Z the picture they have of this bull on their web site just doesn't do him justice!
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| OCC Big time 746Z and my photo doesn't do him justice either! |
He is a good one! Another is a young bull Zodiak my goodness he is nice.
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| Zodiak out working. This is one I sure want to have in the tank! |
I just loved the look of the Paxton daughters they had the most I have ever seen in production. They were all pretty darn sporty. Tim knows his cattle and his genetics, it was a pleasure to finally get to meet both him Trudy and Jake. The cows we saw were all very uniformed and all thick, deep, with beautiful udders which was exactly what I expected to see in this herd.
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Ronnie and Tim talking cows.
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Tomorrow morning we head out to Cheyenne WY for a short visit with our nephew Marc and his family. Then on toward MT. I will be posting more about our adventure in the coming weeks!
