Day 1 -- A month before the sale

I've never blogged before and now I'm going to attempt to blog for 30 days (Thanks to my friend Holly Spangler - and her 30 days blog).

I live on an purebred Angus farm with my husband and three children.  Prairie View Farms, PVF Angus, is my husband's childhood dream come true.  He grew up showing cattle, got incredibly involved, and turned this desire into what I think is a very successful purebred Angus farm.  We now have more than 200 cows here and hold two annual sales marketing these cattle for donor cows and show heifers around the country.

So, we're living the dream, with the ups, downs and all arounds associated with owning your own business, living with livestock, working with employees and customers, and trying to raise a family in the midst of it all.  At the end of this month I'm turning 40, which frankly has me in its grip, and is perhaps why I foolishly decided to share all these things on a blog, something I don't usually write or really read others.  I hope I'm doing this right.

I'm going to blog a narrative of the month -- the month before we hold a sale on our farm.  A month of the happenings, the visitors, the things that happen in front of and behind the scenes on a cattle farm as we attempt to make our business a go again this year.

To begin our tale, my husband is going to have traveled to three states and 2 different countries before the weekend will be over.  He has flown, taken a train, and driven a truck and livestock trailer, all in order to get there.  All to look at or show a cow.  Why might you ask?  In my opinion the best part of the purebred livestock industry is the people that we have known through it.  Our customers, friends, people we spend time with at events, become close friends.  They all have marketing events, and because we enjoy being around them, we want to go and support them when they are having a sale themselves.  Alan has been to Tennessee and Iowa yesterday and today to do just that.  Tomorrow he'll fly to Toronto to show a bull, (I aptly named "Outtasight") that we sold to a group of Canadian cattlemen.  They are exhibiting him at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair (I LOVE the name of this show) and want to have Alan there for support.  And we want to go do that.

In the mean time, Alan's sister and her husband, Brandon Jones, are holding a steer bid off at their farm in Gridley.  Because I enjoy cattle people as much as Alan does, I'm going to help tomorrow.  I am looking forward to seeing old friends, and having a good time (oh yeah, and help her serve chili and pretend to be helpful).  This isn't just a way for us to make a living, it is our WAY of living.  And even though I wasn't raised around it, I can't imagine living another way.

I'd better stop -- I have 29 more days of prose to write.