2009 South Poll Field Day At Judy Farms

   June 20th 2009, Judy Farms hosted the first annual South Poll field day. We originally thought that we would have around 80 people show up. Folks kept calling and signing up right up to the very day it was held. Finally told folks just to come and sign in at the gate. We had over 300 people from all over the United States show up Saturday morning! I started to worry that we were going to run out of room to park everybody. We ended up parking folks in three different pastures by the house. Our pastures got the mob density treatment with vehicles.
    Teddy Gentry brought up four cow/calf pairs, some yearling bulls, 4 yearling heifers and several other folks brought some older South Poll bulls for folks to view. Teddy started out the day explaining to folks the history of his development of the South Poll breed. Next we walked folks out to the different pastures of various South Polls and discussed their background and what to look for in good grass genetic cattle.

    We had folks judge the four yearling heifers and had them rank them from 1 being the best to 4 being the worse. They were all nice heifers, but two of them were outstanding heifers. They were very slick, deep bodied and put together perfect. The attendees wrote down their selections then we had the judges rank them as well. The judges were Tim Olde, Dave Roberts and myself. We ranked them in the same order as the attendees did.  
    The top heifer was donated by Teddy Gentry to auction off with the proceeds going to the South Poll Association. Top bid was around $3800 for the heifer, which was purchased by Jerry Voss of Linn, Missouri. I think I got one bid in on the heifer! Next Teddy made a surprising announcement; he gave the second place heifer to my wife Jan! The second place heifer was out of Teddy’s best cow BO442. Jan about fell over when Teddy announced it. Teddy gave the third place heifer to Bruce Shanks young son and the fourth placed heifer was given to Jerry Voss.
    We served lunch, which consisted of grassfed burgers, beans, coleslaw and potato salad. The lady’s did a fantastic job of getting everybody through the lunch line in quick order. Next we went on the mob grazing pasture walk. We had the mob on a paddock about a mile from our house. It was quite a procession of cars pulling into the farm. We had only been there about 5 minutes and it started to rain. I moved the mob onto a fresh sward of forage and started to explain to folks our grazing operation.
    The rain decided to get serious and it started coming down like someone was pouring it out of buckets. I was standing up on the hood of my truck with my loud speaker and most of the folks stayed put listening to my talk in the downpour! Everyone was soaked to the bone anyway and had driven a long ways, so they toughed it out. Then the lightning bolts started to come down, I imagine I looked like a lightning rod standing on the hood of my truck! We decided to end the pasture walk.

    On the way back, the rain stopped and we took in the Hair Sheep tour for about 30 minutes. The heavy rain started again and we headed for the house and tent. The rain stopped and folks gathered round for a questionnaire session.  Supper was served with grass-fed hotdogs and folks settled in to listen to the music. Teddy Gentry and two of his music friends from Nashville started playing their favorite songs that they had written. It was a special treat to listen to very talented songwriters and singers out in the country with the sun going down.
    Teddy let a young man play his guitar and sing along with them that had come to the field day. The young man was blind, but he could really sing and play the guitar. He sang a song that he had written about what it was like growing up being blind from birth; there was not a dry eye in the whole crowd when he finished the song. Teddy sang several songs that he had written while performing with his band “Alabama”.
Everyone went home happy and well fed. Even though it rained, it was still a great day and our first South Poll Field Day was a great success.

Posted: 2009-10-09

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