July 12, 2006
July 10, 2006
One of the benefits of age is an increased perspective if our memory doesn’t fail us. Increments of time seem to shrink, weeks passing like days as the seasons turn full circle on an accelerating clock as we put our calves together again to sell on stampedecattle.com. I’d be interested in my father’s commentary at this juncture in the business of harvesting grass and raising calves, marketing a year’s effort and luck with the weather on an Internet auction site, an annual paycheck that may ride on a few digital photographs.
Before he died in 1997, we had just begun selling our calves after weaning instead of holding them over for another grass season to sell at 800 pounds. In those days prior, we would price our cattle for buyers to view as long yearlings on the ranch. As soliciting buyers with time and an eye for judging weights became more difficult, we opted for the special “off the grass” sale at the local auction market in Visalia, prices too often dependent on the number of buyers that attended. The advent of the Internet and Video Auction sales has allowed us to offer our calves to feedlots and buyers throughout the West.
The steer calves above will be sold next Wednesday to weigh 700 pounds when we ship them in August. You can follow their development from babies to the present in the archives of this blog site.