Christmas Eve at the Bison Farm

It's Christmas eve and we're back to sun again after the most recent Saturday snow storm.

The herd just came in for water and are roaming back to the Sudan pasture. Christmas Eve is just another day to them.

Christmas orders that people placed with Smoky Hill Bison have been shipped and all tracked as delivered. I have another group of boxes to ship out on Wednesday, but for two days, we have quiet time on the farm.

Our family started celebrating Christmas last night with one group of relatives, and will continue with more family for the next two days. We celebrate with Swedish foods, gift giving and plenty of chocolate and ice cream! Tomorrow morning at 6:30 am we'll go to our annual Swedish church service called Julotta. Then it's back to check water tanks when its daylight, and to wish the animals Merry Christmas.

Happy Holidays to everyone- from all of us at the Bison Farm!

Kansas ice storm

The world glistened outside after an ice storm hit the state Monday night...after an evening thunderstorm that dropped almost three inches of rain first. Trees and power lines and poles were no match for Mother Nature, so we've spent the week waiting for the sun to come out to thaw our icy world, and for the power company crews to make their way out to us in the country.
Then we got nine inches of snow on Friday night. But at least it didn't drift, like the western part of the state.
I'm very glad to say that we got electricity, phone and internet back on today! (I really missed my microwave, and the internet.)
When I was growing up in the 1950-60's we used the kerosene lamps every now and then, so we cope even now when power goes out. It's just the way it is here in the country- but usually we're only out for a few hours, not five days.
It wasn't good timing during the busiest shipping weeks of the year, but we coped and now ready for this shipping week.
I'm grateful for all the people trying to get our electricity back on in Kansas. They are working around the clock in cold slippery conditions to get homes and businesses running again.

Buffalo on Ice

I meant to write the title "Ice on Buffalo", but actually "Buffalo on Ice" is appropriate today too. We're getting a slow freezing drizzle, which is coating everything from roads, pasture grass, to the buffalo themselves. It's just plain bad weather to be out in today.

Verne put out more hay for them, so you can see that the herd is enjoying some food that isn't ice incrusted at the moment. But the buffs are made for this kind of weather, so we don't have to worry about them like the cattlemen do about their herds.

Their thick coats are keeping them warm, and their powerful heads and feet will break off the ice so they can get down to the grass.

It's very slick driving today, and events are being canceled by radio and TV news. By chance we don't have a company party scheduled here in the Visitors Center this evening, so we don't have to cancel it.

This afternoon I'm typing invoices for Monday and Verne is packing them. It's nice that we can get website orders in, and not have to depend on gift shop sales. (We still have a good stock of Bison Snack Boxes at www.BisonFarm.com ready to ship if you need some quick holiday gifts...)

So far the electricity has stayed on so the ice isn't too thick on the electric lines in the area. If so, we'll be cut off frm our power. We do have back-up generators for the walk-in freezer though if that happens.

The bad weather is predicted to last several days so we may be in for quite a storm, but that can be expected out here on our Kansas prairie...

Winter Coats

We had our first measurable snowfall this week, so of course I was out taking pictures of the buffalo in the snow. It's always fun to watch the calves discover what "the white stuff" will do when they kick up their heels and run. We only got a couple of inches of snow, so it's now melted and back to our winter brown landscape. There is a chance of freezing rain and snow coming in this weekend though.

This time of year the buffalo are warm and wooly in their winter coats, roaming the pasture at will. They walk by the window of my office in the Visitors Center twice a day to get a drink of water from the winter water tank that’s behind the building.

And inside, we're typing up holiday orders on the computer and occasionally putting on our winter coats because we're going in and out of the walk-in freezer as we pack Christmas meat orders.

Have you started your Christmas shopping? Please look through our website and shop! We’d appreciate your orders and we’ll get them sent our right away!

Buffalo's Pumpkin Pie

Weather changed from the temps. in the 70's to the 30's in one swift hour on Tuesday. Now it feels like winter and I envy bull Takoda's thick winter coat. He was enjoying his version of Thanksgiving "pumpkin pie" in this top photo.

The young bulls have been using the paths through the maze field to roam their winter food supply, and stay out of the chilly wind.

We had a quiet Thanksgiving dinner with family at our local community dinner, then visited in the afternoon.

I'm not a big shopper, so Friday I headed to the pasture office instead of town. I didn't want to mix with the early morning shoppers looking for the big Christmas sales.

This weekend I'm gearing up for your holiday orders, updating the shopping cart, checking the steak stock, etc. (Got your order in yet for gift buffalo sampler boxes? Please do so soon before we run out of steaks!)

I also have had several visitors stopping by the Gift Shop to pick up meat and see the buffalo too. It's not often someone from Hawaii can see buffalo, especially eating their version of pumpkin pie! That only happens at the Smoky Hill Bison Visitors Center!

The bulls are home!

The bulls are home!

Verne and help put up temporary cattle panels in the summer pasture and lured the yearling bulls inside with range cubes. These bulls have been in the summer pasture since May, enjoying native grasses, two ponds and the solitude of nature.

Every couple of weeks we'd give them a taste of cubes, working toward the day we'd catch and bring them back home.

This year it worked like a charm, and they were moved back to the homestead by trailer. The bulls were unloaded into the maze field so now they are roaming the paths like our visitors did this earlier this fall.

Pumpkins that have been decorating the farm's landscape have been gathered up and thrown in the maze field too. The buffs will enjoy them for a sweet treat to go with the Sudan Grass.

Now I can look out my office window and watch their antics as the bulls run full blast, storming in and out of the maze paths.

It's fun to watch them stomp and munch the pumpkins too, always looking for their favorite varieties, rolling aside the types they don't like until they run out of the sweet pie pumpkins.

They will be eating "Thanksgiving pumpkin pie" for the next month!

Cleaning up after Fall

We're enjoying beautiful calm weather this week, but the atmosphere is anything but calm as everyone in our farming township is trying to get outside projects done before the weather changes.

The neighborhood roads and fields are busy as farmers are hauling cattle home from summer pastures, putting chopped feed in silos, and cutting the last of the soybeans and milo. out of the fields.

While it's calm today, Verne is taking down the last of the maze signs, scarecrows, and stacking picnic tables that we used for outside seating during our maze season.

His next job is putting fencing back in place that was temporarily moved for activities like the pumpkin slingshot and corn cannon. (People shoot at targets in the pasture with ears of corn and mini pumpkins.) The buffalo use that stretch of fenced lane to move between sections of pasture so it needs to go back to it's original posts.

Right now the herd is enjoying their first taste of Sudan Grass, which is sweet and good winter food.

And we're having an end-of-the-maze season party tomorrow night so employees can celebrate, go over the past fall weekends, and plan ahead for next year.

I'm taking breaks to work outside, but I'm still catching up inside with computer work, and packing up things we don't need until next fall season.

The holidays are just around the corner, and we'll be gearing up for holiday orders next.

Whether is milo harvest for my farming neighbors, or meat internet orders for our ag business, the seasons are switching gears and we're all scurrying to beat the weather!