Naming of the Beef
Yes, it's that time of year, the naming of the beef. I've had Tom Shanks and Flank Sinatra, I've had Chuck and Stew, I've had Sir Loin and Hamilton Burger. I've had Mookayla and David Cowser, named after grandchildren. Yesterday's calf was a girl, today's is a boy and I'll have one more in 4 to 6 weeks or so.
This one is a boy and you can tell his mother is half Highland, she's got some vicious horns. I didn't press the issue, although she's relatively docile, I took pictures from the OTHER side of the fence, as this is her first baby:
He's got such a cute little strange face, it's hard to believe that by next fall he'll be a 1,000 pound bull and I won't dare turn my back on him. Never trust a bull, no matter how cute. His "big brother" isn't quite a year old and gives me a bump every time I'm not watching. He weighs about 400 pounds, so it's not at all cute and earns him a slap on the nose. This guy, though, weighs about 60 pounds so he's still cute...
This one is his older "sister". Older by one day, and she's cuter and sweeter and already followed me around the barnyard today. Her mother is my 17 year old Red Cow, and she's a good Mama, but she trusts me, so I don't hesitate to get closer to this one:
These will probably be the last babies born on the place, along with their sibling due in a few weeks. After Copenhagen died I promised Elery we'd stop the cow/calf thing so we can travel, something that can't be done with a year round cattle operation, even one as small as ours. We'll just get "feeder" steers from a neighbor, 500 pounds or so, and pasture them from March to December, leaving January and February open to go somewhere warm. I'll miss the babies, but I won't miss weaning calves and castrating the bull calves and crying over 17 year old cows and filling water tanks in January at 20 below zero. Plus, I'm picking up baby chicks on Friday and starting tomato plants, so things will change and things will stay the same. I'll adjust, but I sure do like to see my babies in the spring...
So anyway, I'm stuck for names. Osso and Bucco? Rare and Medium? Him and Her? Elery says we should name the bull "Ben", since it was born on his son's birthday. Can I spin that somehow?
Annie
Comments (43)
9 years ago
9 years agoRelated Discussions
Big Beef label ?
Comments (6)Can't see the controversy either. You were expecting what on the label? I have grown thousands of plants of this variety and sell plants as well but when I sell plants I just put the name only on the tag. Sure the plants will grow more than 40" tall but if you cage plants and your cages are 36" tall than the plant weight will limit height. Mine typically grow 7-8 ft on stringline and my average size of the beefsteak fruits is a consistant 9 oz., some getting bigger on occasion. I could talk for hours telling you the merits of this variety and to put it all on a label would probably do disrespect to the consumer. This AAS selection winner (1993) is well worth the effort in many aspects: yield, flavor, disease resistance just to name a few. I call it my "Work Horse" tomato....See MoreBig Beef parents?
Comments (14)Carolyn It's my understanding that tomato grafting is practiced to enhance or increase the production of heirloom or open-pollinated tomatoes by introducing foliage disease resistance or tolerance by the rootstock to the scion. The link below is one of many that describes the value of grafting tomatoes that is being practiced in many parts of the world. From all that I can find about the diseases that have infected my tomatoes pretty severely (Early Blight and Septoria), no tomatoes are listed as being tolerant of Septoria at all (though I believe researchers are working on it), but a few are listed as being tolerant of Early Blight. So if there's a chance I can avoid the worst of Early Blight next year by grafting a wonderful-tasting but vulnerable to disease-heirloom to a disease-tolerant rootstock, I'll try it. To repeat, what I want to do is see if the heirlooms or open-pollinated tomatoes that are vulnerable to foliage diseases in my garden can be grafted to a disease-tolerant rootstock to avoid the worst of the diseases. I'm really getting tired of starting tomatoes and putting in all that time and effort year after year, only to have them die in mid- or late-July due to Septoria and/or Early Blight. Despite all my spraying and diseased leaf-removal, I cannot keep ahead of these two diseases. And for all I know, my plants may have been infected with other diseases -- the South has a lot of them that infect tomatoes when the weather is hot and humid. It will be flying blind for the most part, and I think I'll start with only one heirloom next year, probably a Brandywine or maybe an Opalka, using the most disease- and heat-tolerant hybrid I can identify as the rootstock. Big Beef is one of the most disease-tolerant tomatoes according to many reports. It's also relatively heat-tolerant, though there are others that are listed as being developed for growing in Southern heat. My Brandywine gave up the ghost to disease pretty quickly, the Opalka more slowly. The Goose Creeks (red) are STILL green and healthy and productive, even though they were surrounded by diseased plants, so I think I'll grow the GCs again next year to see if that characteristic is just a fluke this year or if it's going to be a reliably disease-tolerant tomato in my environment. Here is a link that might be useful: Grafting Tomatoes to Manage Soilborne Diseases and Improve Yield in Organic Production Systems...See MoreAnnual naming of the beef
Comments (29)LOL, I love the names. Parking my own pic on your thread. Here's Amon with the cows at my DF's place, for the first time. It's the best picture I got--we were wrangling several grandkids at once and no one had a spare hand for the camera. My dad had several calves when we visited in March and I always love how cute they are! He's got a cow and calf operation, so we don't name any of them. One year my stepsister named our food steer Buzzardhead, so we couldn't help but picture him at the dinner table. That was less cool. Elery does look good on the tractor. I'm so glad you don't have to do all of it all the time--I know you can, but still, it's not always fun. Hooray for the new willing farmhand!...See MoreNext year's beef (pictures)
Comments (60)6 inch branch? What is a "woman" supposedly doing with that, pruning the lilac bushes? Geez. You're right, though, the junk trees never seem to come down. Sigh. Elery does have a hcain saw which needs a new chain. None of those branches were so big I couldn't cut them with a handsaw, but there were several of them to cut so it took some time and elbow grease. Nope, Ann, no water buffalo. I don't even have electric fence, mine stay in with 4 strands of plain old barbed wire and I don't see any sense in giving them a shock if I don't have to. We'll see how the bull is, I might have to run a strand of electric "tape" fence for him, but I hope not. That means I'd need a solar fencer because I don't ahve electricity out there. I can't imagine trying to keep a water buffalo in with just wire, LOL. Some farm about 15 miles from me had them for a while with the future plans of selling cheese, but the couple got divorced and the animals were more diffcult than planned and so they starte dselling water buffalo burger. Now they're back to cattle. Elery has sugested goats for goat cheese but Red cow is actually half Red Poll and half Hereford and she would actually give enough milk that I could make cheese, if I wanted to milk her twice a day, every day. Which I don't. Wanna come milk her for me? (grin) Annie...See More
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9 years ago"I'm so offended by the way those animals are treated and slaughtered, it's horrible."
Yah. We cringe when we pass through the feedlot capital of California down around Coalinga. Just unconscionable. We are fortunate to live in an area with lots of free range beef which shows up at our local burger joint and favorite market. Here's the view from our bedroom window as soon as the grass grows out there in the Open Space:
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Lars