Lakeview Ranch: Curly Missouri Fox Trotters

WELCOME TO OUR PAGE:  BILL & SANDY PHIPPS

We purchased our 80 acres in 1989.  Nothing was on this but perimeter fencing.

We brought with us one cat, a Golden Retriever (Buffy) and 13 Jersey Heifers and a few Holstein steers.  We purchased a mobile home that was used, 14 x 52 and lived in for 10 yrs.  We had no running water, so first thing to do was drill a well.

In October of 1989 Bill made a our first hay barn and then in Novemeber started on our level floor dairy barn...yeah STUPID a level floor!  We had to squart to milk!  Never build a new dairy barn with a level floor!  

Our first heifers started freshening in April of 1990.  And continued to grow until 6 years later we were squatting to milk 53 cows!  Our morning milking about ran into night milking!  We only brought 4 cows in at a time.  We were exhausted!  And ended up only getting 3 milkings in 48 hours instead of 4 milkings! 

One day a cow came in that I, Sandy, milked.  She had a hard quarter and so I started hand stripping here.  Now, remember I am squatting beside her.  She started to get ansy and raised her leg up to warn me that it was hurting her to strip out that quarter...just as I thought she might kick, I stood up.  Just in time, because she let my right knee have it, right in the side!  Thank God I decided to stand up or she would of nailed me in the head!

Well, a couple hours later my knee swelled up and turned black and blue, time to head to doctors in 3 days.  Turned out that she had torn all the cartllidge in my knee !  So, in 2 months I had ortho scopic surgery and all the tendions and cartlidge had to be removed.  Took me about 2 months to recover and in the meantime we hired a contractor to start us a new 6 on a side pit parlor for milking.  To make a long story short, the contractor ended up with all the money and left us holding a half finished dairy barn!  We had to finish the barn ourselves.  But now we have a very nice milking parlor and can, if needed, milk 12 cows at a time.

We bought our first horse, Billy Bob's Cool Million C in 1997 and she has been with us to this day.  We found out about Curly Haired Missouri Fox Trotters in 2000 and made our first purchase of Sir Patrick's Maximum and his mom, Walker's Spook.  

Now we own 30 horses!  And the prettist and most lovable horses around, the Curlies!

Curly haired horses are hypo-allergenic for those allergic to horse hair, but that is not why we bought one.  We just love their personalities!  They are the in your pocket type of horse.  Very inquistive and very gaited.

In 2000 we also built a Cedar Log Home that the Jersey Cows paid for and also built a nice horse barn for stalls and hay.

We just love our life, even though the weather can throw us a curve along with high feed prices, high hay prices and sometimes very low milk prices.   2008 was a good year for milk prices, but by what I hear 2009 is going to be terrible!  Of course, everything is no days!

Bill and I have been married for 37 yrs. in 2008!

We just hope and pray that the Lord will help our new President and things will change this year or next.

May God Bless Each and Everyone of you.

Bill and Sandy Phipps