Our two boys, 14 and 12 years old, start their day with milking our family’s jersey cow. What a treat! Fresh, creamy milk from a grass-fed jersey cow. We have plenty of butter, yogurt and ice cream made and consumed at our house.

Breakfast this morning consisted of scrambled eggs, beef gravy, beef sausage, and shoo-fly pie. The beef sausage is new to our family, and I prefer it over pork sausage. Our 4-year-old daughter loves beef sausage, too.

Our family’s beef operation consists of 20 cow/calf pairs along with a few head for finishing each year. They are 100% grass/hay fed throughout the year. Each day during the growing season, I move the cattle to a new, small paddock for fresh grass. They also have access to a wooded area, which is their preferred hang-out spot during the hottest part of the day. Once it cools off in the evening, the herd wanders back into the pasture to graze.

In a few weeks, the cows will be moved to a paddock where they are fed dry and fermented hay for the winter months. We bale our winter supply of hay ourselves from our chemical-free alfalfa feeds and pastures. Our goal is to build our soils to raise happy, healthy cattle to provide families with great tasting, healthy beef.