We Had a Dream

In July 2010 we attended Nature's Harmony Farm Business School for a weekend seminar.  We came away realizing we already had the perfect customer base--our kids and grandkids.  We had moved to Zephyr Hill Farm on a whim, but that summer weekend the whim became a dream.  We dreamed of Zephyr Hill Farm as a place our children and grandchildren would love to visit, to experience God's amazing creation--especially His creatures, and to build lifelong memories.

On December 23, Jim and Monique arrived with Charis, who turned six on the 28th; Kol, who will be four in January; and Eden, who will be two in April.  Jenny, Jean-Marc and their dog Tai arrived from Ohio on Christmas Eve.  Kara had already been here for several days with her dog Bonnie, cooking, baking and decorating up a storm.  Katie and Cameron could not join us as they were heading to New Zealand the day after Christmas.  We missed them, but the celebration went on . . .

All kinds of fun were on the menu, like jumping off the Kubota . . .

getting horsey kisses . . .

and tickles!

Kol and Charis lifted Eden up for a horsey kiss, too . . .

while Julie was just her perfect size.

Not even big, tall Romeo could faze Eden, a truly fearless animal lover.

Charis discovered the fall leaves . . .

and everyone piled right in.

On Christmas Eve we sang Christmas carols around the table after our dinner of fresh Ohio tamales and homemade grass-fed beef chili.

Christmas morning began with one of our favorite traditions.  Everyone has to stay in their room until Dad and Mom (or Didi and Mimi) turn on all the Christmas lights.  Finally, when everything is ready, I give the cue to come downstairs by turning on Percy Faith's "Joy to the World" at 99 on my Bose player.  It definitely wakes any stragglers!

This has for many years been our way of beginning Christmas morning with the joyous announcement of the birth of Jesus.

Full of exuberance while she waited for the slow grown-ups, Eden raced around and around the room . . .

while Charis and Kol clapped their hands over their ears to dim the pealing music and followed suit.

Like the rest of us, Jean-Marc enjoyed a cup of coffee while Santa Herb distributed the presents, assisted by Aunt Kara the Elf.

Jenny kept her camera poised to capture Christmas memories.

Eden helped Jim open his gift of grass-fed Zephyr Hill Farm beef.

Charis and Kol exercised enormous artistic talent and generosity this year, and Aunt Kara was the beneficiary of an original Charis work of art.

Monique shared Eden's joy over a stuffed doggie from Aunt Jenny and Uncle Jean-Marc.

And finally, after a treasure hunt through the house, the children found Didi and Mimi's present in the basement, an HO train complete with an antique village from Mimi's childhood, a mountain tunnel studded with real West Texas rocks, and a little farm with a pasture full of animals.

We were blessed by five full days with the family, loving every minute (except the ones I spent sick in bed). Sunday found everyone heading for home, whether Ohio or nearby Chattanooga.  Before the grandkids left, they had a few last requests . . .  Eden got to say goodbye to the animals.

Charis got a birthday kiss.

Kol and Eden talked to the cattle over the fence.

And there was time for one last romp on the hay bale playground Jim and Didi had built in the hay barn.

Although we made many happy memories this Christmas, there's one I'll always remember.  Monique told us that when Kol woke up the morning after Christmas, he asked her, "Mama, is this a dream?"

"No, it's real," she reassured him.

But she was wrong.  It was a dream--our dream come true!

Our Dexter Breeding Priorities

A reader recently asked how we determine what to breed for, and it got me thinking.  There are certain things that are very important to us in our breeding program, others that are less so.  But we had never sat down and put a list in writing, much less tried to list our priorities in order.  It took a lot of thinking and re-writing!  So here, by request, is a first attempt to list our priorities for breeding.  NOTE: This list is subject to re-evaluation and change, and we reserve the right to throw it completely out the window if we so choose!

Our Breeding Priorities

1) Temperament. For us, if our Dexters are to be family cows, good temperament is an absolute requirement. Warning: Aggressive animals will be eaten on our farm!


We halter train our heifers, and our bull is halter-trained. It so happened that we needed to move both him and a heifer in season from one pasture to another. We put his halter on, clipped a lead rope on hers, and we each led one. It went very well. Of course we don't TRY to plan to disrupt a breeding pair, but it's good to know that if we have to, we can safely do it.


Many are the times we've been thankful to be able to walk up to an animal in the pasture, put on a halter or clip on a lead, and take it where we want it.


It's extremely important to me that my cows don't kick or even look like they want to when I'm milking and that I can handle their calves without trouble. For us, this is the essence of a "Family Cow."

2) Calving ease. Any cow can have a wrong presentation and a difficult delivery; if it happens again, it's time to check whether the cow has a problem. A low-birth weight bull is a great asset to calving ease. One of the best things about our Dexters (and Dexters in general) is that they have calved without difficulty and have good mothering skills with little or no help from us. Waking up in the morning to a healthy, dry, nursed calf is a huge blessing!

3) Dual purpose, meaning equal emphasis on beef and milk. For beef you want good muscling, length, good width across the body, and good depth through the heart girth.

For milking you want good milk production with plenty of butterfat and protein (also necessary for raising a healthy calf). You want good udder conformation with a level floor, good front attachment, high rear suspension, good spacing of teats and well-shaped teats. A cow with "sausage teats" that a small calf can't get hold of to nurse becomes a burden.


Temperament is especially important for a true dual purpose animal. The cow with the greatest milk production in the world is worthless if she tries to kick your head off every time you milk her!

4)  Good conformation.  We wouldn't cull an animal with less than perfect conformation if it has other good qualities.  We would breed it to a better animal to try to improve on its faults.  This is why a good bull is so important, since he is going to contribute his genes to every calf born on the farm.

Good feet are an often over-looked part of conformation, hidden away in the grass as they often are.

Note:  One of my pet peeves is breeders whose animals have "good confirmation."  We have yet to take a cow to church and serve it communion, and until we do, I'm afraid none of our animals will have "good confirmation!"  But we hope they will have good conformation!

5)  Polled.  Our foundation cow  (left) had horns, and we knew we didn't want to deal with them, so choosing a homozygous polled bull for her was a very high priority.  Our  current herd sire is heterozygous polled.  Being homozygous polled would have made him "Perfect," but he is so excellent in every other respect that we wanted him even with one horned gene.  With all our breeding stock being heterozygous polled, we will eventually have a horned calf, but we are willing to dehorn it.  What we don't choose to do is to keep both horned and polled animals together.  For our safety, the safety of our grandchildren, and the safety of our other animals, we have chosen to go hornless.

6)  A2 status, homozygous A2 (A2/A2).  The photo of our granddaughter eating yogurt is here because our family's health is the main reason we are interested in the whole A2 issue.  While it may not have been conclusively proven to the satisfaction of the dairy world at large, we like the idea of breeding for A2.  When we decided not to keep our A2 foundation cow (pictured above), we did decide to replace her with her better-tempered, polled, A2 granddaughter.  However, we plan to keep our A1/A2 cow because of her sweet temperament and easy keeping.  In looking for our herd bull, homozygous A2 status was a priority.  You can cut horns off, but you can't filter the A1 out of the milk!  However, A2 is only number 5 on our list because we feel other things are more important.

7)  Grass-based.  Also for our family's health, we want to raise grassfed beef.  Our steers should finish well on grass, and our cows should be able to raise healthy calves without a lot of supplemental grain.  Currently we feed one cow 4 pounds of 16% protein feed a day, while the other gets 3.  Their calves are 6 months and 4 1/2 months old, respectively, so both are at their peak lactation.  Both calves are on their dams full time with grass, hay and minerals.  Both are healthy and shiny and chunky.  Our vet is happy with the condition of the cows on this amount of feed, less than the rule of thumb would dictate.  (The rule of thumb is 3 pounds of 16% protein per gallon of milk.)  I know of full-sized dairy cows that consume a 5-gallon bucket of grain twice a day.  Ours get four (or fewer) tomato-cans full per day!

8)  Size.  Our aim is to stay within the ADCA height guidelines.  Again, we would not necessarily cull an animal based on this, but we will breed toward that goal.  We love Dexters partly because of their size, and we have no desire whatsoever to "upsize" them to get more beef or more milk.

9)  Color.  I put this last because it's just the gift wrap, as far as we're concerned.  Beef and milk from black, red or dun cattle taste exactly the same.  That being said, we were thrilled to get our first red calf this spring.  They sure look pretty on the green grass, they're a lot easier to spot at night, and there's anecdotal evidence that they are less troubled by flies.  (That's something we'll be watching.)  Both of our cows carry red, and now that we have a red herd sire, we'll be getting some red calves.  That's just window dressing--fun, but not important to us.

There are other things I didn't list, even some things we test for (or will test for).  Here's why they didn't make the list:

PHA - All of our animals are PHA-negative and always will be.  There would be absolutely no reason to add a PHA-positive animal to our herd.  I believe that almost every Dexter breeder with a PHA-positive cow is trying to breed a replacement heifer.  Many with PHA-positive bulls have castrated them, despite their other great qualities.  We don't test for PHA any more because our animals are obligate non-carriers.

Chondrodysplasia - We bred a cow to a chondro-positive bull, twice.  We got one sweet non-carrier heifer and a carrier bull (pictured above).  While we love our sweet, chondro-positive bull calf, we have personally decided not to breed chondro carriers.  We will be castrating this bull calf and raising him for beef, NOT because of his chondro status, but because of his dam.  And THAT is another post for another day: "What Makes a Bull Mother?"  Meanwhile, he's looking like mighty tasty beef!

Kappa Casein & Beta Lactoglobulin - These are milk components that can be tested for with other DNA tests.  If they were computer programs, you might call them A2-2.1  They relate to cheese-making, and while they are interesting--and we've already tested one animal for them--they will never be a reason to cull an animal.  They fall into the Fun-to-Know category, that's all.

So there it is, our breeding priorities at 6:29 p.m. on October 8, 2014.  And now we've got some hungry animals waiting for hay!

West Texas, Part III: Davis Mountain Dexters

Monday morning I was up early, so early I almost caught the sunrise.  Although the sun was up, Star Mountain was still shrouded in nocturnal colors.


Then a mere 10 minutes later, it sashayed forth in rosy splendor as the sun rose over the hills behind the house.

I had big plans for Monday morning.  While the rest of the family hiked up behind Cathedral Rock, I headed into Ft. Davis and drove west past the old Bloys Campground.  I was on my way to visit Ft. Davis' one herd of Dexter cattle belonging to Robert and Patty Martin of Davis Mountain Dexters.

There's some beautiful country out that way, just as mountainous as Limpia, but a lot less rocky and with lots more grass.

It turns out their rains started in June, two months before ours.  Although they have been plagued by drought and wildfire in recent years like the rest of the area, by now it was looking lush by West Texas standards.

The Martins' ranch is nestled back in the hills with a lovely view of peacefully grazing Dexters from their front porch.

After talking for a while, we headed out to see the stars of the show.  Here are some of the DMD ladies.  The Martins' website explains that they raise red Dexters, mostly polled (although some with horns) and all PHA- and chondrodysplasia-free.  The Martins explained that their cows will calve in September or later.  They got "off schedule" in 2011 with the effects of the tragic Rockhouse Fire (photo here), and they decided to stick with fall calving because temperatures are cooler and the fall monsoon makes the grass more lush.

The Martins raise their Dexters as range cattle and use welded steel pens for working them;  you can see a photo on their website photo gallery.  They make hay available to their cattle on a constant basis, and the cattle do well fed exclusively grass and hay.

After I left their place I went into Fort Davis to do some shopping.  One of the shopkeepers saw my "Got Dexter?" T-shirt and mentioned the TV show "Dexter."  I told her that the shirt is about Irish Dexter cattle.  She got all excited and said she just recently bought some grassfed Dexter beef from the Martins, and it's the most delicious beef she's ever tasted.  I thought that was a pretty good recommendation!

Robert and Patty have their ranch divided into several pastures, so after we visited with the cows and heifers we went over to meet the bulls and steers.  Here they are with their herd sire, Legend Red Ace, who produced his first offspring for them in 2010.  It's a fun coincidence that I visited Barb Netti, Ace's breeder, in June.  When she mentioned that there are Dexter breeders in Ft. Davis, I never dreamed that a few months later I'd be meeting them!

Cholla cactus always seemed useless for anything except keeping bird nests thornily safe from predators, but Ace showed us that it makes a perfect scratching post.  That leisurely scratch was illustrative of our visit to the bull pasture where Ace, a two-year old son of his and several steers hung out together in harmony.

Of course no visit with Dexter people is complete without some time spent looking at pedigrees and discussing breeding goals.  I could have stayed all afternoon enjoying the Martins' hospitality, but I had to meet the family for lunch in Ft. Davis.  As I headed to the car I enjoyed a last look at the Dexter ladies lolling by the pond.  If you get out Ft. Davis way, I recommend you look up the Martins.  They even have a guest cabin for buyers who want to visit this beautiful country and take home a Dexter or two!

Monday was nostalgic in more than one way.  In 2005 Kara was getting busier with high school and looking forward to college, and she came to the decision that she needed to give up riding her horse Romeo.  So we shipped Romeo out to the ranch in West Texas to stay with our family there.  He lived a life of leisure on the range, learning to be a Texas horse.  When they heard we were coming for a visit after such a long time, Herb's brother and sister-in-law arranged to have Romeo trailered over to Jeff's house so that Kara could see him.

It brought tears to my eyes to see Romeo lean his head against Kara in a horsey hug that clearly said, "I thought I was never going to see you again!  I love you!"

At 18 Romeo is showing a few gray hairs on his face, but he's still the same dear horse.  We made a family decision that he should come back home and spend his remaining years with us and his old friend Angel.  So Kara is staying on at the ranch with Romeo until we can arrange for a shipper to bring him home.

Won't he be surprised when he sees all the green grass here . . . and the tiny cattle?!

As was becoming the pattern every afternoon, clouds rolled in over Star Mountain, which looked decidedly different from this morning.

This time we got a good, soaking rain all around us.

After the rain passed on, Cathedral Rock and the bluffs practically glowed in the pure afternoon light.

The beacon of light beaming out from behind Star Mountain was a fitting way to end a beautiful day.