Hi Folks,
We are still here.
But the cows are gone except those that were 12 years old or older when we
ceased milking operations.
Nobody wanted those, and I wouldn't sell them for beef, so they are still
here. The youngest one is now 14 years old.
We have had a very busy growing and auction season. For us that starts in
early march with flowers, and ended, for the yea,r just last week with an
auction of mostly apples and potatoes.
We had 90+ auctions here this year with an increase in gross sales of 29% over
last year. 988 people participated as produce buyers and 433 participated as
grower/sellers. All the money went into the pockets of local family farmers.
But that is now over for the year.
I'll have plenty of time for graze-l discussion for a few months starting now.
I hope there is something to discuss.
In the meantime, I'll be in the greenhouse painting my rusty old farm
machinery. I just discovered that a greenhouse is an ideal place to paint
farm equipment. It's hot and sunny in there, regardless of tha fact that
there is six inches of snow outside today.
So far, in less than a week, I have painted my old Allis-Chalmers CA and the
180. I also have painted 2 Allis-Chalmers forklifts and my old New Holland
L425 skidloader. It's lots of fun
The paddocks and lane system here is intact. There are 60 permanent paddocks.
It did utilize about 1/3 of the acerage by planting no-till vegetable
transplants directly into pasture sod.
The rest of the paddocks are unfortunately grown up in tall grass and weeds.
With the price of gasoline, it doesn't make sense to mow it, so part of it
looks pretty bad.
Urban blight has continued to expand into the local community. This was very
dramatic during the past 12 months. Most of the fields that I rented and
farmed all my life have filling up with new houses. Very sad.
It seems remarkable that when I joined graze-l, I had described Homerville as
an "isolated" rural community. Now it's the fastest growing school district
in Ohio. Amazing and scary.
--
Kindest regards,
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F. W. Owen
Owenlea Holsteins
9430 Spencer Road
Homerville, Ohio 44235
e-mail fwo@bright.net
home page http://www.bright.net/~fwo
voice & fax 330.625.2369
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