Newsletter
Well…good morning, good afternoon or good evening from beautiful Ellensburg, WA.
SEARCHING FOR MORE LAND…
As fall works its way through the calendar, I find I finally have time to get out our newsletter. It’s been an interesting couple of years lately. Due to folks in the valley splitting up their ranches into 3 acre ranchettes, its been a trial to find enough pasture to lease. We have a few hundred acres of our own, but not enough to support a 400 head cow herd. It’s been our desire to purchase more land on our end of the valley hopefully close by the ranch, but so far that hasn’t been an option. What is considered “pasture ground” has not been available to purchase as such. There are a couple of larger parcels of ground in the vicinity, but priced at over $8,000 per acre they are way too costly for ground that ideally would have no rocks, but would have excellent water rights, a center pivot, and three foot high export quality number one Timothy waving in the breeze. Instead, much of the $8,000 per acre ground is rocky and hasn’t been turned over for decades, has dry spots that can’t be irrigated and numerous ditches running here and there. We continue the search for pasture ground. In the interim, our cowherd that has been growing over the last few years will now take a turn in the other direction. We are selling approximately 100 cows this fall by private treaty to make room for our retained 2009 heifer calves. We will be putting more heifers in our 2010 March Royal Flush Sale than ever before. This will be a good opportunity for someone looking for a great set of replacement females.
We recently sold 30 bred cows to Campbell Cattle Company. We were so surprised when we received the following note from them:
Mike, Paulette and Robb,
Your help, friendship and advice has meant so much to me and my family. We have listened, watched and learned by your example, using it as a model for our ranch in building our cattle herd and in how we treat others. I have heard you each say that the most important thing to you is “your relationship” with people, above all else. You demonstrate that philosophy and ideal to all who have had the pleasure to meet you. You family models the importance of relationships as an example to the rest of us in the cattle business. It is an honor to have you as friends.
Being fortunate enough to benefit from your hard work and excellent breeding program through the purchase of Trinity Farms cows and bulls for our program, we are seeing the results in our calves, and we are excited about what the future will bring to our program as we continue to build on a sound genetics and breeding program.
Thank you, your friends,
Ed & Cary Campbell (Alex and Zack)
Campbell Cattle Company
Yakima, Wa
It is very rewarding to have someone state back to us what we try to do through our business. I guess it all goes back pretty much to the Golden Rule…treat those as you would like to be treated. This is the motto we try to live by.
FAMILY UPDATE
Our granddaughter Chelse is president of both her horse and beef 4-H groups. She is running for a position on the Royal Court for the Ellensburg Rodeo this coming year. We won’t know until January if she will be fortunate enough to be crowned queen or one of the princesses.
We are so very proud of our granddaughter Mackenzie. She is a cheerleader at her high school, and for the past two years has been a team leader for the local Relay for Life event. It was her idea to donate a heifer for the worthy cause of helping to find a cure for cancer. She has done this at the past two Royal Flush sales. With the sale of the heifer each year along with the generous donations of our customers, she and her committee have raised over $10,000.00 each year. She was featured in an article in the Angus Journal for the work she has done. She was also recognized at the annual Relay for Life convention in Reno for being one of the top youth fund raisers.
The heifer donated for our 2009 Royal Flush Sale is a Purebred Angus Mytty In Focus heifer out of a 1I2 dam. She was purchased by C&C Farms. Rocky Cobb exhibited her at the Moses Lake Fair where she was named Grand Champion. Congratulations Rocky!
We are the third largest purebred Angus breeder in Washington state, and we have picked a super purebred Angus heifer to donate for our 2010 Royal Flush Sale. Trinity Hope 0381 9228 is sired by Mytty In Focus and is out of an Twin Valley Precision E161 dam (NHF). Hope’s grand dam and great grand dam were two of the most prevalent donors in our program. This little heifer can go anywhere and be an asset! Watch for an upcoming photo of her on the sale info page.
Our first cutting Timothy hay is already starting to be exported. This was the second year our grandson Chance has been harrowbedding. He really seems to enjoy working with the equipment. He is very cautious and dependable. He was the quarterback for his 8th grade class football team this year and did a great job of leading his team to an undefeated season! With long summer days finally over, I’m sure Chance is glad for the break! We are done with field work for the year, irrigation systems are being “blown out,” and we are getting ready for the months none of us enjoy around here…winter!
Even our youngest grandson Colton, is getting involved with livestock. His steer sold for $3.25 per pound. He was really happy with what he received. Our Kittitas County Fair is one of the largest annual events in the community, and the market sale that supports 4-H and FFA kids is held on the Friday of Labor Day Weekend each year. Kids sell their goats, pigs, sheep, and beef. All four of Robb and Debbie’s children show steers each year. The animals are graded as they are processed. The top 15 steers are given a “steer of merit” award. Out of 90 some odd steers this year, three of our kids’ steers made it as being steers of merit and they all graded choice.
EXTRAORDINARY EVENT AT THE RANCH
Mike, Robb and I held a remarkable event at our ranch on September 24th. The Certified Angus Beef folks from Ohio have been working with the QFC grocery store chain in Western Washington and Northern Oregon. CAB asked us if we would host an all day seminar at our ranch. Both CAB and QFC folks wanted to have all the meat managers learn what it takes for producers to be able to raise Angus beef that will grade at the very top 8% of the pyramid…that which qualifies as Certified Angus Beef.
We had about 80 people arrive by buses from Seattle at 9:00 A.M. They got off the buses, had time for coffee, fruit and donuts, then gathered in our sale barn where they all sat on bleachers and in chairs that we purchased from our local sales yard when it closed years ago. We were introduced to them, and Mike and Robb welcomed them all to our ranch. Robb gave a 20 minute presentation about our ranch and what we are trying to accomplish with our herd. He did a visual presentation on just how many steps are involved in getting our product from pasture to plate…it starts with the producer, then goes through steps that more often than not involve a cattle buyer, backgrounder, feedlot owner, packer, retailer, and finally the consumer. His intent was to show that the producer is usually quite removed from the consumer, and it’s important to producers that this link to the consumer grows stronger.
The CAB program then split into three rotating groups. Mike, Robb and I had the rotation that took folks on a hayride out to one of our pastures where we had 20 Angus pairs grazing. We explained how we start several months before even breeding our females by matching up EPDs to sires we are planning on using for the year. Much thought and planning goes into each breeding decision we make.
“We wanted folks to understand that raising top quality cattle is not just a fluke…its planned mating to a very high degree.”
I talked about what I do within our operation. Included in that is inputting all the birth, weaning and yearling data in our computer cattle programs, all the paperwork necessary to register the calves, day to day accounting including payroll, being in charge of the website, all advertising and creating our March sale catalog.
Bill Bartolac with QFC
meat managers at photo session.
Many of the folks that visited from QFC have never been around animals. We had two young heifers on display and Robb’s father-in-law brought over one of his show heifers. Everyone had a chance to have their photo taken with Bill’s heifer if they wanted to. The CAB folks had hired local professional photographer Molly Morrow to take photos for the day. All the photos concerning that day’s event that are in this newsletter were taken by her.
Scott Robinson kissing heifer.
It was a most fantastic day! We learned a lot from the meat managers, and they “got it” on just how many steps it takes to get the product from pasture to plate. As a thank you to us for hosting the day, we were given the most beautiful engraved clock. Certified Angus Beef’s staff’s generosity in giving us a clock for the work we had done, and the gratitude we received from all who attended the event, blew us away.
Mike, Robb and Paulette receiving engraved clock
GETTING READY FOR THE ROYAL FLUSH SALE
March will be here before too long. The calves are already bunk broke, have had both sets of fall shots, and are shown here as we start our first weigh for our gain testing. We have calves by bulls we have used in the past (Mytty In Focus, Lead On, Boyd Poundmaker, Gar Predestined and Traveler 004 on the Angus side, and Preferred Beef, Brooks Above Par, HC Hummer, Lucky One and Lucky Man on the Simmental side) and calves sired by bulls new to our program (Sinclair Net Present Value on the Angus side, and Red Caesar and Kaboom on the Simmental side). What an exciting group of calves! They’re full of meat and already showing expression of muscle.
We take pride in the disposition of our cattle, and are frequently complimented on how gentle our animals are. Mike is seen here sitting in the corral with the bulls that have just been weighed. Our animals are used to us being around them. We start conditioning them to us when they are baby calves. We walk through pastures, ride horses, 4-wheelers, take trucks around them and even sit near them in the field. The young calves are inquisitive and come right up to us. As you can see…that behavior doesn’t change as they age.
ABOUT US AND WHAT WE’RE UP TO
Mike is the president of the Washington State Angus Association. I am the president of the Kittitas County Cattlewomen’s Association and second vice president of the Washington State Cattlewomen’s Association. Robb is the treasurer of the Kittitas County Cattlemen’s Association. Being involved with these great organizations is a good outreach for us.
Two weekends ago we went to visit customers (and dear friends) Derek and Debbie Gavette. They own Stoney Ridge Farm. It was raining off and on and before we got there we were wondering if any customers would show up. Robb and Debbie and the kids have been there a few times, but since it was our first time to their farm, we didn’t really know what to expect…other than we knew it was a very popular place to visit during the month of October. I was so surprised to find well over 200 customers wandering through the different genres of their farm with umbrellas in hand!
What a fun place to visit! They have a harvest operation that is beyond great! Fresh apple cider, apple and pumpkin pie slices, cider donuts that are fresh off the fryer and made while you watch, hot dogs, boxes of apples for sale, pumpkins that kids go out in the field to pick themselves, a little train that kids ride on, a goat path where goats go up an incline and across a rope held bridge over to a box that has food in it. Robb, Debbie, their 4 kids and Grandpa and Grandma Bartolac (Debbie’s mom and dad) went to Stoney Ridge this past weekend when the weather was great. Gavette’s had over 5000 folks visit their farm on Saturday. Robb and Chance drove tractors all day helping folks get to and from the pumpkin patch.
Oh my…I could go on and on about what a fantastic experience folks can have if they go there. When we were there, Mike even got up close and personal with their camel “Moses”. He is used in their nativity program that is presented in December. They also sell home grown Christmas trees. If you go to their farm for a visit, you won’t be disappointed!
We are so very proud of our grandchildren! As her senior project, Chelse decided to focus on helping out with Trinity Farms advertising for the year. This is something that will help us throughout the coming years, clear down to when the younger generation takes over the ranch! We have eliminated the “royal flush” chips and cards in our ads and just changed things up a bit. I told Chelse I would like to see her and her sister Mackenzie design an ad for the 2010 Relay for Life donation heifer. They did an awesome job! Chelse is in the Running Start program at school. She will graduate from high school with enough college credits to cut approximately 2 years off her higher education classes. She has been going to college for 2 years now, and this senior project is the only class she has at her high school. What a help she has been this fall with preparation for our 2010 sale!