Christ Ranch

First, a word from our sponsor

He owns the cattle on a thousand hills.
Psalms 50:10

howdy

Welcome to the Christ Ranch

The coffee's brewing. Pull up a wagon seat for your personally guided tour.

coffee

Driving down through the hollow and up our lane, did you notice the short-leaf pine trees? We planted 22,000 of them our first spring here when we reforested the overcleared hillsides.

22,000 X

= one exhausting spring!

You were greeted immediately by Midnight (the black lab with the wildly wagging tail-- dog --take care or she'll love you to death!) and Boomer (the lab/english setter mix making all the noise).

Atop the hill sits a very small (tee, tiny really) mobile home flanked by three RV's (our temporary housing the first two years). Each of the children turned an RV into a private bedroom.

We refer to our original home site as

Four Oaks

because of the four mighty oaks which shelter and shade our homestead. Beyond and above this compound sits our new home, finished in 1995.

That's Sneakers and Miss Chin sneaking and pouncing around the birdfeeders.

Below the house is "The Building" (as we refer to it).

Just kidding! Our "Building" houses Dean's tools, an RV Dean is repairing, various storage items, and cattle ranch accessories (ask a cattleman--he'll tell you).

Behind the mobile home waits our raised bed garden (wild with weeds)(that's why it's waiting), and the compost bins.

Beyond that is the orchard which produces apricots, cherries, peaches, plums, pears, and six varieties of apples.

Just below the home site, down a steep embankment, hides the small opening of a cave from which a waterfall appears during rainy seasons.

Drive on down the lane, beside one of the hay fields, until you reach Walnut Flats where sits the barn and corral. Flowing beside the barn is a stream, fed by seven year-round springs. Following the lane and crossing the stream puts you in the calf pasture where grows the Pawpaw Patch.

Winding up Blackberry Hill, you arrive at the gate that opens into the intensive grazing field. Here you see three watering tanks and sixteen pastures of five to nine acres each. The cattle are rotated every third day or so from paddock to paddock, which means our cows eat the lushest grass because the fields get rested frequently which promotes healthier growth.

The view from the north end takes in miles of Ozark beauty. From here you can see a good portion of our 320 acres. Persimmon Hollow is yonder, back toward the south.

Turning west we traverse the switch grass hay field (a warm season grass), top the hill and check out the West 80. This field boasts two ponds and will be intensive grazed for the first time this year. We dug iris bulbs from that old homestead site and transplanted them to our front yard.

Driving on around, midway through the second switch grass field lies the entrance to

Still Waters.

The sign greeting you says, "No hunting, except for peace or God." Therefore, within the boundaries of Still Waters, deer and turkey make their home, along with the usual squirrels, raccoons, possums, and birds. And God is ever present.

Traveling on down the hill, across Redbud Hollow, finds us back at Walnut Flats.

Here at the corral, we work the cattle, vaccinating every year against miscarriage, and again to boost their immunities so their nursing calves stay healthy. The calves receive vaccinations when they're three months old, then again at weaning (about seven months) when they're reweighed.

During calving season, this is where we pamper the heifers (first time mamas) and assist any who need help with birthing. We experienced unusual results our first year of ranching when we were learning the ropes. We raised both pigs and cows.

Well, it wasn't quite that bad! Our eyesight was definitely impaired, however.

We have a lot of fun with our cows, except when we try to get them to do something they don't want to do. The cows all wear numbered ear tags so we can identify them, but our first small herd came to us named, so we decided to name them all.

One of our first cows got dubbed Houdini because she went back and forth from the pasture to the woods without us ever finding out how she got back and forth. Houdini produced Magic (what else?) and Magic produced Abra (Ta Da!). Then we noticed God had something to say about this family. Houdini's ear tag number was 66, Magic got 55, and Abra got 44.

Then there's Shirley, Goodness and Mercy. They look like sisters. And Goodness has earned her name. She is one of the few who will eat range cubes out of your hand. Goodness birthed Gracious, then Faith.

Our cows are mostly a mixed commercial herd, but we do own a few pure-bred Gelbvieh cows and bulls. We thought they deserved special names, so our mamas are Queenie, Princess, and Miss Jane. This year we are raising Prince Charles, Prince Albert, and Prince George. Anyone need a good purebred Gelbvieh bull?

Lucky got the wonderful ear tag number 13. Oops, watch your step!