Choices & Perspective

Last night Honey came home & talked about a family he met at the co-op.  They were a couple in their 50's-60's with their 20 something son. 
They were traveling in a covered wagon. 
From Arkansas to Nebraska. 
They left home in November.
They stopped in to buy some corn & hay for their 3 horses.
They did stop for a while in Illinois this winter & work.
The horses were in good shape (not skinny).
The people were clean, nice & happy.

Of course after they left there was quite a bit of "shop talk".
WHY would you do that? 
Just BUY a truck.
CRAZY?

I was really impressed that Honey had quite a few questions in return for the guys.
Why NOT?
What if they just WANTED to?
It would be neat to REALLY see the country like that?
What IF they couldn't afford a Truck?
The wagon WAS really nice.  It had a completely enclosed (clear plastic) front that they had some Amish make for them.
Don't you think it would be really nice to just live that simply?  No bills & debts?

Hmmm, wow, we have come a LONG way in the past 2 years in our way of thinking!  Today, we ran the truck to get some new tires before Honey had to go to work.  We traveled only 10 miles west, and we saw them setting out for the day (8 or 9 miles west of where they were at noon yesterday).    Indeed 2 big paint horses pulling a covered wagon & leading a third paint horse.

I know that we get LOTS of questions about why we have chosen our way of life & finishing cattle.  I am constantly defending my choice to harvest our calves younger & at 1000# instead of the 1300# (FAT) cattle.
It is wonderful that Grass-Fed & Pastured Beef is becoming more widely known!  (Even our Banker yesterday knew about grass-fed beef!)

If I had to make choices again about downsizing & completely changing our operation 2 years ago ...... Would I do it the same?  YES!!!  I might change some details, but the BIG picture would stay the same.  We'd still be in debt, but, we'd still be cattle ranchers.
We'd still have to have off farm jobs.
We'd still be moving towards more grass & less corn.
We'd still be working towards raising ALL of our own feeds (but we'd still buy our outside feeds from our neighbors)
We'd still have our wonderful Maine-Anjou cows!

And yes, Freedom would still get loose on a regular basis, no matter how many new knots we tie on her *locked* gate.  (She was in the front yard again this morning)


I'm off to work on our website & get some prices up, so drop me a note ebersolecattleco(at)yahoo(dot)com if you're interested in learning more about our fall GRASS-FED beef & setting up a payment plan to reserve your beef!

I hope you have a great day!  The sun is shining & we're off to go play in the barn.
GreenRanchMom