Waupaca County Fair

Up Coming Dates !!

Waupaca County Fair – Aug. 22-26 at the Weyauwega Fair Grounds.

This is an old fashioned small county fair with old fashioned country entertainment like:

Tractor pulls on Wednesday

Horse pulls on Friday (free admission)

Catch-a-pig contest on Saturday.

Horse harness races on Sunday.

for more info go to:

www.waupacacountyfair.org

ON THE FARM IN JULY

Outagamie County Fair starts today and goes until Sunday.  On my husband’s side, the original family farm was on the corner of 3 counties.  So to this day we feel at home at any one of 3 county fairs.

But when our girls were in 4H, many years ago, we went to the Outagamie County fair every day it ran.  In 4H, Amanda took calves, cats and crocheting.  Brett took goats, cats, food and sewing. 

Our granddaughter had an exciting ride last Sunday.  Lyla rode with her dad in the tractor all the way from Hortonville to our farm in Clintonville.  Drew was really disappointed though that he did not get to ride all that way.  But, it will be his turn when we are done borrowing the tractor and they come to drive it back to Hortonville.

Fences and Deer

Thsi wee was frustrating.  Our electric fencer has not been working right for over a week.  We keep checking, keep looking for the problem.  Follow the fence over and over.  Check for tree branches coming down, fixed the ground wire and still did not find the problem.

Sunday our daughter and son-in-law came over.  Andy helped my husband check and finally after hours of trying this and that they found the problem.  A small section of wire had the strans wrapped over each other.  It looked the work of deer trying to go through the fence.

We feel much better knowing that the fencer is working again.

Sorry I still not get the pictures of the grandkids helping on the farm posted.  I still plan to do that, just haven't had the time yet.  Keep checking back, I will get them on here.

Butchering Dates

Did you know that 70% of all cattle butchered in the United States are Holstein.
Keep in mind that Dairy cattle like Holsteins are genetically designed for producing milk.  Even the bulls / steers are genetically designed to carry on milk producing genes to their young.  So the body structure of a dairy animal is a little differant than that of the Beef animal.  A beef animal has the muscle tone for great meat because that is what they were genetically desinged for.

We raise beef cattle not dairy.

Our next butchering dates are August 6 and September 10.
We still have some opening for mixed quarters or halves of beef.  Contact us for more information.

Knee high by the 4th of July

Knee high by the 4th of July - this is a well known saying in the farming community.

It is an important saying too.  It tells us how the growing season is going so far and is a general measuring stick for all crops.

we're talking about corn - if the corn in the farmer's fields is knee high by the 4th of July the growing season is on track and doing about average, and that is good. 

Over the past 5 years there have been times that the corn was only anckle high by the 4th of July, those were years of flooding, very cold springs or drout.

Well, 4th of July is less than a week away and the last couple days I found myself checking out every corn field I passed on my way to and from work.  I have a 37 mile drive one way so I do pass many corn fields.  And this years report looks good - On average the corn is between knee high and WAIST HIGH.  Now granted I did not get out of the car and walk up to the corn to check it out, but you can get a good idea as you drive by and there was even some that looked like it would be more than waist high on a short person like me, I am only 5 foot.

So, so far it looks like we will have good growing seasons for most crops.  I cross my fingers that nothing changes for the worse.

Finishing cattle

The term finishing cattle refers to how the cattle are fed to fatten them up the last couple months before butchering. Some growers will push the corn to them during those months, But here at Venneford Farm we do it differantly.
We feed our cattle 80% (more like 90% during the summer) grass and hay and only 10 to 20% corn.  They get the same ration of corn every day of their life.  This little corn on a daily basis is what gives them their wonderful rich mellow beefy flavor. 

The cattle put on their weight gradually and are ready to butcher in 26 to 30 months.  This is how we keep them lean even though they are partially corn fed.



Everybody wants to get in the picture.



Clintonville Earthquakes

Many have asked, do we feel the earthquakes by us?  no, we don’t.  we are to the south east side of town and out 4 miles.  We have not felt or heard anything.

Click to the right on the link to my farmers market pages.  This weekend is the last day of the winter market season.

What's Up on the Farm

Cattle can be like children.  They like to play with things they are not suppose to touch.  When the temperatures where above freezing we still had the automatic shut off on the water tanks.  Some cattle can find ways to disconnect the hose and then we have a water mess to clean up.  This happened twice in the last month.

Now it is cold enough that the tank heaters have been put in to keep the water tanks from freezing.  Now some of the cattle are finding a way to pull them out.  Lucky it is not cold enough to freeze completely but they did have a nice layer of ice on top.