2016 is here!

​The new year is here and some very good things happened in December. The rain and snow in the mountains definitely improved the prospects for more normal supplies of irrigation water for this coming growing season. We will need additional precipitation to continue to fill the reservoirs into the spring, but we are in much better shape than a month ago. Our cattle continue to do well this winter. The cows are just over two months from starting to calve and the weaned calves are becoming short yearlings. My youngest daughter, Lillian, is home from college and snapped the photo above with me in the pasture with the short yearlings. Their diet is primarily first cutting mixed grass and legume hay that was harvested off the same fields they are currently grazing along with some pasture forage. They are quite well adapted for the winter weather with their winter coats of hair and their good condition. They should be gaining over 1.5 pounds per day during the winter as they grow in size. Cattle grow skeleton and muscle when younger and then start depositing more fat as they near their mature size which will happen as the grazing season progresses later this year.