Visiting a neighboring ranch

Tuesday morning started with a breakfast potluck and devotions...

Lots of "groceries" for potluck!

Worship at beginning of devotions

Worship time

In the afternoon, we drove to Brough (pronounced "bruff") Ranch(https://www.broughranch.com/), "on the other side of the mountain"...

The mountain behind the ranch

The view in front of the ranch (the ranch has land is on both sides of the road)

Our tour was conducted by Wilde Brough and his son, Jordan, and daughter-in-law, Carrie --

Wilde's name is on top of the gate sign.

Jordan and Wilde

closeup of Jordan's hat

Some of the cattle in pasture

Steers being finished -- these are Wagyu -- Japanese breed producing Kobe beef, well marbled -- Wilde said that he went to Wagyu in the 1990s because it was bringing about $.20/pound more than other beef at market. They also raise Black Angus.

They have made a greenhouse out of part of an old chicken house...

Veggies in the old chicken house

Greenhouse roof on the old chicken house

The other end of the chicken house still houses chickens

The chickens are raised for egg production

Sitting on the eggs...

A strawberry column in the green house

The chickens have free range during the day

Our conveyance on the tour - straw bales on a wagon pulled by two Percheron horses. I asked why they had the draft horses, and they confessed, just for use in parades!

A look back down to the field where the steers and chicken house/green house were located.

Looking west toward the mountains.

One of these is "Momma Cow" -- as I understood, the first Wagyu that they got - they acquired her embryo and she was implanted as an embryo in a dairy cow.

Some more Wagyu steers. The breed naturally has horns, they nip the horns on most of them. But, Carrie is hoping that they may be able to make art objects from the horns after the steers go to market. I got the idea that Wilde is not "wild" about this idea and hopes that this set of steers is the only set with horns that he has to deal with!

Walk-in freezer that they got to ease their process of carrying beef to farmer's markets...

...rather than digging into a chest freezer to get the cuts she needs,

Carrie has them in nice carrying bins.

At the end of the tour, we went back to Jordan and Carrie's home and enjoyed homemade cookies and cake!

A couple of notes:

• I asked about folks growing alfalfa in this area -- they have a "small" irrigated field in which they grow an alfalfa/grass mix. Wilde casually mentioned that the field is 170 acres!!!!
• They have spring calving.
• I asked how long it takes to change a field from sagebrush to grass -- Wilde said about 5 years. We asked how it is done - mowing down the sagebrush, or burning it? No - just add water to the field and that kills off the sagebrush and allows the grass to grow. He said that this area is known as "Clover Valley" and clover will come up and grow profusely.
  

After the tour, we stopped in Wells at the new home of a Hispanic pastor and his wife - they don't yet have the occupancy permit, but should have it soon -- we prayed over their home and them.

Wednesday will be the last day of our rally.