Lamb

Cattle and sheep graze on permanent pasture, cover crops and crop residue on Pasture Grazed Regenerative Farm in northern Illinois.

Activist-driven ballot measures were shot down by voters in Colorado and California on Nov. 5.

For Cliff Behrmann, bacon runs in the blood. Behrmann is the owner of Behrmann Meat and Processing, a business started by his maternal grandfather and Behrmann’s father.

Maybe it’s time to put some eggs in a different basket — that is, livestock. And since cattle prices are formidable for newcomers, I suggest a more reasonable approach to diversification: sheep.

These longer, warmer and sometimes wetter days are really giving the crops and pastures a great start. While most of my neighbors are done or close to finishing planting, we’ve just got a good start.

I’m glad to be done feeding hay and am now grazing cereal rye and red clover. Some of the rye is in the flag leaf stage already. I have rye that is 10 inches tall right next to 30-inch tall rye, so I need to get it grazed.

If an important part of your business is flying between the United States and New Zealand — like it is for Air New Zealand — you get pretty skilled at making the tedious, 13-hour flight go smoothly.

This year, February has seemed more like late March. The temperature here in northern Illinois is warmer than in past years, quite a difference from when I was writing the January column. I know the warm temperatures are not going to last.

I was just having so much fun with the minus-15 temperatures and 20 mph winds last month that I just forgot to write an article. Well, the last part is true. Things have been mundane around here — unroll hay, break ice and fill water tanks.

My philosophy is I need something to get me motivated every morning. What do all you grain farmers use as motivation after harvest?

September already! Have you had your first pumpkin spice latte? I have not, but I did enjoy a pumpkin spice cream cheese muffin. I saw a funny advertisement for pumpkin spice oil change for your car.

I imagine some of you have started harvest by now. Not me, though, but that’s normal. Our double-crop beans are getting really thirsty since we’ve only had a third of an inch of rain in over six weeks.

Well, I’ve just returned from the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival and it was entertaining and very informative. On Friday was the Sheep 101 classes and Saturday was the Profit Workshop classes.

Our sweet corn season is in full swing. We are selling in Galveston six days a week in addition to the Logansport farmers market. We also sell at the Logansport and Kokomo farmers markets.

Well, I think we may have a crop after all. I hope everyone got their much-needed rain by now. Since I plant later than most, none of my crop had seen any rain except a couple half-tenth events until the end of June.

Customers shopping at the Family Farm Meats store will find a wide variety of products and the farmer at the counter ready to answer questions about their meat purchase.

Hello from Graze-N-Grow. Whew, our annual holiday lamb slaughter just ended for our ethnic customers, and even though we had fewer ram lambs to offer because of last year’s flock reduction it was still kind of hectic.

Hello from Graze-N-Grow. By the time you are reading this our pasture broilers will be in the freezer after our friend Tommy at Brummel Poultry Processing does the “dirty job.” I’ve helped there a couple times and it’s too much lifting for this old body.

The tenderness and variety of cuts of lamb opens up the opportunity to serve lamb all year long, not just in the spring. I love slowly braising lamb shanks, marinating and flash-frying lamb chops and using ground lamb in stews, sauces and forming them into patties.

Joshua McCann from the University of Illinois will give a presentation on “Technology to Simplify Record Keeping and Nutrition Tips” during the online Illinois Lamb & Wool Producers meeting at 10 a.m. March 27.

So far, it’s been a pleasant January here at home. The wind isn’t blowing, it stays above zero and the snow isn’t too deep. What’s not to like about that?

If you’re looking for dinner ideas, lamb and goat dishes may be just what the doctor ordered.

Our on-farm butcher lamb season is going to end soon, I’m afraid, since we only have about 15 ram lambs left unless I can convince them that females taste good, too.