The Great Northeast California is 3 mini longhorns better.

The forgotten corner of California, separated by distance and time.

Amazing is how I would describe it. I may have looked up vacation home opportunity there as well. I had a buyer that contacted me and expressed interest in some mini longhorns. They had raised standards but with the passing of time wanted something a little smaller. They still have two old steers but with one starting to have health issues they wanted to bring in something now to be there when the inevitable happened. So they put down the deposit on three and we agreed upon a delivery date once the guys were weaned.

They really liked these three and we are excited for them. These three have some of the longest horn genetics I know of on some of the smallest sized animals so we hope to keep in touch. Waterdog the red and white is a yearling steer by our Dr Seuss bull with dam of over 90 inch horns so we really would like to see him as he grows.

We planned the drive up which was 7 and a half hours of driving time not counting stops for fuel, food and boys. My boys and I made it a man trip and got to spend some quality time. Justus was super excited to find a car that he was taller than.

Well we made it up there and Larry and Donna were extremely accommodating offering before we got there to let us stay the night as lodging was very limited or absent. We made it there with only one minor mishap of missing the address to circle back into phone service to get a text telling us where to meet. Their farmstead is fantastic with a full garden supplied by the cows free fertilizer and orchard with all sorts of amazing fruits. We had for the first time Russian red fleshed apples. Who knew that there were apples with red flesh. I had never even heard of such, but they were delicious. They then served up an amazing ribeye dinner that was fantastic and the next morning blueberry pancakes from their garden fresh blueberries. The boys and I agreed we needed to find a hunting lodge in the area to be able to return.

Their old steers were amazing. Their horns are huge and very friendly. They put them out each day and they come in at night. They are fed fresh produce from the garden left overs and provide the fertilizer to go back on it. They produced these by AI using semen on their cows from famous ranches 15-20 years ago. They had a homemade chute that I got pictures of as well that predates modern chutes but was designed for big horns. We learned that in this heavy cattle country that cattle drives happen regularly right down the main road. Each spring headed out to the wilds for grass and home in the fall for weaning, branding and shipping. Then they have them close to feed. They do get snow but the drifts of 3 ft are worse than the actual snowfall of 6 inches or so.

We started the next morning for home with great coffee and breakfast. We got to see bald eagles, deer, antelope and hot springs. We were enchanted by your country Larry and Donna and maybe one day we can host you.