Hello everyone! Sometimes it can be fun to walk in someone else’s shoes and see what a day in their life would be like. So today, we are going to give you a tour of our daily activities!

6-6:30 am: Wake up time! We get up at different times depending on what we have to get done in the morning and how late we went to bed the night before.

7 am: We’re both around and on to our tasks for the day which usually includes computer work. This can be anything from writing blogs to entering bills into Quickbooks. We both handle different sides of the financing and business so we each have our own computer to work at.

8 am: John is usually off to the barn to make phone calls and get the plan for the day around. You would not believe the amount of time he spends on the phone each day talking to companies, salesman, and customers! It’s more that you’d imagine. This is also when chores start. The gentleman we bought the barn from still does chores for us every day except weekends, which alternate between him and John.

9 am: Emily and our employee arrive at the barn and we all get around! We start walking pens and pulling sick and lame cattle to treat and move.

11 am: Chores are usually done by now so everyone is either eating or has a full belly. We are still walking pens and treating cattle. If everything is moving fast we might be sorting cattle or loading/unloading trucks if needed.

12 pm: Lunchtime! Our favorite time of day!

1 pm: Back at it. We make a game plan for the rest of the afternoon. This might include: processing new cattle, vaccinating and implanting groups, running problem groups through the chute that might need special attention.

5-6 pm: This is our aim for the end of the day. Depending on how many steers got their head stuck, broke their waterer, or busted a structurally important pipe off its mount or not will either delay when we get done or give us a few extra minutes at home for the evening. There is always some steer who made a mess of something about 3 minutes before we were planning on leaving!

8 pm: The little farmers are in bed and it’s time to do goat, pig, and horse chores! These are followed by more computer time if there is more work to do or some relaxation. Occasionally, we might even make it into our swimming pool to cool off for the day!

10-11 pm: Bedtime. Unless, of course, the water pump alarm at the barn has gone off and called us, or some calls and there are cattle out, or we’re still working on a task that has to be completed by the next morning, or… the list literally goes on forever!

This is what our normal weekday looks like, Notice it does not include the truck driver telling us we need to meet him and his load of feed at the bunk silo, the broken piece of equipment we have to immediately fix, or the 3 salesmen who were in the area and just wanted to check in on us. Our days constantly change, get interrupted, and don’t at all look like we planned. That’s life though and we do enjoy doing what we do! It’s nice that everything isn’t completely predictable, even though we may wish that wasn’t so some days! We stay busy, always have new goals in mind, and enjoy the challenges of running our own business.

Thanks for reading!

Emily Crain