A Proverbs 31 Investment

I decided to bring a camera along with me as I fed the calves today, so that I could share a few pictures with you.  As you know, our family worked for a few weeks at our friend's fireworks stand around the Christmas holiday to earn some extra spending money.  I was inspired by my favorite Bible hero, and her inspiration led to the decision to take the money and put it towards buying some replacement heifers.

I've always loved the "Proverbs 31" woman in the Bible, and have spent years trying to live my life in a way that might honor God, the way she did.  That Gal is AMAZING!!  She's a tough act to follow, but I might as well learn from the best.

Anyway, my role model in Proverbs chapter 31 is quite business savvy.  In verse 16, "She considers a field and buys it; with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard."  As a stay-at-home mom, I couldn't imagine having enough money to buy land. However, the basic premise of making an investment...like a vineyard...that will continue to be profitable for years to come, has really challenged me.  I've wanted to do something profitable like this for quite some time.

I've raised livestock for many years...even while I was a single gal.  As a married couple, we've always raised cattle.  But, from the time we've had children, all of our livestock has been purchased with my husband's hard earned money. When the opportunity came for me  to make some extra money during the school break, I was excited!  I could have just taken the money and blown it on stuff...things that we would soon forget about, but I knew immediately what I wanted to put the money towards...heifers!!  Yes, we have lots of cattle, but these three heifers are extra special to me.  They are my little Proverbs 31 investment.  We can raise them up and breed them, and they have the potential to each have at least 8 calves in their reproductive years.  That's 24 cows from an investment of buying 3!  The kids can use their offspring for 4-H projects, and we can keep all of their heifer calves to increase our herd even more!  Even if we sold them in the spring, we'd still make a large profit.  So these calves are my investment with income potential.

In honor of our job selling fireworks, we decided to name our heifers after the merchandise we sold. 

I'm pleased to introduce our new gals... Snap, Crackle, and Pop!

Aren't they cute?

Since our curious calves were  intrigued by my camera, I decided to take some pics of a few of the others, too.

She's a feisty one.  I think it's her hair color. :)

I caught him eating breakfast.  Don't you just hate it when people take pictures of you while you're eating?

Always the mischievous one, he's got his hooves in the feeder every morning.

Do you remember Mammy cow?  Well yesterday, it was time for her and her calf to go to another pasture, and the calves really miss her.  They stood at the fence that separates them, and watched her in the pasture across the lane for hours.

Taking a sip from the stock tank.

Even though this pasture is 1,400 feet lower than our house, it still got pounded with this last storm, and the cold temperatures have made it impossible for the snow to melt off and expose our ample grazing grass.

Here's the "frozen tundra".

Even the lane between pastures is still snow packed, despite being driven on.  Mammy cow is on the left side of the lane, and the calves are in the pasture on the right side.

We are getting ready to move our cattle to another pasture that has running water and electricity for these cold winter months so that we don't have to haul water and chip ice every day.  It also gets a little less snow.

The calves will miss their Mammy, but it's time for them to spread their wings and learn the ropes on their own...after all, they'll be yearlings in 4 more months.

Thanks for enduring the cow pictures.  I'm fully aware that not everyone who reads this blog thinks that cows are amazing.  I just had to share my own little Proverbs 31 investment with you. Yipppeeee!