Spring?

Let me whine - it's been winter here since mid-November. Can it be over yet? The wind has started to blow. We picked up the branches off the lawn - so its probably our fault! Back to single digits and below zero with wind chills. But we didn't have the snow other places did, so I guess we should be thankful for the dirt we see. The tulips that were popping through are probably wondering what they were thinking.

But spring should be on the way - last week while running errands in Moses Lake we had a less than 30 minutes snow/rain/sleet/hail storm. The last few minutes included sunshine. Ahh, spring in the NW - if you don't like the weather wait a few minutes! And for the lady who, on her cell phone at the store, was changing all of her plans because of the wet stuff falling must be new to the NW.

We're almost done with spring calving. Jeff & Trev check the new pairs. Before the bull sale we should be done calving, farrowing & maybe started farming. The guys need to plant wheat this spring. For our dry-land friends and relatives planting is just part of the game, but for these irrigated hay farmers planting is a big event!

Bull catalog is down to final edits & I promise baby pig pics in future posts!

Happy Valentine's Day!

It is catalog time again (I thought we just did that!).

So we headed out to the pasture with the new babies (25 in less than 2 weeks - including twins with a project for Molly). Taking pictures of these crazies is a project. I have plenty of pics with a piece of {Molly or Trevor}. This was my fave - it is the true Molly!

This is going to be our "family pic" in the catalog. They are much cuter than throwing in the adults. Everyone got cowboy hats for birthday or Valentine's (thanks Nana Robyn & Papa Hal). Lila isn't quite sure she wants to wear hers but I have convinced her to wear tiny, skinny ponies sometimes.

Another cutie! Lots of bull pictures to put up on the website and sent off for catalog & flyer publication to go with the kid pictures.

Yes, that's two n's.

We may not pronounce our last name in the old world fashion - but it does end in two n's. Many of our family branches trace back to Germans from Russia - complete with multiple Ellis Island landings near the turn of the previous century. One of the traditions the Sackmann family continues to honor is making sausage. We must admit we are not as dedicated as our ancestors. We don't begin by spending days processing dozens of animals (thank you McCary Meats) and the guys happily use a digital, remote thermometer to watch the temperature in the 100+ year old smokehouse (while they play cards). We use our own beef and this year we did buy pork (thanks http://www.purecountrypork.com/ and Paul) since we didn't have any market hogs at the time. We make a smoked german sausage, summer sausage, and pepper stick. Each family makes their own batch to season as they wish.

The process starts by mixing fresh ground beef & pork in specific proportions and then adding spices. Mix it all up and fry up a sample. Re-season as necessary or stuff. Here's Jeff putting the sausage into the stuffer - being overseen by Molly & Sid.

Not sure how the child labor fits into the health stardards - but they were good helpers!

Or Molly standing on the table. It used to be you had to work your way up the table as you got older and more experienced. But apparently the rules are getting lax since Trevor was "helping" with the top dog job at his first sausage making experience (with help from Nana & Papa).

Trevor is inspecting the summer sausage as it awaits its turn in the smoker.

Tractor in hand of course!

German sausage hangs prior to hitting the smoke house. This is Jeff's sandwich meat for the summer. It's also great in a melted cheese sandwich or as a snack.

And a little fun . . . .

Uncle Paul's days of building floats may be over - but he still has a left over Jack-in-the-box so he and papa Sid climbed up to turn in on for the kids and examine how it worked. Molly hadn't been to sausage making for three years - but she still remembered the Jack-in-the-box. Better keep that baby around!

And Lila is driving Uncle Paul's big red tractor. Before we were out Travis said "oh, I forgot I hooked the horn back up". Oops!

Happy New Year!

Here I am a month behind again!

I promise we've kept "busy" even though some days I don't know what I've done. We made sausage, celebrated lots of Christmas, celebrated an "East coast New Year's", went to the American Farm Bureau Annual Meeting (including a SHUT down Atlanta) and the National Western Stock Show in Denver. And of course fed cows everyday, worked fall pairs, bred & implanted embryos in fall cows and complained about the winter. Why has Moses Lake been the coldest spot in the STATE many times the last two months?

Trying to take pics of kids with cows in the background. Trev prefers to watch the "tows". They are awfully cute even if they won't all look at me to take a simple picture!

More to come!

All in, all out, all done!

The Fall '10 sale is in the books!

A HUGE thank you to everyone who bought animals, worked (especially the crew out back) and who came to visit. All in all another successful sale. And of course thanks to JR Ranch who have allowed us to participate in their production sales.

Yes it was cold. The crew that worked out back were troopers (you can have all the cookies you want anytime!)

JR had the salebarn nice and warm, but from the GREAT collection of hats in the crowd everyone was still dressed to look at cattle in the open air. Although it may have been the nicest weather day of the week (it was -15 three days before).

One of Jeff's good friends from WSU is from Cut Bank, MT. He always used "above" or "below" when referring to the weather. I remember asking what was up with that? The answer was it was just as likely to be 20 above as 20 below. Jeff was using that nomenclature this last week. Great - its bad when you are happy because 15 "above" is 30 degrees warmer than two days before. Oh, well hopefully we've had our winter blast for the year - although that was only November. Enough whining - although I was laughing because many of my non-livestock "friends" on Facebook had great words like "fun" to describe the snow. Somehow the cattle and pig folks I talked to at the same time had different words to describe the weather. Hum!

Lila wins the award at our house - the first day it was cold & snowing the whole crew was all dressed and ready to go to chores. Jeff opened the back door and Lila was closest to the snow that was blowing in. We said "OK Lila - let's go out the door". She said "NO!" Smart girl.

Looks like our last Fall calf should be born today and we've starting synchronizing heifers for Fall breeding. It just rolls from one project to the next.

I'm thinking about getting Christmas shopping done - boring but MOST of it is done on-line.

Hope everyone has a blessed Christmas Season!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Greetings from a winter wonderland!

Today we have much to be thankful for (even if the weather doesn't come to mind!)

Hope to see many family and friends tomorrow at the JR Fall Production Sale.

Enjoy your dining partners & great food where ever your travels take you!

Off to the presses!

Welcome November!

Loving the still nice weather. Water's off, pigs are done farrowing (start breeding for fair pigs this week), and calving well under way. Fall group is about 1/2 done. Synchonizing works great! Here's the first calf born - hiding under the wheelline. Its the first place to look when you can't find one!

The one kid picture I've managed to get every year is in Schmidt's pumpkin patch. Pumpkins are awesome as usual. Kids took some good pictures. This one was the first group shot - imagine that.

For Halloween Molly went as Dorothy - complete with Ruby-Red slippers. She's been wearing her Dorothy dress pretty much for three straight days. I'm not even going to try to identify all the stains. Apparently I've been feeding them alot of things with tomatoes! Trevor was a dinosaur "roar". Lila went as a little girl who refused to wear her sheep costume. Good thing it was a Molly left over! Very cute.

Anyway - the JR Fall Production Sale Catalog is off for printing. If you are looking to purchase cattle this fall check it out! There's a link on the "For Sale" page on our website. The guys are prepping cattle and Elsie, Robyn & I are busy making biscuits & cookies! Num, num. Hope to see you in Othello on Black Friday.

. . . And the new season begins

So I don't have pictures yet, but our first fall calf was born yesterday! The guys sorted the fall cows and I think it shook the little thing out. She's a monster, weighing in at an amazing 58 pounds. Maybe the heifer coughed a little too hard - at least we know Jeff didn't hurt himself weighing this one. She was only 8 days early! Calves born on sunny fall days are so much more fun to watch than those born in a snowstorm.

I do have cute kid pictures.

Trev playing with a truck while helping at the barn. Molly told us she wanted to go to day camp the other day. With lots of baby pigs around there's a lot more work to do with them - so Jeff told her day camp was the pigs. She was good with it.


Lila and her favorite method for transporting "Playful". Amazingly enough he purrs while in this position. Trev did think the kitten needed a bath in the mud river they created this morning. More fun at pig day camp!


And Lila helping check the hay. Too bad it was sopping wet, brown & slimy. Oh well it dried out and is in a bale - and overall we came out with less of that lovely type of hay than a lot of neighbors.

Most of the fall production sale catalog is with API, 58 fall cows to go & one more litter of pigs, water is off for the year (hip-hip-yahoo!!), and fall marches on!

We're Done!

OK - so the custom stacker still has to come pick up the last 50 acres - but we're FINALLY done with hay! The guys are still helping the neighbor put up his hay - but ours is done. The last field wasn't so pretty (out our kitchen window, of course) but it's in the bale! And there hasn't been a calf born yet, so we finished hay before we started calving.

Besides calving most of the farm has been moving cows around to use grass that is left in one pasture and get off pastures that are done for the season. Especially since corn harvest is late (& stalks aren't available yet) keeping spring cows on grass meant some rearranging. The fall cows are getting ready to calf on orchard grass regrowth. They are pretty happy cows!



We're have also welcomed three litters of pigs in the last month and await two more. Baby pigs are awfully cute and the kids enjoy them. We also have a new kitty (thanks Amanda) that must think it is part human because the silly thing purrs while Lila carries it around by the neck. Lila makes of laugh with the cat. When we first got it she just followed it around and called it her version of "kitty". Then she only wanted to hold it when Molly had it wrapped in a blanket. Next was wanting the blanket-less kitty to sit on her "knee". Now she is the one that chases it down, packs it around, and doesn't want to share. Cute, cute, cute.

Molly was helping dad "drive" the pick-up the other day. We can't believe she's so big.



And lastly - some sunset pictures from the other night and a dahlia plant from my garden (still haven't frozen!).

Feels like fall -

The end of the summer has brought plenty of craziness to our world. A normal year and we'd most likely be done with hay for the year - not this year! The guys are about half way through cutting 4th - and there is still some 3rd in the field. It seems to call in the rain every time it is about ready to bale. Our cows will get to enjoy that hay. The fun of farming.

A few of our highlights from the last six weeks.

Towards the end of August I helped my mom put together a huge brunch - served a two locations - for my cousin Lexi's wedding. The wedding was in Walla Walla and since neither Lexi nor her husband are from Walla Walla visiting family and friends got housed at all the extended family's houses up in the Blue's outside of Walla Walla. One of my favorite stories was the husbands and dates of the bridesmaids. All the girls stayed in town the night before the wedding. The mother of the bride told the guys she had a place for them to stay in the mountains. These young men from Seattle and California translated this to one room cabin, no electricity, and definetely no plumbing - but they were game. Actually, they got to stay with my aunt & uncle who have a gorgeous log home complete with hot tub & big screen TV. Here's a couple pictures from the brunch on the front lawn. I think everyone enjoyed the weekend in Walla Walla, great wine & a lovely wedding.

Of course we had lots of moments in the field. Here's a picnic lunch, Sackmann style. Hay stacks make good shade. After we had lunch we all had a quick trip around the field - thank goodness for buddy seats.

We've gotten all the calves weaned, cows pregged, and waiting for corn harvest to get cows on cornstalks. The fall bulls are moved down to JR Ranch and started on a TMR to go through the winter. We're sending some spring bulls to the WCA Bull Test in Eltopia and we'll be retaining ownership on the remaining steers. Jeff is busy sorting through a very nice crop of heifers - some will stay home, some will be in the Fall Production sale and some get to go to the feedlot.

Last spring I had this "great" idea of putting together agricultural tours for medical students from PNWU in Yakima. Friend of friend situation we know the Dean and the school is focusing on getting students into rural and underserved areas - so we thought it would be a unique opportunity to share ag's story and expose students to rural people and jobs. We ended up doing two tours - seeing all the first & second year students. A HUGE thanks to everyone who helped. We visited Avila's Dairy, Rathbun Angus, Skone & Connors, Skone Irrigation, and Washington Potato. They hosted this group and did an awesome job of telling about their industry, business, and the people of agriculture. The Cattle Producers of Washington group graciously grilled US Beef for our BBQ's. And a special thanks to Aunt Jerri & Teresa who came to watch the kids while Jeff & I worked with the tours.

The week before the medical student tours I ended up having to have my appendix removed. All is well just threw a wrench in my plans for the next couple of weeks. On my follow-up the doctor told me I could cause myself trouble if I go home and crawl into bed for the next two weeks and don't do anything. Other than wonderful parents taking our kids (that I wasn't supposed to be lifting) we just continued on - oh and stay away from my sore belly!

The tour week also brought the Adams County Fair. They let the not quite big enough to show kids come "show" bucket calves. Molly is most excited to go down every year. Its a great, small, very family friendly fair. Here she is with the calf she named "Trouble". One of the other calves was entirely broke by the time the kids were done.

And another cow picture - while trying to take more sale catalog photos we caught this one. Some spring cows are in the front and up on the hill are the fall cows.

We are back into fall mode - the kids want to go to bed earlier and we're enjoying watching harvest all around us. The kids and I are back to going to MOPS and thinking about inside activities rather than just heading outside. We've got one litter of pigs, three more due in the next two weeks and pretty soon the fall heifers will start calving. On project to the next!!