2/19/11

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GABE! I wonder if he heard that, way down there at Custer? 6 years old today. Hmmmm. I kind of remember my 7th birthday cuz’ Mom had a party I think, but not 6. The kids were coming up, but several of them have colds and it’s supposed to snow this afternoon/ evening and tonight up to 10m inches sounds like. So I told them they better wait until conditions are better.

It’s also George Ann’s birthday, so Happy Birthday Geo. 🙂

She’s older than 6.

By quite a ways.

Heck, she’s a gramma! 🙂

I was supposed to go to Faith tomorrow for a fund raiser, but I suppose if we get 10 inches of snow and 30 mph winds, I probably won’t. Cindy probably won’t make it in to work either, if she comes home tonight. Sounds like it will be done by Sunday evening.

Harnessed and drove both Wren and Rill , single, yesterday. It went real well. I think I could hook Wren up with Ron and just use her if I wanted or needed too. I am sure it will take her a while to learn to pull a load, but most of the time, Ron could pull the whole load himself. He just needs a partner to hold up the other side of the neck yoke. Wren is spooky and sensitive just like Roz, but she did well. Probably one more time single so she better understands the words Whoa, Gee, and Haw and then hook her with Roz and to the chariot.

I need a helmet camera! 🙂

Friday 2/18/11

Wind blew pretty hard yesterday. Got the chores done, fixed a little fence and set it so the older cows and the team and colts could go up in the lane. I see this morning we have a real fine powdering of snow. Yup, back to reality! 🙂

Talked to a guy on the phone yesterday about a gig I have coming up in Martin SD on July 2. The wee city is having a big celebration. Do you suppose I should mark it on a calender over on my poetry part of this blog? To let people know, or do you think anyone ever stops over there?

Fr Marcin stopped in yesterday evening and i rode with him up to the neighbors for our adult Ed class. He wasn’t sure how to get there. Another good one. He is explaining and going thru’ John Paul II “The ?Theology of the Body. Cool stuff. JPII explained about how God mad us in his image and that we are made to fit together sexually and reproduce. When we do we create and this is another way for us to become closer to our Creator. Very interesting. One cool point he made last night was that Satan is very crafty and that he took something that is pure and wonderfully in a loving mutually exclusive relationship, and made some think it was dirty, or just for pleasure, so as to cause us to sin and try and deny God and his existences in our lives. And we have both side of the coin with that from the Puritanical view that sex and our bodies are dirty all the way over to the opposite, that we are the sole masters of our bodies and we can have sex and nudity with no shame or remorse, with anyone at any time, and that is okay.

Interesting thoughts are coming from all this.

 

By the way, go over and read this blog. Missy does a whale of a job defending this life and it’s ways and points out some great facts to confront the myths and nonsense. Read several of her posts. Short and to the point.

http://www.cornerfencepost.blogspot.com/

2/16/11

Well, it was pretty much a repeat of yesterday, other than I didn’t have Cindy’s help and this time I hooked up Rill instead of Wren. Just drove them in the shed for now as this was her first time with a bit in her mouth and lines. I really need to drive her single I think and get her used to the pull on the lines. She went well and all was good until I stopped and unhooked them and left her stand. When I went to catch her after I had unbridled Ron and Roz, she still had her bridle with the blinders on and was in the traveling mood, but I finally got her hemmed up with the aid of Roz and got her caught.

If I keep this up and I just might get in shape!

Last real nice day for awhile. 50’s today with just a real lite breeze and it is supposed to be highs in the 30’s for the next while with some wind. It sure was nice while it lasted.

A good job well done

After dinner, Cindy went with me to help and we harnessed up Wren, the filly who will mate up with Ron.

 

Got her and the team all harnessed and hooked her alongside Roz, as that is the side she will work on. Drove them around the 40×40 shed (well I drove the team, they just kind of drug Wren along for the trip!) and got along well.

 

So I unharnessed Roz and Wren and put Roz’s harness on Wren and hooked her up with Ron and drove them around, afoot inside the barn. That went well so we went and got the chariot and I hooked Ron and Wren to the chariot and drove them around inside the shed until I felt Wren could handle it, then Cindy opened the shed door and the gate into the big corral. I drove them out and away we went.

 

Had a few bobbles, but not bad, so I drove up alongside the big gate leading out of that corral towards the east and away we went again. Wren would grab herself, but I had her lead rope tied back to Ron’s hame and it wasn’t bad. She could peek over the top of her blinder on the inside and see me and the chariot behind her, but she is pretty trusting so it didn’t go bad. She mostly just kind of hung back a little and went along. When we turned around and got almost all the way back to the corral she grabbed herself and tried to stampede but me and Ron held her. She is hard on my hands!

 

Drove them back into the shed and unhooked and unharnessed and tomorrow hopefully I will do all this with Rill. Might not make the trip clear outside as I won’t have Cindy’s help unless I wait until she gets home from work,  but hopefully get her hooked to Roz anyway.

 

And somewhere in the middle of all this we took time out to pull about 5 porcupine quills out of Bob’s nose and lip. He got by real cheap on that deal. Hope he learned his lesson!

I came in, took a shower and am washing my clothes. Man, it is muddy out there and lots of bovine and horse excrement mixed in. I love it! 🙂

2/13/11

Got up real warm yesterday and the wind didn’t seem to blow quite as hard as they predicted but up in the 50’s today with a 45 mph breeze blowin, it say’s on the weather page. The ice is melting. Supposed to get up on the low 50’s and stay that way for a while. I guess we are getting our January thaw in February. Works for me!

 

A great poem

Met this gentleman thru’ another blog. WWII vet and a real nice guy. He was kind enough to send this poem to me and allow me to post it here. Thanks Allen.
A Special Love
A hero you say.  Me?  No, not me
It was never for medals or headlines, you see
It was never for glory, but a special love
Of comrades, of Country, of the One Above.
When I stayed by my guns that morning at Pearl
That ignited the flames all over the world,
Or when I remained behind with a wounded pal
Those first awful days on Guadacanal,
When I covered that grenade with my body, I knew
I would die, but otherwise, my buddies would too.
But it was never for glory, but that special love
Of comrades, of Country, of the One Above
When from a carrier deck, we took our turn
On a mission from which we could never return,
We knew all the dangers, but our B-25s
Made a pretty strong statement over Tokyo skies.
When I ran through a minefield to rescue  a child,
Or kept pressing forward, though the bodies piled
Higher and higher on Normandy’s shore
And at Iwo and Anzio, Tarawa and more.
Or when we four chaplains decided to give
Our lifebelts to others, that they might live,
We thought not of glory, but a special love
Of comrades, of Country, of the One Above.
When I lifted those pilots from a raging sea,
No thoughts of medals, they would do it for me.
It’s that incredible bond, that ingrained creed
To give of ourselves for a comrade in need.
A hero you say.  Me?  No not me–and yet,
If you call me a hero, you must never forget
It was never for glory, but a special love
Of Comrades, of Country, of the One Above.
Allen Gibbs

Got this in an email. Interesting.

Bankruptcy  101…why Arizona did the right

thing!!

It’s easy to dismiss individual programs that

benefit non-citizens until they’re put together

and this picture emerges. Someone did a lot

of research to put together all of this data.

Often these programs are buried within other

programs making them difficult to find.


A Real Eye Opener …
WHY is the USA BANKRUPT?

Informative, and mind

boggling!

You think the war in Iraq was costing

us too much?  Read this:

We have been hammered with the

propaganda that it was the Iraq war and

the war on terror that is bankrupting us.

I now find that to be RIDICULOUS.

I hope the following 14 reasons are

forwarded over and over again until

they are read so many times that the

reader gets sick of reading them. I also

have included the URL’s for verification

of all the following  facts…

1.
$11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare

to illegal aliens each year by state governments.

Verify at:
http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=iic_immigrationissuecenters7fd8

2.
$22 Billion dollars a year is spent on food

assistance programs such as food stamps,

WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.

Verify at:

http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.HTML

3.
$2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on

Medicaid for illegal aliens.

Verify at:

http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.HTML

4.
$12 Billion dollars a year is spent on

primary and secondary school education

for children here illegally and they

cannot speak a word of English!

Verify at:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANscriptS/0604/01/ldt..0.HTML

5.
$17 Billion dollars a year is spent for

education for the American-born

children of illegal aliens, known as

anchor babies.

Verify at :

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANscriptS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML>

6.
$3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to

incarcerate illegal aliens.

Verify at:

 

 

 

 


7.
30% percent of all Federal Prison

inmates are illegal aliens.

Verify at:
http://transcripts.CNN.com/TRANscriptS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML


8.
$90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on

illegal aliens for Welfare & social

services by the American taxpayers.

Verify at:
http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.HTML

 

 

9.
$200 Billion dollars a year in suppressed

American wages are caused by the illegal

aliens.

Verify at:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSC RI  PTS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML

10.
The illegal aliens in the United States

have a crime rate that’s two and a half

times that of white non-illegal aliens.

In particular, their children are going

to make a huge additional crime

problem in the U.S.

Verify at:
http://transcripts.cnn..com/TRANscriptS/0606/12/ldt..01.HTML

11.
During the year of 2005, there were 4

to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that

crossed our Southern Border, also,

as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from

Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds

of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and

marijuana, crossed into the US from

the Southern border.

Verify at:
Homeland Security Report:

12.
The National policy Institute estimated

that the total cost of mass deportation

would be between $206 and $230 billion

or an average cost of between $41 and

$46 billion annually over a five year


13.
In 2006, illegal aliens sent home

$45 BILLION in remittances to their

countries of origin.

Verify
at: http://www/..rense.com/general75/niht.htm

 

14.
The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration:

Nearly One million sex crimes committed

A YEAR AND IF YOU’RE LIKE ME,

HAVING TROUBLE UNDERSTANDING

THIS AMOUNT OF MONEY; IT IS

$338,300,000,000.00 WHICH

WOULD BE ENOUGH TO STIMULATE

THE ECONOMY FOR THE CITIZENS OF

THIS COUNTRY.

Are  we THAT Stupid?
YES, FOR LETTING THOSE

IN THE U.S. CONGRESS

GET AWAY WITH LETTING

THIS HAPPEN YEAR AFTER

YEAR!!!!!

2, 11, 11

Yesterday on her blog, Northview Dairy, Three Collies had a link to another blog where they talked about Ethanol. I read it and typed out a longer reply and then when I clicked the button to post it, I must have pushed the wrong button or something. Anyway, I thought I’d “air my paunch” here a bit about it.

Seems some are concerned that we are taking something that is mostly used for food and turning it into something we burn as fuel.

From all the studies I have read, ethanol is a bust. The only reason it is working is because the government is underwriting it to the tune of at least 75 cents a gallon on up, depending on who’s figures you use. The price of corn has risen quite a bit and the worry is the the cost of food will rise with it, as corn is used in so many products anymore and also is used to fatten cattle and pigs and chickens.

Seems to me that in the past, whenever something becomes scarce and costly, some enterprising people find substitutes for it. Just like they substituted corn syrup for sugar in many different types of foods. Just as they substituted coal for wood, when wood became scarce at the start of the industrial revolution. Etc..

Here on this ranch, we traditionally only fed corn when we had bad winters and dry summers. When I was a kid Dad would bed cows down in hay and that is what they needed and got. They wasted a lot of it, but he put up a lot of hay for winter feed. No grain. When we were short on winter feed because of drought we would buy ear corn to fed to the cows, to give them some more energy and make up for less hay they received every day, just like almost every other rancher in this area. Then it became popular to feed cow cubes which were processed grain and by products that had been made from excess cheap grains. All except for corn, as it wouldn’t stick together in the form of a cube, too well. Dad didn’t like them as he thought there was too much waste.

As I took over, I weighed the price of the feed against the contents and what you got out of it and did feed several different types and forms of cubes over the year. And then there was Loomix, which was a syrup made from the left overs of sugar beets, if I remember right. It was touted as a way to stretch your grass and give the cattle more bang for the buck, in drought years. The guy delivered it and put it in a container with wooden wheels exposed. the cattle licked the wheels to get the product, with the idea being that they would get tired or bored after awhile so they would not eat too much of it. A way to control the consumption. Seems like some cows had brown faces and some didn’t so you could pretty much tell which were eating the most and the least. This was on a range situation and the idea was to just put it out and not have to mess with it every day like when you fed in the winter. Results varied.

Now we have lick tanks, lick blocks and lots of other assorted ways and means to supplement cattle on pasture and also while under hand feeding, or as in everyday feeding something to cattle.

Every year I look at all the different types and the cost of each and what the protein and fat levels are, so as to see what is the cheapest and most beneficial to the cattle in the winter.

And I always end up feeding the same thing, as it is the cheapest and easiest with the most bang for my buck. Extruded soybeans. Soybeans that have been put through a large screw system, which breaks the beans down and puts them through a slight heat which helps to make them more digestible. The product runs about 40% protein and 12% fat. Costs a lot per ton, but a small amount does a lot of good. Kind of like the difference between steak and jerky. I get it locally and mix salt with it to limit the cattle from eating too much. If I have something I am trying to fatten up, as I am now, with some older thinner cows in the corral, which I feed in a feed bunk with a bucket of grain, I limit the amount they feed by only giving them a certain amount and scattering it out over a large enough distance that each cow gets her fair share. But with the cattle in the pasture, I mix the salt and don’t have to worry about one hogging all the feed.

Anyway, long story short, I will continue to use this product until another comes along that is cheaper or better or both. Same with corn ethanol.

When/if corn gets to high to be economical to be used as feed, someone will find something else.

But when the government sticks it’s finger in the water by paying something for nothing, so to speak, it sends ripples out that we have no idea where they will end up or what it will cause. In trying to help one person or group, it will cause grief to others. Always has, always will. Bottom line to my way of thinking, if ethanol is a good thing, why does the government have to pay companies to produce it?

But don’t worry about corn and the price. Like all things sold and used by mankind, eventually when it become too high to use as food or fuel, somebody will find a better, cheaper source.

There are quite a few in the cattle business who are finding out it might be cheaper and more effective to fatten cattle on grass and forages. Like the old timers did. And the cycle continues.