Finishing School

Hal is going to Finishing School. Finishing well is very important. We need to build him his own ‘room’. This room/corral needs to be in view of the rest of the herd, so he doesn’t feel lonely.

If you ever see a farm that is completely tidy with no old bits around, then they are very, very rich farmers. Everyone else keeps anything that might someday come in handy. Hence why on this balmy Saturday…

…we were building a corral with old fence gates, salvaged fence posts and bailing twine.

We dig a few posts…hydraulically, (after getting the tractor to start, Blue has a bad battery, so we cannot turn it off until we are completely done).

We gather up the old gates, while the herd looks on, wondering why they haven’t been fed.

Our new rooster, Russel Crow lets us know that it is well past dawn, even if it is a bit foggy.

We get ready for Hal to have his very own, water, hay and grain.

Isn’t it amazing what one can build with old gates and blue chain (baler twine)?

When Hal was born, my sweet sensitive son took one look at him and asked, “Can we eat him?”

The answer is finally…’almost’, we have to ‘finish’ him. This finishing is a process whereby Hal gets even more hay than normal and grain. The grain is a combo of sorts and will help his beef taste sweet and have the marbling we prefer. This is not an exact science (for us) and at the end of all of this, we will have approximately 500 pounds of beef, so getting it tasty is vital. We plan to sell half and keep half.

We head to the local feed store to buy our ‘grain’. The salesgirl starts to tell me about show steer feeds. I quickly say,

“I don’t care if he looks good, I just want him to taste good”.

“Oh, she says then you want the grain with corn and molasses.”

We also pick up our complimentary ‘Magic Reindeer Feed’ for THE Grands as well.

The pigs almost got out.

My horse did get out.

and the finishing has begun…

We are grateful and blessed.