Working Calves & Cattlemen’s Sliders

We now interrupt your regularly scheduled swine-programming for a trip to work calves with Grandpa and Aunt T. It was a fun day.  We didn’t get to help as much as the kids wanted to but truthfully, it is less stressful on the calves if less people are around to excite them.  (Less stressful on the vet and other workers too.)  There was also a little disappointment when they weren’t going to be cutting the bulls today because last night before bed my daughter was already barking about who got to carry the ‘nut bucket’.  Seriously.  I can’t make it up.  Ohhhhhh kindergarten, are we ready for you?

Growing up, my folks raised cow-calf pairs and row cropped and raised up a nice offering of hay. (All of this they still do, of course.) The cattle kept us around home and busy. Truthfully, I can say until an older age I thought EVERYONE that row-cropped (raised corn, soybeans etc.) also had livestock (cattle, hogs or other).  I don’t think I knew that there could actually be ‘grain farmers’ only.  After all, what on Earth would they do if they didn’t have animals to tend to every day?

Teaching the next-next generation how to act around the ‘girls’.

They were surprisingly relaxed and the ‘working’ went quite well.

Every time I think my Dad is cutting down on the herd he replaces some of his cuts with some nice cows.  The other day he went to a herd dispersal and bought a great group of cows.  He still likes to mess with me quite a bit though.  Before I had seen the cows he told me he’d bought a group of “gummers”, which is slang for older cows because they possess less functional teeth than the younger cows.  When he mentioned that HE bought a group of ‘gummers’ I actually thought he was off his game a little.  Definitely messing with me, thanks Dad.  (I saw the group today and they are solid, great looking cows. Whew.)

Since this is a cattle post, I’ll leave you with another slider recipe, this one aptly named “The Cattlemen’s Slider” and another recipe inspired by the Iowa Slider Challenge sponsored by the Iowa Beef Industry Council and Winefest Des Moines.  Not the winning entry as seen here, but the recipe inspired by my Dad, a real cattleman.  Not quite a cowboy (no horse) but a great steward of his stock. He’s not into ‘frilly’ food, so this is the type of burger that works for him.