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lohelimousin
read my profile sign my guestbook Name: Lowell Birthday: 3/23/1948 Gender: Male Interests: Shepherding the flock: Both souls and cattle Occupation: AE Dairy Message: message me Website: visit my website Member Since: 7/25/2007 Premium

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Sunday, February 15, 2009

Ultimate Love on Valentines Day

Lowell and Niki went to the 2009 Beef Expo at the State Fairgrounds this week and had an ULTIMATE time!

Lowell started out his week of "vacation" by taking two limousin bulls to the fairgrounds last Sunday night. He then showed them on Tuesday and sold them on Wednesday. All of his hard work and lack of sleep paid off with a second place finish on one and a fine sale price for the other. Plus, he enjoyed 50 and 60 degree temperatures both days.

On Tuesday he had a small fan section to record the memories...

The above two videos are Lowell showing the bull that placed 2nd. As you can hear in the background Shea was cheering Lowell on with lots of moos!
The below video is for Blake to see that you can even use vacuums on cattle!

There are several other videos in the blog of Lowell and his bulls. It was a treat to see HIM in action. February is one of his favorite times of year due to the Expo. He always takes vacation time to attend; I think it's his treat to himself once a year. (He deserves it, right!?) Our hats tip off to him for a sweet year at the Expo this year!

On Thursday night (after a 4-H meeting) Lowell took a heifer limousin calf to the fairgrounds. This is the calf Niki will be showing at the Warren County Fair this summer. Lowell thought it would be a good idea to get a jump start on it this year and take it to the Expo. Once again, hard work and lack of sleep paid off! This time around it was a bit less enjoyable weather-wise- there was a horrible snow storm Friday which made it pretty chilly to wash and care for the limo.

On Saturday, Valentine's Day, "Ultimate Love" had its chance in the ring. As First Corinthians 13 tells us, Love never Fails and "Ultimate Love" proved to be the 2009 Beef Expo Grand Champion Limousin!!!

Despite the honorable title it received this weekend, this calf has a lot of work to do before the Warren County Fair. It not only gave the crowd a show with its impressive features but it also gave a show for testing Niki out on his ability to hold on to a halter or not! Hopefully this event will help tame her for future ones! I am sure Niki and Lowell will have fun working that one out by next July...

See you then!

11:00 PM - 26 views - 2 eprops - 1 comment - email it

Saturday, January 03, 2009

Here we go again! Weigh in time!

It's a new year which means weigh-in time for the steers that will be going to this summer's Warren County Fair. It looks like we are having an easier year this summer which both kids each taking one steer and one heifer. I guess since Dad's knee is better now and and he's back to doing this on his own I guess 4 head will be easier than the 7 head we took last year. Steers have to be weighed in and tagged at the beginning of the year if you want to show them at the County Fair. Dad said a good starting weight is somewhere between 600-700 pounds. They will be weighed in again at the County Fair and there will be rate of gain awards distributed. Maddy's steer (#152) is a Limousin steer named Unbelievable and weighed in at #665. Niki's steer (#151) is a Charlois steer named Undefeated and weighed in at #700. Niki already told me he's going to name his heifer Utah! If you remember, last year was the year of the T names and of course this year is the year of the U. We were glad we didn't have to show them today...they are rather wild still. I didn't get any videos this morning because they were too fast. We'll start posting again this spring when we start breaking them down.

Filling out the paper work at 6:30 this morning. Niki's in the back seat.

They were very curious when they were in the trailer.

It was a little cold this morning. Can you tell?

Farm Sweet Farm! This is them after we let them off the trailer trying to get away from us as fast as possible.

12:05 PM - 24 views - 6 eprops - 3 comments - email it

Iowa State Fair Summed Up!

The Iowa State Fair this August was, as always, a blast! We just realized we never posted the last bit of the fair so here as a quick peek at the fun.

The Hermons were tickled to have such a great fan section and appreciated all the support shown.

Lowell's cousin, Marilyn Ford & husband, Bill, came up from the Kansas City area.

Our dear church friends Al and Marlene Bown. (See how much Shea loves Al!? and vice-versa!?!)

A great group! Thanks again for all the support!

Here is the main group that brought us to the fair!

They were so cute and really enjoyed the brand new barn they were housed in!

Lowell worked hard pre-show & all through the fair.

Maddy and Niki ready to go into the ring.

Niki and Maddy showing their enthusiasm!

A bit of the show. This was a brand new show ring as well. We didn't have any first place titles but never-the-less it was a first-place experience getting to spend time with Grandpa.

Lowell is excited to go through 18 more years of fair with this little leader.

Another bit of excitement was watching our cousin, Courtney Penick, as an Iowa State Fair Queen Candidate!

My camera kept running low on battery so this is all I got on her introduction but you still can see how beautiful she looked and how proud her fan section was of her!

We were so happy for her to fulfill this dream! She really earned it- she has been an outstanding leader all her life within the church and world.

Well, that raps this post up for now - we have lots more of the fair to post - little hands on the farm, petting zoo, quilts, etc! but it will have to wait until another time so keep looking back for more fun memories.

11:25 AM - 13 views - 2 eprops - 1 comment - email it

Thursday, August 07, 2008

Iowa State Fair (Day 1)

Today we went to the Iowa State Fair for a couple of hours and we got in FREE! How did we do that you might ask? Well Van & Bonnie on WHO Radio have been planning a huge event for some time called the "The Great Corndog Chomp" to get in the Guinness record books by having the most amount of people all eating corndogs at the exact same moment. So from 5:30 to 8:00 a.m. you could get into the fair for free and receive a free corndog that we would all eat at about 8:30. The event was an overwhelming success but they only made about 8400 corndogs and about 12,000 of us showed up for the Chomp, so some of us didn't get a free corn dog. We were sitting with the Zinnels as you can see in the below picture. The video is people trying to do the wave before the chomp. All the county fair queens were lined up outside directing people into the grandstands. We bumped into our favorite as you can see below. Saturday we'll see how she did but we just hope she's having fun!

Niki took his Swans in on Tuesday and this morning we saw that he got a red ribbon. We were somewhat disappointed because people are clearly fascinated with what he did. We spent the some of the day just pretending to look at some other stuff and listening to what people said about the swans. They were amazed.

Finally I took some pics of our brand new barn that we will be keeping the heifers in when we go to the fair on Saturday and also the famous butter cow.

11:05 PM - 36 views - 6 eprops - 3 comments - email it

Monday, July 28, 2008

The Sale (WCF Day 6)

This morning was the Market Steer sale and we got there at 7:00. (It was nice to sleep in!!!) We spent most of the morning cleaning all the equipment and loading it up. We then got a sale sheet that tells you what number you are in the sale and you take your steers to the big barn and re-stall them into the correct numbered stall. We were numbers 7, 52, 62 and 81. Then starting with number 1, every owner takes their steer to the scale to determine their sale weight. Normally steers usually lose some weight while they are at the fair but this year ours all gained. We think it's because we did the tie-outs this year. Tsunami gained 15#, Talladega gained 35#, Tornado gained 40# and Tyson gained 50#. We had good prices on all of our steers this year and we thanked all of our buyers with a thank-you card and a big pack of Starbursts although Ginger had thought of getting a bottle of A1 Sauce for each of them. Tsunami was bought for $1.15 per pound by Dental Associates. I hope they enjoyed their candy!?!?! Talladega was bought for $1.25 by our good neighbor and annual buyer, Kevin Brummer and then resold to a fellow Limousin family, the Haits for $0.93. Tyson was bought by another family friend and Limousin herdsman, Bob Boesch for $1.15. Finally Tornado was bought by the Fair Queen's father and family friend, Mike Penick for $1.175 and then resold to someone (didn't see who) for $0.925. You might ask why people would buy a steer just to resell it for a lower price. It's because they are nice to us!!! Many local companies or friends of families buy a steer at a higher price and then resell it so as to give the 4Her a little bit more money.

WOW! That was a fair for the memory books! Although it was rather exhausting it was a great family time and we will remember it as long as we live. I don't even know how we can possibly thank Grandpa Lowell for all he has done for us in this life and how he has prepared us for the next. All we can say again is that we love him and we thank God for giving us such a good father, father-in-law and grandfather and it is because of him that we will be able to someday see our Father who "owns the cattle on a thousand hills". State Fair is coming next. Come back to see how Treasure, Tinkerbell and Taylor do in the big show!!!

Tsunami's Auction

Tsunami's Buyer, Dental Associates

Talladega's Auction

Talladega's Buyer, Kevin Brummer and wife

Tyson's Auction and Buyer, Bob Boesch

Tornado's Auction and buyer, Mike Penick!

Some other friends at the fair, Christy, Cassidy and Bethany who work the Pork Producers Stand

Future 4Her learning to use a straight comb

8:16 PM - 37 views - 4 eprops - 4 comments - email it

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