I remember the Wiersma's who so kindly donated feed for my 4-H steers. They said I could take the "push outs". Push outs are what the dairy cows didn't eat because they pushed it too far away from themselves in the feed troughs. Every day Momma or Poppa and I would go to the dairy and fill two big plastic garbage cans with feed. It was this great mix of alfalfa, grain and other wonderful things. It was BY FAR the best feed I could be giving my steers.
Tiny won Grand Champion once he was on the hook, I have no doubt that his great marbling and musculature was because of this great feed. I didn't know enough to have done anything else to make it happen. :)
Doing this every day meant that we dealt with A LOT of weather while we salvaged feed. I remember scooping up feed with the snow whipping against my face. I would put on my big work gloves and use my little hands as big paddles to fill up the buckets. Often times it would be dark before we got over there and we would be working underneath the big yard lights of the dairy.
I can still smell the wet alfalfa and the sweet grain... Funny how I remember that smell over the actual smell of the dairy.
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The huge majority of this was done by you and me while poppa was at the fire academy, and I was pregnant with Winter most of the time too! I remember blizzards, crazy horizontal snow and the cold and our hands would be like ice and the smell of the feed forever in our minvan. (yeah minivan as this was our 'truck')
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