My life begins early here at the Sims Farms. It’s barely six o’clock and I am sliding buttermilk biscuits into the hot oven and my husband is making a big pot of that elixir that makes my early mornings possible and doable – Dark Roast Community Coffee.
Growing up I was always a somewhat early riser as I had school and then a job and had to be “up and ‘atem’ early to start my day. My children LOVE to sleep in and sometimes I wish I could do the same but age and repetition of years of sleep patterns make it impossible. So, I get up with the sun and go down with the sun. Now I will not say I am a perky happy person at this early hour. Roy has learned I don’t talk till after that first cup of “dark roast”.
This morning my early rising is due to several sets of cows being pulled. By that I mean that the baby cows, now half grown, must be separated from their mamas, and will be taken to the cow sale later this week. And I have to tell you this is one of the things I dislike most about raising cows. You pull these babies from their mamas and fence them into a holding pen until sale time and you can hear them and the mamas mooing and begging to be reunited with the other. The pen is close to our house, and I hear them the entire time they are waiting to go to the sale. Sad!
I was sitting on our back porch this morning around 6:30 AM and the big John Deeres, the feeder tubes attached, to fool the young cows into following them to the split-up, and the tractor pulling the big cattle trailer was slowly leaving the barn heading to the “separation fields” to begin loading all the poor things. My husband tells me, “Do you want this farm to be successful or happy?” Why can’t it be both. Let’s just keep them all.
I always tell him why we can’t be like our neighbors, my daughter, and her family. They grow their animals for enjoyment and pleasure. They don’t separate them. They have separate pens for all their animals, and they never get loaded up and sold. There’s Crispy the pig and his girlfriend, Cupcake, Waylon and Willie, the goats, two ducks, twelve chickens, three dachshunds, a bird dog, a “Heinze 57”, and two Great Pyrenees. They plan to never separate them as we do. Wonder if I named the baby cows if he would let me keep them?
Black Angus Steak – Marinate with 1/3 cup of soy sauce, 1/3 cup balsamic vinegar, ½ cup of olive oil, ¼ cup of Worcestershire sauce, 1 T. minced garlic, salt, and plenty of black pepper. Put in a plastic bag with the steaks and marinate for at least an hour, preferably overnight. It makes it very tender and so tasty.
