Time For A Party

Everyone loves a good party. And there is no better reason to get people together than to celebrate an upcoming marriage and welcoming someone new into the family.

When Crystal and Jon got engaged the 2 questions that I got asked the most were: 1) how did he propose, and 2) what is he like?

With Jon and Crystal both living so far away, not many of our family members have actually been able to meet him before. With the exception of a few cousins that were at Agribition this past year when Jon came up to meet us, our extended family has just heard stories and seen a few pictures.

When the 2 of them got engaged we knew it was the perfect time to through a party and let everyone see what Crystal knew a long time ago... what a great guy Jon is!

Now every family likes to through parties. You may celebrate Christmas, a birthday, Mother's Day, the standard holidays. Being a Groeneveld, we don't just through parties, we have the best, more outrageous, extravagant, over the top parties. I am not sure of to many other families who will completely turn a calving barn into a Halloween wonderland, or that will have 75 people over for Christmas Eve, just so that we can all get together. Let's just say that things are never simple or boring.

The best ones at planning the family parties are definitely Heather and Kim. These ladies have so much creativity and style sense that whatever they work on turns out great. That is why I was not shocked at all when this little package showed up in the mail for Crystal and Jon's party!

I can only imagine what the rest will look like. Regardless, it's going to be a great time with family, friends, and a few cocktails!

Weekend With "the Eng"- Part 2

Day 2 of our weekend started with a little walk to Starbucks. After how much we had ate last night, we needed to get up and moving around.

We jumped in the car and headed towards Breton so that "the Eng" could meet my parents. We had some time to kill, so I thought it might be neat to show him where I grew up. That place was Lewis Farms, and we drove by the main farm as well as the Bull Farm, where we lived as kids. It is always neat to go by Lewis's as it is pretty grand in comparison to most farms.

We then headed onto the farm, only to be met by this 10 mins into the drive....

Yes there was a bike race going on. We thought that there was just a group of ppl out biking, but about 300 bikers later, and driving 20-60km/hr, we went right through the race. The drive went from being 1 hrs to 2hrs, and us almost missing our tee time in Breton!

Along the way though I was able to educate "the Eng" all about farming. We talked about what the different crops were, the difference between silage and hay, and also the timing of crops. It was great to see some canola crops coming into bloom right now!

Pretty yellow fields of Canola

Once we finally made it to Breton, we had a quick 9 holes of golf with my mom and dad. We got a chance to look at the calves at home, and see how they are changing. I had not seen them for a month, so they had grown and changed lots in that time frame.

The next stop was the Ponoka Stampede to watch the finals of the rodeo and Chuckwagon racing. It was a great night out, and there was some awesome action on the infield. The final heat for all the cash in the chuckwagon's was won of the best I have ever seen, with the winner getting to the wire 0:00:01 of a second faster then that guy in 2nd, who also happened to be his son!


It was a great weekend after all, and nice to be able to just relax with some great company along the way. Guess I will really have to do something great this weekend to compete with that!

Happy Canada Day!

Just wanted to say a quick Happy 114th Canada Day to our country and all my fellow Canadian's. Hope everyone enjoyed their day off and was able to celebrate with family and friends.

I see this video this morning and thought that it was perfect for today!

Sharp Shooter

This weekend we headed down to High River to visit my grandparents and celebrate Father's Day with them. My grandparents live a busy life, sometimes busier then us, so we don't get to see them as much as we would like to. Saturday morning I got out to the farm and we made the 3.5hr drive south.

My grandparents live in a valley right next to the Highwood River. It is a beautiful spot, and where my mom and her brother grew up. It is great to hear some of the stories that get told about that place. Everything from my Grandpa's newest creation for the Alberta Beef, to the cattle stories from the early 80's when Highwood Land and Cattle was in its prime.

Grandpa's gun collection. 2 Centential guns,
a CPR gun, his grandfathers gun, and a
Calgary Stampede gun. Most have never been shot.

After having a great dinner Saturday night in Okotoks, more on that to come later this week, we went back to their farm for the evening. A pretty relaxing but great day.

Down where Grandma and Grandpa live there are a lot of gophers. While these animals may be cute, they actually are pretty bad animals to have on your land. 20 gophers will eat as much grass as 1 cow will in a year, and they leave holes all over the place that animals can fall through and hurt themselves.

Grandpa love to sit on his deck and shoot gophers, but on Sunday morning it was dad who was out there shooting away at these little rodents that were on the lawn. After breakfast he told me that I was going to go shoot some gophers with him, so I better get my coat and shoes on.

I have never shot a gun before. Actually I take that back, I shot an air pistol once before during a Pony Club target practice. I have never shot a real gun before, let alone killed anything. It was #8 on my 101 in 1001 list, and as you can see that item is now crossed off.

In a matter of about 30 mins I had 4 gophers killed, and dad had nick named me "Snipper". It was a ton of fun, and I think I even made the comment that I wished we had gophers at home so that I could shoot at them! I guess the mangy coyotes will have to do for now!

The New Boy In Town

Over the last few days word has slowly started to spread that yes there is a new boy in my life. I try to keep my personal life pretty quiet, so for the past 4 months no one has really known except those that I see on a daily basis.

The story broke this past weekend when my parents were visiting Crystal and Jon in Iowa. They were spending the evening at Jon's parents house when Crystal asked who was at the farm with me over the weekend. My family not knowing any better responded, "umm no one that we know of". That is when Crystal showed them this picture that I had posted onto Twitter.

Crystal's response was, "well why is there 2 pairs of feet in this picture then?" Over the last few days a few details have been released, but I am keeping a pretty tight lid on this for now. I am also taking a page out of Crystal's books and will wait some time to reveal a name and face. It seemed to turn out alright for her in the end, so its work a try for me.

So to all those that I have lied to or avoided your questions over the last few months about whether I was still single or not, I am sorry. In time hopefully you will all get to meet the new boy. Until then "The Eng" and I will see where this takes us, and hopefully will have a few stories to share along the way!

Golf Courses

One of my favorite summer activities is golfing. It started about 3 years ago, and I have been hooked ever since. After my first round I went and bought my own clubs and have never looked back. 

Not a lot of my friends golf, so it started out going with the family on the weekends. Now it has turned into a weekly thing for me to do, and there is nothing better then hitting the course or the driving range after a long day at work, or on a relaxing weekend.

One of my other favorite things about golfing is just getting out and enjoying the course. Golf courses are really beautiful, and this year I have been able to play 4 new courses, and have enjoyed each one of them.

Millwoods Country Club

Victoria Park Golf Course & Driving Range

Black Bull Country Club

 

Dorchester Golf Course

Brag Room

In most houses you would find areas filled with pictures of the family, the children, maybe even the loved pets. Nothing really out of the ordinary. 

At our farm, our entry way is turned into our brag room. Mom has filled this area with some of our favorite photos (mostly ones Crystal took), banners from the years gone by, and at one point it was even filled with rows and rows of ribbons that we had won.

Things have been a bit refined over the years, but it is always a nice memory of our cattle and accomplishments. Especially on those -40 days when all the cows decide to calf and the tractor wont start!

Lewis Farms

This weekend we headed to Spruce Grove to Lewis Farms to look at their 2011 Bull Sale offering. We are looking for a new bull and with their sale happening next weekend, it was the perfect time to go check the bulls out since we cannot make the sale.

I always love going to Lewis Farms for a variety of reasons. It was out families home for 7 years, and the first 4 years of my life while mom and dad managed the farm. It is also a place that has so much history and stories. I would venture out to say that it is the most successful Simmental operation still in existence. I also love going to Lewis's because of the people. Crystal had the opportunity to make this video for them last year. I think it really shows what the farm is all about.

Back to this weekend though. All of the bulls are housed at the Bull Farm which is about 5 minutes away from the main farm. While our family was at Lewis's we lived at the Bull Farm, so I have some pretty fun memories of that place.

As you drive into the farm, you are greeted with the bull runs, followed but the big pens. This is where the bulls are kept and fed from weaning until sale time. The pens are large enough to hold a nice size group of bulls. They are sorted into Reds, Blacks, Fullbloods, and Angus.

One thing that I think is really neat about their large pens are the feed bunks. They appear to be the same as any bunk that you would feed with. But when you look closer, they are all actually individual head stalls. They have the ability to be kept open at all times, or close all at once. Dad said these were always great when they used to halter break all the bulls int he 80's.

When the bulls came to eat, he would flick the head gates shut and lock the bulls in. From there he could get close to the bulls, and get them quiet before getting them into the barn to put halters on. I have never seen another place with a set-up like this. It is a pretty slick set-up, and super practical at the same time.

Kurt

This week not only did I have to say good-bye to Ruffles, but we also said good-bye to our dog Kurt.

Mom wrote a great blog about Kurt and what he meant to our family. Make sure you check it out.

A funny little story that even our family sometimes forgets is that we have actually had 2 dogs named Kurt. The first was a pup that we had for about 2 weeks. He got a really deadly disease called Parvo and died. A few weeks later we got a replacement pup, also name him Kurt, and he had been with us ever since!

Thought I would share this picture with you. I took it last weekend when I was home.

Time To Say Goodbye

This is definitely one of the hardest posts that I will ever write. And I am only writing it because both my mom and sister have wrote posts about this, but as good as they are, they just don't capture my true feelings.

Ruffles has been many things to be over the last 11 years. She has been my 4-H project, summer show companion, helped me win a Supreme Showmanship award, a great producer, the backbone of my herd, my favorite cow, and my best friend. I loved Ruffles as much as other people love their dogs.

I got Ruffles out of the Checkers sale as a heifer calf. She was the high selling red heifer that year, and came from a great family, the Hadways. The kids had already nicknamed the heifer Ruffles, and it just stuck. That year she also became my 4-H heifer, and we never looked back.

With Ruffles we won countless 4-H awards, showmanship classes, and just had a good time in the 3 years that I got to show her. There was something about her that really made her special, and it wasn't just her conformation.

After her show career was done it was time for her to be like every other cow on the farm. Her job was to produce a calf each year, hopefully of high quality. The bulls would be marketed and sold, and the females would either get sold or remain in the herd. She knew her job, and she did it well. When I bought Ruffles, she was a $3000.00 investment. In the end she made me well over $15,000.00 and left me 3 daughters in the herd. You can't ask much more of a cow then that.

Today Ruffles got on the truck to go to town. This time she would not be returning. It is part of the cattle industry, and with Ruffles only having 1 calf in the last 3 years, it was just not cost effective to keep her around anymore. She leaves behind 3 daughters in my herd to take over her legacy, with her last calf being born being one of the best ones she had ever raised.

Going to the farm will be hard this weekend. It will be sad to walk out into the cows and not see her there. We lost our lead cow, and sometimes the most stubborn cow. But no matter what anyone says she was part of the family. Even though he probably will not admit to it, I am sure even dad loved Ruffles some.

So this is good-bye to my good friend. I will always miss you and never will forget you.

Christmas 2010

This year was probably one of the best Christmas holidays I have had in a while. It was nice to stay home some, and it just did not seem as busy as other years which was nice.

Crystal was up for a short trip as well. It is nice to see her for a few days when it is not at a show or when we are running around trying to get things done.

Dad also had a few days off work which was nice. We got some things done around the farm, we even were hauling cows home from swath grazing on Christmas Eve!

Christmas Ever we always go to my mom's side of the family for a big feast. This year was small with about 50 people and kids there. It is always a fun time to catch up with everyone and eat some great food!

My Uncle Dean made this awesome Gingerbread House from scratch!

Kim & Tim have this huge 15' Christmas Tree. It takes 5 hrs to decorate!

On Boxing day, we headed to Red Deer to my Aunt and Uncle's house. It was nice to be able to see everyone there as well. We are an ever growing family with lots of little Great Grandkids running around now!

My grandma was also able to get out of the hospital for a few hours as well.

And of course our annual family Christmas picture!

Christmas Card Time!

I was flipping through some of my favorite websites last week when I came across this photo.

The Kardashian family always does an extravagant Christmas card photo. This photo was the winning image for Christmas 2010. Personally, my favorite is Khloe in the pink dress in the middle.

If my family did Christmas cards like this, I might just get into the holiday spirit really fast!

24 Days of Christmas

In my attempt to be more in the Christmas spirit this year, I thought I would share some of our Christmas traditions with you.

Last year I shared the store of our advent calendars. You can read all about it here.

 

This year I did not get my calendar right on December 1st as a certain elf forgot to drop it in my car after Agribition. It showed up in the main on the 7th, and I got to open up a few gifts!

This is what the first 7 days of the countdown got me. Along with some really yummy chocholates!

There is a really neat magnate, actually 2 that say Cattle Chick, a tide pen, a $20 chapters gift card, and Robyn Beazley's new book, Live an Amazing Life!

Agribition Part 5- Making New Friends

Each year at Agribition you always meet new people. This year I have the pleasure of meeting 2 really great people, as well as getting to see lots of old friends.

Emma Burpee met my family when they were in Australia for the World Simmental Congress. She was there working for another breeder, and got visiting with my family. Emma won a trip anywhere she wanted to go as part of a cattle scholarship. She decided to come to Canada to see Red Angus cattle.

Emma stayed with us for 2 weeks when she got to Canada. Her first week here happened to be the same week as Agribition. It was perfect timing for her to come as she would get to experience all that is Agribition as well as getting to meet many cattle breeders.

The other person that I really got to get to know well was Greg Goudy. Greg is a fellow Simmental breeder from Saskatchewan. A few weeks earlier we had taken a trip to see some Simmental cattle together. He had 3 animals of his own at the show.

I event got to show his bull calf for him.

It seems like there is always lots of people to meet at the shows, and new friendships formed no matter where you turn!

Agribition 2010- Part 3

Each year one of my favorite cattle events is the RBC Supreme show at Agribition. This event truly showcases the best of the cattle show throughout the year. It is always fun to try and guess what the dollar value is of the animals in the ring. Without a doubt it is in the millions!

This year in the supreme show there were over 40 bulls and 40 females that competed. In each the bulls and females a top 10 is selected. From those 1 bull and 1 female go on to be selected the Supreme Champion! The winner of this prize wins $10,000, but the money is really a bonus. It is the prestige of winning this title.

The winners this year were of excellent quality. I think that it is the strongest top 10 females I have ever seen. While I did not agree with all of the top 10 bulls, the one that one, I can definitely agree on.

Supreme Champion Bull went to Big Gully Herefords, the Leachman family of Maidstone, SK. He was a Horned Hereford bull that they had raised. The Leachman family have been friends of ours for years, dad having known them from back in his Hereford days, and Crystal going to school with their son Lance at Kansas State University.

The Supreme Champion Female was also an excellent choice. It was a cow/calf pair owned by the Serhienko family of Maymont, SK. The heifer calf on this cow is probably the best heifer calf I have seen in a long time. She is flat out good! Dennis has had lots of contenders in the best, so it was great to see him final win the Supreme title.

The show was really fun to watch yet again this year. Congrats to everyone for qualifying.

Agribition 2010- Part 2

So the whole point of us going to Agribition each year is to promote our cattle. We do this through talking to interested cattlemen that come by the stall, connecting with fellow breeders, and also by putting them in the show, as this gives that cattlemen the best opportunity to look at the cattle and evaluate them for themselves

As kids, and it still holds true today, we were told that the show was a show. It was one person's opinion on the day. Sometimes you agree, and other times not to much, but you take it all in stride.

This year we had a fairly good show. The quality of cattle was the strongest we had even seen in the Simmental barn. It was great to see the largest show in a few years, yet top to bottom a really great group of cattle.

Last week I featured our string of cattle that we would have at the show. We then got pictures of all of them after they had completed showing. Not all of the pictures are the greatest, but it will give you an idea of how they looked there!

RJY First Date 1W- Class Winner

IPU Revolution 172U- 2nd in class and Res. Sr. Bull

CDY Front Runner- Sold out of the stall for $5000.00

Lil Bit of Paradise- 2nd in class

RJY Signature Move 4X- Sold for $6250 to Nova Scotia

SLY Sweet Thing 12X

Anchor D Viper- 3rd in Class

Agribition 2010- Part 1

We got back from Agribition last night after being out there for over a week. As usual the show never disappointed and our crew at High Country had a great time.

Because there was so much that happened, and there is a lot to catch up on, I have broke it down into a few different parts to keep you all informed.

The first part that I am going to talk about is probably the one that most of you are the most interested in... Jon. Crystal's boyfriend came up with her this year to help us out. None of the family had ever met him before, so it was a great opportunity to spend some time with him and get to know him.

I had a few people ask me what I thought of Jon throughout the week. My answer usually consisted of that he is a great guy, really funny, and they seem to really be in love. As long as she is happy and we don't hate the guy, i'm happy!

Jon comes from a Hereford background so we were not to worried about him helping out in the morning if needed. Most mornings this was how he contributed to morning chores.

And mornings that we was not doing that, he would do this in the afternoon....

He even missed out on shaving some ear's out because of all his afternoon napping... Oh well guess that will have to wait until next time!

Elegant Force

On Monday I got a call from my dad in the morning. He wanted to know if I wanted to buy a heifer with him. He knew that I had been wanting to buy something, but anything that I was looking at was way out of my budget!

Dad and I had been looking at a heifer in the NAILE sale for a few weeks. We both had really been wanting a black baldy heifer, and something that was a little different pedigreed. We found this heifer, and I did a little bit of digging on her.

She is out of a really strong cow family, and had done pretty well in her show career to date. The only problem was if we could afford her or not... That's where dad's phone call came in. He thought that if we partnered up we could maybe afford her then!

Long story short about 4 hours after the original phone call we had bought the heifer! She comes from a small farm in Kentucky, called Happy 6  Simmentals. They have a really cool story about how they got into cattle, and about their son Cramer if you are looking for a good read!

The heifer is now headed to get her tests done in Iowa and will cross the border in about 2 or 3 weeks. I am super excited to see her, and can't wait for her to get here!

2010 Farmfair Simmental Show

The Simmental Show at Farmfair was yesterday. Farmfair is the largest cattle show in Alberta. Although the Simmental numbers were down a little bit this year, the quality was really strong.

Here are some of the champions from the day

 Champion Female- Racier Farms

 Res. Champion Female- Lewis Farms

 Champion Bull- High Country Cattle Services & Beechinor Bros Simmentals

 Res. Champion Bull- Lewis Farms

We had another great show going 2/2 this fall with our bull. This Saturday we will get to compete in the Supreme Show for a chance to win a brand new Dodge Truck!