MVF Dispersal is now history

501 lots, 600 head and 8.5 hours later and the MVF Complete Dispersal is now history. The Virden Auction Mart was SRO (standing room only) from the beginning of the sale and almost to the end. Buyers from across Canada, the US and overseas. Complete details will follow.

Off to the MVF Dispersal

A dispersal with the depth of quality and quantity found in the Mountain View Farms herd doesn't happen very often. So I will soon be off to beautiful downtown Virden, Manitoba (leaving the cows at home in very capable hands) to join the many others who make the trek to watch Canadian Angus history in the making. 77 years in the Angus business is quite an achievement and deserves a proper celebration!
Hope to see many of you there and that the weather cooperates. If by chance you are driving a trailer from Alberta to Virden, there's a wee miniature donkey in need of a ride at Cooke Livestock. See the classifieds at EverythingAngus.com for details if you can help out.

Canada's first fully-featured app for ag news

Now available for BlackBerry smartphones and soon for iPhone and Android platforms: Canadian farmers can now track weather, futures markets and agriculture news on their smartphones using a free mobile application from Farm Business Communications. Find out more HERE.

Wine fed cows get the green light

It is being reported on The Province Blog and in Country Life that innovative Sezmu Meats has gotten the green light from CFIA to continue providing their unique wine-fed beef. Good to hear - mmmm - Angus beef self-marinated in wine . . . Read the blog HERE.

Apologies . . .

You may have noticed updates being a bit tardy on Everything Angus lately and please accept apologies for that. Much of the past two weeks has been spent transitioning to a professional email service for Everything Angus Web Mail announcements. Over the summer major changes were made to the majority of Internet Service Provider spam settings which forced the move. Keeping up with technology is a full time job requiring a degree to just be able to understand the terminology used (not gonna happen here!) so the best move was to work with the experts.
The bulk of the change has now been made and after a good night's sleep, things should be back to normal.

Watch for one other upcoming change to the Everything Angus Classifieds and Calendar. The soon to be launched site section will offer a self-serve buy-and-sell solution to Angus breeders, and all for free!

"Steer Your Deere"

If you're into tractors AND computer games you can try out "Steer Your Deere" on Agriculture.com to "Navigate a John Deere 8R Series tractor down an obstacle-strewn path" and try out the new ACS steering system (do people actually buy brand new tractors???) You can play it HERE. 
Hint: forget the obstacles and go for the ACS so you can actually steer!

Missouri agriculture fights back

You might want to check out the latest in a series of videos produced by Missourians for Animal Care to combat the agenda of the Humane Society of the United States (a society that collects big bucks while not operating a single shelter or adoption agency). The video was produced to help fight propose legislation that would "impose detrimental economic consequences for our Missouri farming and agriculture communities" - a subject that will require more and more attention in the future, as you can be sure it will not stop with one state.

Photos from the Tall Ship Silva

Thanks to Jeanne & Betty Lou for forwarding these photos from the President's Reception aboard the Tall Ship Silva during the CAA AGM in Halifax.

CAA Board of Directors

The CAA Board of Directors for the upcoming year:
President - Kirk Wildman (AB); Vice-President - David Bolduc (AB); Past-President - John Donaldson (QC)
Directors - Frank Strimbold (BC); Lee Brown, Cecile Fleming, Gary Latimer (AB); Kevin Blair, Shane Castle, Roger Hardy, Laird Senft (SK); Lois McRae (MB); Tom McDonald (ON); Jim Colody (Maritimes)

Saturday at the CAA AGM

It was a busy day at the meetings in Halifax. Bill Carr was the early morning speaker and his comedic and entertaining speech got everyone ready for the day.

Three breakout sessions were held for the rest of the morning with attendees taking in two of the three. Topics were Canadian Angus Rancher Endorsed the Maritime experience, Connecting the producer to the retailer and consumer and Genetic Defects.

Financial reports and resolutions from the floor took the afternoon. Two motions were tabled. The first was to recommend that the board of directors reconsider their decision to possibly allow green tags to be sold to producers with unregistered seedstock. This motion passed.

The second resolution was to recommend that the board of directors allow the registration of cattle with genetic defects. This motion was defeated.

In the evening the awards were handed out. Erica Easton was named the new Angus Ambassador and was selected from a strong group of 5 contestants. Congratulations! (picture above).

Two families were in attendance to accept their 50 years of breeding Angus awards. The Frank Slezina family and the Loanes were the recipients.

Two of this years honorary president's were also in attendance to accept their pins. Gary Harron and Hilda Colodey were the Ontario and Maritimes recipients.

Posted by Tim Dixon for Everything Angus On the Road.