A day in the life of Sackmann Cattle Company.

The pictures, stories, and crazy times in our world.







September 29, 2014

Fall!

Onions (& potatoes) on the roadside.
    Onions (& potatoes) on the ditch.

Corn trucks on the move & we are putting hay equipment away!

That's how we know it is fall in the Basin!

This is the time of the year I really appreciate what a special place we live in.  It is not the prettiest - but if you are interested in feeding the world it is the place to be!  Thanks to the irrigation project and Columbia River water we can turn fertile sand into land that can grow just about anything that our growing season will allow.  When it comes to "local" and fresh fruits and veggies not many places can compete with the quality and variety our local fields and orchards offer!


The guys finished hay (took 5 cuttings on one field, other alfalfa fields were 3 or 4) on Sunday night.  Unless something changes, fall field work was finished this morning.

We are also 1/2 done with fall calving.  The second group of ET calves are starting to come now!  Calves look great and for some reason rather than being really long bull calves we are 2 heifers:1 bull.  Who knows - must have been the moon during breeding?!? 

Fall bull calves are started on feed in Othello.  Looking big & good!!  Spring bull calves will be weaned this week.  Some pretty impressive Resource calves in that group.

At home 3 of the kids have put in a month at school.  Molly showed a pig at the Spokane fair and did good.  She still was the age for PeeWee but choose to show up with the Juniors and was at the top of the blues in her class.  Looking forward (or maybe just mom is?) to her first 4-H meeting.  Such great memories and skills gained over my years!

We are {sort of} moved into our new house and everyone is enjoying the SPACE!!  Collecting everything to get our UGS in and lawn planted this week.  

Matt is halter breaking heifers for the Evergreen Exclusive and I'm getting ready to put together the catalog for the Black FRIDAY Sale at the JR Ranch in November.  

Like usual we aren't letting any grass grow under us (although I'd really like to see some grow around us!!).


February 22, 2014

Just can't keep up....

Apparently it has been 5, yes five, months since I managed to write a post.  There are a few blogs I read once in awhile and am always impressed by anyone who can come up with something interesting to write AND actually sit down and write it on a regular basis!  Maybe me, someday, in another life.

Occasionally, I think "wow, this has been a fun/crazy/note worthy day I should write a blog post" unfortunately by the time what has to be done is done I'm more than ready to call it a day.  Apologies to anyone who has insomnia; let's just say we can't feel your pain.

So a few kid pictures since September.  For some reason the majority of pictures on my computer are  of bulls and cows.  For anyone who is already checking out our sale catalogs I will spare you looking at the same cattle again.  Although Jeff has become quite the photographer - taking pretty much all of the pictures of the Sackmann & JR Ranch bulls you will see in publication.  He even has some pictures in a big time semen catalog this spring!
The one staged picture I have managed to get for 8 years now is at the Sunny Farms pumpkin patch.  Truth be told, I made it to Othello the day after the regular pumpkin patch closed so this was actually taken in the field next to where the fall bulls spend the winter.  We checked their ration while we were there; promise.
And Miss Nia; this was taken mid-January.  She may walk if she decides to stop giggling while upright under her own power.  Her birthday is a week from today; it has been a really fast and long (at the same time) year!  She is silly, fun, crazy and promising to keep us on our toes.  Every kid is certainly different but our sweet number four has already chosen to do many things none before her has done.  For some reason trying to get "the bigs" to play nicer with her doesn't go very far when she seems to always laugh.  A bit of a dare devil and totally momma's girl.  The morning she woke up to a calf and the dog (not normal) in the laundry room was much better than Christmas!
Had to slip a sausage making picture in.  Jeff's German heritage comes out at the (try to be) annual event of making german sausage and other homemade meat mixtures.  Gotta' love any opportunity to get a picture of three generations making sausage like so many before them.

The other big news at our house - is a house!  The crew is farther along than this picture (roof and windows are in on the outside) and working on HVAC & electrical on the inside.  Pretty exciting and the kids are LOVING the giant piles of dirt.  Over two hours of playing in the dirt for them today; did I mention we may be ready for spring.  Anyone who wants to help us choose colors - we are taking applications.

Of course we are three weeks away from the spring bull sale.  Jeff and I did all the catalog design and layout by ourselves this time around.  Big project and kinda cool to see it show up in the mail.

Spring calving is 2/3 done.  Fields are looking like they may want to wake up; making Jeff switch from winter mode to crazy need to do lots of things all at once spring mode.  Must be the end of February.  The flowers coming up in the yard say it may be spring soon.

Hope this finds everyone well.  And once again I promise we are keeping busy and continuing to chase kids, animals, water, machinery & whatever else crosses our path!