DEXTER CATTLE – JOY, LAUGHTER, AND HEARTBREAK PART II
COVID. It sucked. No matter what aisle of the plane that you sit in, even if you just want to stand in the middle, it sucked. There was tragedy, heart ache and despair. Some are still recovering. Some never will. All that said, it was eye opening for me. An introvert by nature (though very few of those that meet me will agree with that description), COVID was somewhat of a respite. It forced, for better or worse, solitude. For me, it brought peace. It got me thinking about our world and my place in it. It was time to start questioning old habits and accepting the norm. It was time to start doing.
Where do I start? As my late Dad would say, at the beginning. I started to look for property in a rural area. That was my first mistake. I didn’t have a solid foundation as to what I wanted to do. I looked at field, woods, and pastures. Some had homes, and others did not. About all of the properties were a good distance from where I lived and some were located in other States. After becoming exhausted and frustrated, I realized that my search was futile. I needed to establish what I wanted to do and with what animals.
My initial thought was horses. My thought is I could breed horses, and/or run a boarding business. It was my wife, ever the cynic, who asked the first pointed question. “Do you know how to ride a horse?”
Contrary to popular opinion in my household, I was a seasoned equestrian and rodeo champion. At least in my mind I dreamed I could be. That said, I scheduled horse back riding lessons. While I enjoyed the lessons, and riding, I started to think it was going to take a lot of time and experience to take other people’s horses in and provide appropriate care. But alas, fate had other plans. My wife quit asking about trivial things such as my ability to take care of horses and we sold our home and bought a home with horse stables and acreage. For me, it was heaven.
Then reality set in. I remembered what the goal was. The goal was to raise our own food. Horses would be welcome, but horse meat will never be in our diet.
The internet, love it or lump it, is a source of a great deal of information. I play the game. In that, I mean, I disregard all the “great” comments, and all the “terrible” comments and seek the middle, I tried to not seek articles that I favored but cast a wide net looking for neutrality. Just the facts, ma’am. What I found intrigued me. Dexter cattle. Ideal for beef, milk, and smaller areas of land. Hearty animals and docile in nature. Not miniature, but smaller in stature. Less intimidating for the new and not an animal that has to be considered a pet.
I compared to different breeds. I was intrigued by grass fed and milk that many argue is better suited to sensitive stomachs. Not only for feeding my family, but the potential of feeding others. I was not looking for marketing gimmicks but trying to fit a niche. My niche. I was told finding the acreage was the hardest part of raising cattle. I can say with 100% certainty, that is a lie. But I am having so much fun living my dreams with our Dexter cattle.
A little bit about the author for those who have read this article or maybe even the first article and scrolled to the bottom of this article just to see if someone had the guts to admit writing this. I own and operate a small farm called “Our Yellowstone LLC” in Illinois. I couldn’t do it alone, but will keep my wife’s name out of it to protect her innocence.
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Selling
