Double H Photography

Oh Deer

2012-02-02T13:09:00.000-08:00

Hope you're all having a fantastic week so far!

Freelance Writer

2012-02-01T15:40:00.000-08:00

I have had several questions in recent weeks about my job as freelance writer via email, in person, and even during interviews : ) People ask how it works, what I do, how it pays, etc... I thought I would give a little information here, in case anyone else is curious.
I write and take pictures for multiple, primarily agriculture affiliated, newspapers and magazines. I contribute regularly to BEEF Magazine, Hereford America and Tri-State Livestock News. I've also had either my writing and/or photography work published in The Fence Post, Limousin World Magazine, Wyoming Livestock Roundup, Beef Producer Magazine, and in Wyoming Stock Growers flyers and promotional materials,
To explain how I got started as a freelancer, we need to go back to how I got started in writing. I have my degree in animal science, and had never written anything beyond an opinion column at the University of Wyoming school paper prior to being hired as the assistant editor of the Wyoming Livestock Roundup. They hired me because of my practical background in agriculture, and obviously not my writing experience.
After a year and a half in that position, I left the Roundup and decided to attempt freelancing because I thoroughly enjoyed the interviewing and writing aspect of my job. I contacted some of the people I had met during my time as an editor, and/or who had published my photos, re-published articles I wrote during my time at the Roundup, or who were publications I thought would be interested in my work.
I had a few people willing to give me a chance, and several others who weren't interested. I sent out a lot of examples of my work, came up with a lot of ideas, and built up gradually to the amount of work I do now. Roughly 10 months after I started, I have a wonderful form of self-employment that compliments my photography business and ranch related responsibilities nicely.
Yes, I have three jobs total.
Everyone is always very curious about the pay. Well, it varies greatly, to the extent you can add and subtract the number of zeros paid per article at different publications. I know some people who make a very good living exclusively as a freelance writer. However, I don't think this is overly common, and certainly not how you start out.
As with most self-employed positions, it takes a lot of hard work, responsibility and long hours, and you have to be dedicated and willing to put in the amount of time and effort necessary to produce a quality product every time. But, if you can handle that, the rewards are also great in that you set your own schedule, the amount of work you want to within a given time period, and the location from which you work.
I am also frequently asked what advice I have for someone wanting to enter this field. What I say is that you need to work at a publication, as in within the office, for a period of time. As with most professions, being involved in the day-to-day tasks is when you really learn about what it takes to work within the industry, who the people you need to know are, and various other nuts and bolts bits of pertinent information. There's no way I would have a clue how to even do this job without that time spent as an editor.
That's not to say that there aren't any successful writers out there who have never worked in an office, it's just that for me that was a critical contributor to my current success.
I would also encourage a person to work on a paper in high school or college if you're in that age group, and give writing or photography a try. While at the University of Wyoming, I worked with an extremely talented editor. He continually asked me to try writing editorial for the paper, but at that time I was the paper's photography editor, and in no way every saw myself writing much beyond addressing envelopes in the future. Honestly.
I cannot imagine how far ahead I would have been when the opportunity to work at the Roundup presented itself if I had taken him up on writing, even if it was just once or twice. You never know where God is going to direct your life, so if you have the chance to try something, for peets sake try it. It may just be useful in the future!
As usual, if anyone has any more questions about my writing work, anything ranch related, or other topics covered on this blog, please feel free to ask. I enjoy covering topics you want to read about!

Miss Weenie

2012-01-29T21:01:00.000-08:00

I have been a little slow to update you on my new dog. A few months ago, shortly after Pearl died, I found an ad for a six-month old female dachshund puppy for sale. The reason? She was killing chickens, and her owner's husband was very serious about his chickens. Now, to many this may be a sign of trouble, and a good reason to stay away. I immediately saw it as a sign of another potentially great dachshund (it's hard to explain if you haven't owned one).

I met the very nice owner of "Stretch," and ended up leaving with her. Since that day she has gone through a variety of trial names, and has settled into being Miss Weenie, officially. Her name is the female version of Mr. Weenie, from Open Season.

Weenie, as I usually call her, is certainly a dachshund. She loves life, kills mice with more efficiency than a cat, cuddles, sniffs and explores everything, and is a total individual. She enjoys going along feeding, is not about to take on any creature larger than herself, and can be seen ripping around the yard with a bone or eating her latest mouse kill (gross I know) at least once a day.

She has also developed her dachshund quirks. These include hating my father, and brother, and a long standing battle involving a few attempts at growling and barking, two things that aren't tolerated by the men of the house. She also has struggled, extensively, with the house training business. Perhaps it's due to the winter weather, perhaps her previous owners weren't overly strict in that area, perhaps she's just stubborn. After several months of dealing with this (she has been the hardest dog to house train I've ever owned) we are gaining serious ground. But, this morning there was yet another mess just after she had been outside. I grabbed her by her scruff, gave her the usual stern talking too, nose rubbing, etc... and packed her to the door and tossed her outside.

The result was a very uncommon howl of pain. Tonight she is hobbling around on three legs, packing one very swollen front leg, and has a vet appointment first thing in the morning.

I feel terrible.

But also hope that maybe this will at the very least permeate her thick German skull in the area of where her restroom is.

Thankfully we are blessed with some good vets in our area. Case in point - I called and got him, at his office, on a Sunday, and set up the appointment for first thing in the morning. He gave me the pre-appointment directions so he can dive right into whatever he needs to do instead of me having to wait in town half the morning for that stuff. Emmie (you can read about her and my previous dachshund here), has been through a snake bite to the face, a grub in her cheek, a broken foot (not because of me), and a multitude of other minor and serious money costing vet visits to this same man. I like him, Emmie doesn't.

Emmie would also like to point out that being a pint size ranch dog is not for the faint of heart. You have to be quick, smart, entertaining in some way and somewhat obedient because men, and some women, are going to judge and discriminate against you based on your size, name, breed, and any number of other things. On top of that the livestock just don't take you seriously either. Wish Weenie luck on her first health related bump in her new world.

An Award!

2012-01-27T13:17:00.000-08:00

The 4R Ranch blog made my day when they listed me as one of their Liebster Blogs (which means something along the lines of dearest or beloved in German). Thank you so much!

Here are the directions that come along with the award:

1. Copy and paste the award on your blog
2. Link back to the blogger who gave you the award
3. Pick your five favorite blogs with less than 200 followers, and leave a comment on their blog to let them know they have received the award.
4. Hope that the five blogs chosen will keep spreading the love and pass it on to five more blogs

So, in no particular order:

dun dun dun music here.....

Life Be Delicious
Anna is expecting her first baby any moment now, and I can't wait to see pictures of him! I love her posts on her life, turquoise and food. This lady also has some great taste in decor and fashin in my opinion, and she is kind enough to share some of her finds on her blog. I also love that she "gets on her soapbox" from time to time and isn't afraid to tell it like it is.

Happily Ever After
I went to middle and high school with Laura, the author of this blog, but that's not the only reason I love her posts. She is a gifted writer, and her stories of motherhood and life in general are hilarious, inspiring and memorable. She is a super mom and talented individual who will touch you with her posts about life, parenthood and projects she takes on!

From My Front Porch
Jent's blog reminds me of my family growing up, and that alone makes it a favorite to read. She lives in the country, covers a huge variety of topics, and is brutally honest and funny! She also uses pictures in most of her posts of the people/topics she's covering, and I do like pictures...

Fotofanatic
Speaking of pictures, this girl has a lot of them on her blog! She often does a Friday Favorites post, where she puts up a variety photos she liked from that week. She is kind enough to use mine from time to time, and I also love the other amazing pictures she finds. You will see everything from cows to landscapes to high fashion on a given Friday, and she fills in the other days with her personal photography.Very cool!

Dicky Bird's Nest
This gal blogs on a variety of topics, and right now I am particularly hooked on her week of meals based on one key ingredient everyone is likely to have a lot of leftovers when they prepare (ham...), and her posts on the right tool for the job. Several of the people I follow bring their faith into their blogs, and Dicky does this in a unique and memorable way with her right tool for the job posts right now. She also signs off each post with, "Blessing from Wisconsin." : )

And there you have it, hope you enjoy reading them as much as I do! A couple of these didn't list their actual number of followers, so I apologize if any of you that I listed have 500 followers I didn't know about : )
I could keep going, because there are certainly more than 5 of these amazing blogs with under 200 followers that I enjoy stopping by and reading, and many more with over 200 followers.

From Start to Finish

2012-01-25T18:52:00.000-08:00

Perhaps you've heard that it takes a long time for ranchers to raise the product we sell, which in our case is beef. This post covers the timeline from start to finish for you. I realize some of the photos aren't my best - I wasn't planning this post for the last two years, and my photography has improved since 2009. My hope is to follow this post with one of photos of our calves over this same time period, so you can see how they change and grow.

Today I am showing you the timeline for the steers we sold in September, 2011. We started planning for them in June of 2009, when we turned the bulls in with our cows. This was the first time we managed specifically for the following year's calf crop.

In late 2009, we poured all our cows for parasites, and preg checked them. All pregnant cows were kept, and given a shot to protect their pregnancy. We fed them every other day all winter to ensure they had enough energy to produce a healthy calf and stay healthy themselves.

Nine months after we turned the bulls in, around late March and April of 2010, the calves were born. We were still feeding at this time because the grass hadn't turned green yet, and the cows were using more energy to produce milk for their calves.
When born the calves weighed between 70 and 80 pounds.

In May, 2010, we branded all our calves, castrated the bull calves, gave everyone an ear tag, and a shot to protect them against common diseases in our area. Then we turned them back out with their mothers on grass for the summer to grow.

Around October 1, 2010, we gathered all our cows and calves back up, and weaned the calves from their mothers. At this time we kept them in the corral for a few days and monitored them closely for sickness. Then we turned them back out on grass, and fed them cake and hay for the winter. Our calves weighed between 500 and 525 pounds when we weaned them.
Lots of ranchers where I'm from market their calves at weaning, or in the months following. Theirs may weigh more than ours at that time because calves are sold by the pound, and ranchers work hard to make as much money as possible, as all good business people do.

Winter, 2010. Here is a photo from feeding over the course of the winter. We fed them every other day, and checked their water every day.

We also weighed every calf when we weaned, and again in January, 2011 to determine how well each calf was gaining. During the second weighing, we sorted the heifers from the steers and turned them back out in separate pastures.

In early 2011 we also bangs vaccinated all our heifers, which is required by law for all replacement heifers (those we kept for breeding)
In March of 2011 the calves were one year old, and weighed between 600 and 700 pounds. Around this time (there's no set date) they went from being "calves," to "yearlings."

In May, 2011, we poured our steers for parasites, counted them and hauled them to their summer pasture.

In June, 2011, the heifers were turned out with a bull for the first time.

Meanwhile, the steers were happily grazing and gaining on grass for the summer.

Then, on September 17 we sold our steers after managing and working with them for 26 months. They weighed just under 1,000 pounds, and went to a feedlot to be fed a high energy diet for a few months prior to entering the food chain.

We received our one and only paycheck for the steers on that day too, after carrying the expense of growing them for those 26 months. During the time we owned them, we saw them almost every day, and never went more than a week without checking on them for their entire life.

Their sisters will take another two years to start earning income, when we sell their first calves. That's four years of time and money invested prior to seeing any return. Now, I don't want to you think I'm complaining, because I love and enjoy what we do. I'm just explaining.

Ranchers all love what they do for the most part. People who are just in a profession for the money don't typically choose this one. It takes a certain mindset and love for your work to put an animal's well being before a regular paycheck. This is also why you'll often hear ranchers call our profession a lifestyle - because it transcends the definition of a job regularly.

So, to recap quickly. We started in June of 2009, when we turned the bull in with the cows.

Nine months later the calves were born.

And a year and half after that, we sold the steers.

Let Them Eat Cake

2012-01-23T15:41:00.000-08:00

I've been busy feeding:

and chopping ice:

for our livestock in recent weeks. Also have several writing/photography irons in the fire, as usual.
Hope everyone else is staying busy at tasks they love!

It's a couple days after I first posted this, but I am linking it up to Farm Photo Friday!

P.S. If the title didn't make sense to you. The crumbs on the top cows nose are cake crumbs. Cake is a protein/energy supplement we feed our livestock in the winter months to keep them healthy and at an appropriate weight level.

Factoring Farming

2012-01-22T17:55:00.000-08:00

I had never heard of factoring farming until I saw it toted by an extreme anti-agriculture group a few years ago. I wasn't buying it as being anything a person would believe, and I was reminded of this initial response again today.

Here are our yearling and two-year-old's on the feedground today. Certainly not in a closed in, dirty, confined space.

And that's them again, over on the left. The little black circle. You can see why I had neither heard of this concept of all animals being housed in cramped, dirty, overpopulated environments, or bought into it. This is how livestock are "housed" where I live, and what you see is just the pasture they are living in for the winter. This isn't their year-round home, but rather one part of the total acres they live, roam and eat on over the course of a year.

Livestock Auctioneering Contest

2012-01-18T15:13:00.000-08:00

Have you ever been to a livestock auctioneering contest? Ever been to a livestock salebarn?Livestock markets are where cattle are sold in a live setting, with an auctioneer calling the price, and buyers bidding until the cattle are sold for the highest possible price (assuming the auctioneer doesn't miss a bid). Buyers can bid live in the salebarn, or from the phone or Internet in some instances.
The contest I attended was an LMA (Livestock Marketing Association) World Livestock Auctioneer Championship Quarterfinal Contest. My boyfriend was one of the competitors, and I wrote an article on the event for Tri-State Livestock News. The article will run next week, and I think you can check it out on their website if you would like to read more on this topic.
Back to the auctioneering contest. There were 20 men competing, and the top 8 moved on to the semi-final round of competition, which will be held this summer. This was one of four quarterfinal rounds held across the country, and the top 8 from each of those moves to the semi-final round. The Canadian Champion is also allowed to compete, starting in the semi-final round.
Contestants are judged on clarity of chant, ability to catch bids, whether judges would hire the guy, and if they believe he would be a good representative of the livestock industry. The stakes are high in this contest, and if you win the world it is like winning the world series. The world champion wins $5,000, a custom belt buckle, diamond ring, use of a new pickup for their year of reign, and numerous other prizes. Perhaps more notable is the impact it has on their career. If you're named a world champion auctioneer, it will give you opportunities never seen otherwise, and you will meet more people than you can count within the livestock industry. You can also only win once. So, once you're named the World Champion Auctioneer of 2009, 2010, etc..., you will always be the World Champion for that year.
It's a big deal to these men, and you hear the best of the best in the profession at these contests.

This contest was in Colorado. This is an actual salebarn, which hosted the event. The contest was held on a normal sale day, and the guys sold actual cattle to actual buyers. The barn worked extra hard to have a good string of feeders for the guys to sell. What I mean by that is there were over 4,000 weaned calves weighing between 400 and 800 pounds that were sold during the contest.
The contestants go one at a time, and sell eight lots of cattle apiece. One lot is one group, and can be anywhere from a single animal to over 100. Cattle are sorted by owner (no mixing cattle of different owners), sex (steers and heifers), weight, and quality. Each guy sold eight lots because that way the judges get a feel for how he sounds, how clear his voice is, and various other things.
The judges are mixed among the crowd you see, as are the buyers. Usually there aren't this many people at a normal sale, but the contest drew family, friends and observers that normally wouldn't attend. This adds to the competition as the auctioneers have to spot the buyers, and get their bids, without much help.

Before anything happened, a prayer was said, the Canadian National anthem was played out of respect for the Canadian competitor, and the American National Anthem was sung by a local high schooler.
Each contestant would enter the block, which is the box area with the people in it on the far side of the photo. The auctioneer always sells from the block, and there are also a couple clerks, who make sure the cattle are weighed and counted correctly, and penned correctly after being sold based on how whoever buys them wants them penned. Buyers are identified by numbers. So one buyer might be number 105, then he will add additional numbers to sort how his cattle are penned after he buys them. So, he will likely have 105-4, 105-6, 105-7 pens to sort his purchases. I clerked at a salebarn for a year, and it can be a stressful job at times. The barn owner or manager is also usually on the block to set prices, answer the phone, make decision about cattle, etc... These people are all on the block so they can readily see the cattle, and so the auctioneer and owner can see all the buyers, who sit in the stands.
The cattle are sold in what is called the ring. The ring is the pen you see, and it's actually all on a set of scales. Most cattle of this size and age are sold by the pound, so everything is weighed. You can see the information on weight, headcount and price on the computer screen above the ring and block. One of the clerks is who enters this information for every lot.
There is also an entire crew working outside to sort cattle and move them to the ring to be sold, then moving them to the various buyers pens after they're sold. These people also unload and load out cattle all day as they arrive and leave throughout the course of the sale. The running of a salebarn is a complex, intricate thing that requires a lot of precise work by a lot of people for however long the sale lasts.
Anyway, each contestant entered the block, sat down, and gave a brief introduction. Then he would jump right into selling. The barn manager would set the price, and the guy would sell them.

Meanwhile, the guys in the ring, who are called ringmen, would turn the cattle a couple times so the buyers could inspect them and determine if they wanted to buy them, and at what price.

For each new owner who was selling, the auctioneer would provide any information of note on the cattle to the crowd. This information might include how long they have been weaned, the diet they've been fed, what shot's they've had, and any other health or nutritional information that may help them sell. Here is my boyfriend reading about this group of steers. Each owner typically has multiple lots, so it's a toss up as to whether a contestant will have to read about one, or several, owner's livestock.

Then off they go again, chanting away, gesturing for bids, and talking with the crowd.

Here's what it looks like from the auctioneer's viewpoint.

Roughly two-thirds of the way through selling a lot of cattle, they are let out of the ring, and the next bunch is let in. This keeps things flowing, and prevents a loss of time between each lot. With over 4,000 head to sell, you don't want to waste time between lots. This perfect timing doesn't happen with every lot, but in general a good salebarn can really move through the cattle.
After each guy was done, he would thank the crowd, and the next guy would come up. If it wasn't a contest, the barn's auctioneer would just continue on all day, until every last head was sold.
As I said, there were a lot of great guys at the contest, and I heard a lot of different styles descriptive phrases and comments, and methods of getting bids from the buyers. Of the guys at this contest, around 15 have qualified for the semi-finals, and just under half have placed in the top 10 in the world before. It was pretty stacked. In the end my boyfriend didn't make the top 8, which is always disappointing, but he did a great job and received a lot of positive feedback. Another good thing about choosing to compete is that regardless of how you place, there is always the opportunity to meet new people, get your name out more in the industry, and make connections with people who particularly like how you sell.

Cows of Note, Number 2

2012-01-15T17:21:00.000-08:00

I am back with some more Cows of Note this winter. In case you weren't reading my blog last winter, and don't have any idea what I'm talking about, here is a link to the first Cows of Note post I did.
Well, the link isn't working for me, so in case it isn't working for you either - The reason I do these is because I read in PETA that all rancher's animals are anonymous and that we don't care about them at all. This is simply untrue, very untrue, and these posts show examples of knowing our animals individually. We know them because we care about them, enjoy caring for them as a profession, and are around them with so much frequency that we know most of them at glance, and can recite a slew of general informatin about her and her offspring, any health related issues she's had, etc....
Specific cows stand out more than others for the various reasons I listed above, both good and bad. Sometimes it's how they look, or act, or the calves they raise. Other times it's a specific event she was involved in. Whatever the reason, these specific cows become Cows of Note, and I share some of them with you here.
The first Cow of Note for this year is number 9/2 (read 9 over 2). The 9 represents the year she was born, and the 2 is her number.
Number 2, as we call her, is everyones favorite cow of her generation. She is a beauty, a sweetheart, and she had a heifer calf her first time around. She's an eye-catching cow, and we've all noticed her since she was a baby calf around here.

She epitomizes what we want in a cow as far as how she's built and how she acts. She's moderate in size, pleasant to be around without constantly being in the way, and a good mother.

As everyones favorite, she has also been given a little special attention, which she enjoys. Cows that will eat cake right out of your hand are called cake munchers, and Number 2 is one of our cake munchers.

And here she is with her first calf last spring, which will likely also be a Cow of Note when she grows up.

For more of our Cows of Note, you can go here or here.

Winter Water

2012-01-13T08:49:00.000-08:00

Kerstin asked another question a few weeks ago:
Here's another consumer question: How does the water 'system' (the one with the tire) work? Is there a trick to keep it ice in the winter and alga/bacteria free in the summer? How do you fill it? Thank you! K.
Thank you for the question Kerstin! I didn't have the pictures I needed when you asked, but I got them all snapped, and here we go.
Our water system is all based on about 30 miles of underground, PVC pipeline, that transports water from multiple water wells to more than 20 water tanks, most of which are recycled tractor tires, like the one below. We also use a couple windmills to pump water, and have a solar well on our place that we pump water with also. The system is kind of like a town's water system, where water is piped to various residents (water tanks) from a large well (several wells in our case).
We put in all the pipeline and tanks ourselves, do the maintenance on them, and specifically designed our water system so that every pasture has water that comes from at least two sources. That way if one well/water tank/ pipeline/etc.. breaks, our livestock will still have water from a different source.

Each tank has a center cement ring, seen here. Some of them are covered, and some are uncovered. All the "guts" of the tank are located in this ring. Having a ring around the guts keeps the cows from breaking everything when they crawl into the tank (yes, they do this), and reduces the risk of the guts freezing even more.

Here are the guts. Our water tanks work exactly like the tank on your toilet. The water is piped up into the tank from the pipeline, windmill, or solar well, and the big black ball is a float that controls a valve on the water pipe. The float floats on the water, and when the tank is full it turns the water pipe valve off. As cows drink, the water level drops. This is like when you flush the toilet. The float drops with the water level, and opens the valve it controls more and more as it drops, which refills the tank. There are holes in the bottom of the cement ring that feeds the water into the entire tank.
We set each float to shut the valve off at a certain level, and that's what keeps the tank from spilling over the sides. This is done in a very high tech fashion: we bend the metal stem the float attaches to the valve with until it stops at the right spot : )
That white PVC pipe is what we call an overflow. This is a key part in reducing the amount of ice, and freezing, that occurs on a tank. The little part that is sticking out to the left is a nipple, with a hole in the end. That allows water to constantly flow out of the tank in a small volume, which also keeps water flowing in very slowly.
This is based on the science that atoms in motion are warmer than atoms not in motion. The continual movement of water within the tank created by the continuous flow in, and out, keeps it from freezing, or freezing as bad, as it would without any flowing motion.
The overflow also doubles as a drain for the tank. You can pull out the part you see above. Then the water can flow out a pipe the same size as the visible overflow pipe.
When we drain a tank, we use a specially designed key to turn off a valve that controls water flow to the tank. The valve you turn on or off is called a stop and waste valve. It stops water from flowing to the tank, and "wastes" any water left in the pipe by allowing it to seep back into the ground, thus preventing the pipe from freezing. The key we use is several feet in length, because pipelines are several feet (5 feet for us) below ground. You drop the key down a pipe that "T's" onto the pipeline, work it onto the valve, and turn it to turn the valve on or off.

Where does this water that's flowing out go? Downhill. Here is one overflow example. The water flows out, away from the tank. Sometimes it creates ice, which can be bad in the winter for cattle, but we design each tank in a way that cattle can get to it with ease, and without crossing the ice.

Here it is a little closer. The board is sitting there so we can see the overflow, and don't accidentally drive over it. The pipe "cage" on this tank is to keep livestock from crawling into the tank.

Here is a different tank's overflow. It goes down a little draw. The amount of water coming out of the pipe is about what we want to flow out of the overflow. This one doesn't ice up near the tank, and basically irrigates this little draw and provides additional water to a number of small and medium wildlife species that can't reach the tank, in addition to reducing how much ice we have to chop every day. Win win!

Here is a tank where the overflow wasn't working. We turned it on a while before we turned some cows into the pasture it's in, then didn't check it until the cows were turned in. The ice was 8-10 inches thick, and the cement ring was frozen solid. In these cases we get a bar, and pound all the ice out of the ring, then fix whatever we broke (and by "we," I mean my brother in this instance), then get it up and running again.

In contrast, here is how thick the ice is on a tank with a working overflow, in similar temperatures. Having cattle drinking out of a tank also reduces freezing, because the more water they drink, the more the tank has to refill, and the more movement of water that occurs.

Using tires for tanks also helps with ice because they're black, and absorb more heat than light colored tanks would.

As you've probably noticed, there is still ice to chop. In addition to the ideas we've implemented to reduce ice, we also check our livestock's water every day, and always have an ax and a shovel with us so we can chop ice and make sure they have water to drink. Where I'm from is considered very mild winter country, and in other parts of the state and country, ranchers have to chop a lot of ice every day, no matter what they do, because the weather is so cold.

As for algae/bacteria, yes we do have both, algae especially. Not as much in our black tire tanks, but the one I showed that wasn't a tire gets a lot of algae in it. We think this also has something to do with the colors of the tanks , and amount of sunlight the algae gets. My mom puts about a gallon of vinegar in it every so often to kill the algae.

We also empty most of our tanks when cattle aren't using them, and that controls algae and bacteria too.We use our water system to control the areas of a pasture that our cattle graze in, and turn tanks on and off to maximize the use of our grass, without overgrazing any specific area.

Thanks for asking, and I hope that helps answer your question!

Organization

2012-01-11T08:14:00.000-08:00

In moving home, I transitioned from having my own 980 square foot, 3 bedroom, 1 bath house with a garage, plus working in an office where all my work related "stuff" was comfortably housed, to my childhood bedroom, which is a fraction of the space.
It's been tight, cramped, flat out messy at times - okay, a lot of the time, and it drives me nuts.
Add to that my helpful mom and sister fold my clothes part of the time, then stack them on my desk, along with my mail, usually some of their mail, and about anything else of mine, and theirs on some days, that has traveled beyond my personal domain, and the situation is compounded, fast.
Did I mention that the "desk" I'm referring to is a plastic, fold-up table. One of the smaller ones that is a rectangle in shape. I didn't want to purchase a desk when I moved home, because I didn't know if it was a permanent or temporary situation, and I already owned a lot of furniture that has been moved about once a year for the last six years. I wasn't really wanting to add to the mess, so to speak.
I do have a "real" desk too, which is also in my room. This desk was built by my great-great grandfather, or uncle...I think. It was built by someone in my family several generations ago, I know that. It is very cool, solid wood, small, with very little storage. Not a huge help.
I've been in dire search of a solution, some improvement, just about anything. I started looking for a desk to purchase, since this whole freelancing thing is working out better than I ever imagined, and is definitely not "temporary."
Then, my wonderful boyfriend built me this desk for Christmas:

I picked out a stain, and we stained it together. Then I freaked out because it was BLACK with blonde highlights, and I was convinced I had ruined this beautiful piece of furniture. Now it has settled into a medium brown color that is much better. Big sigh of relief. I also asked that he trim down the antlers, as I will undoubtedly skewer myself on them if they're that long. He does good work!
This will definitely be a better, and much more beautiful, workspace for me than a plastic table. He has also told me he will build another piece of office furniture of my choosing to go along with this, so I have a set. I'm haggling for two pieces : )
Then, this week I bought bed risers. One half of my problem is I need file folder/paper storage, and that has previously been under my old desk. I looked like a hoarder.
With the bed risers my bed is waaay up there, but, there is room underneath it for the file folder storage boxes I use. Yesterday I moved them all from under the desk/on the floor in the open, to under the bed. I even had room for a lot of my photography stuff that isn't used every day, and various other things that have been adding to the messiness. I kept the files I use most and put them in a smaller organizer and left them under the desk, along with my huge photo printer.
So much better already, and I don't even have the desk at my house yet. That's part of what I've been dedicating my time to this week.

Winter in Wyoming

2012-01-10T18:25:00.000-08:00

Here are some cattle pictures from the last few weeks, taken in Eastern Wyoming and the Bighorn Basin. Hope your week is going great!

Happy Birthday Adam!

2012-01-04T07:29:00.000-08:00

Ok, here is the post that I had "scheduled" for Dec. 28, that decided it didn't want to be posted on that day. So, without any further ado...
This handsome guy is my boyfriend, Adam, and today is his birthday! I realize I have never really properly introduced him on here, and he has reminded of this, so today seems like the perfect day to tell you a little more about the man in my life.
Adam is from north central Wyoming, and grew up on a large scale cattle and sheep operation. He lives at the base of the Big Horn Mountains, and currently ranches with his dad and is the auctioneer at a local salebarn, and an announcer at various rodeos, pig wrestlings, etc., each summer. He was a serious athlete in high school and college, and also dedicates as much of his spare as he can to coaching wrestling each winter.
And, that's the tip of the iceburg as far as what he's involved with. He also helps his little brother, and any other kids, with their 4-H and FFA projects each summer, raises show hogs with his brother, helps with a variety of events with his auctioneering and announcing skills, competes in auctioneering competitions, raises registered bulls on top of commercial cattle and sheep herds, and so on. Busy man.
We met when I interviewed him for a trip he took to Washington D.C. to lobby with the U.S. Cattlemen's Association. This summer he flew me back to lobby with him again for that same organization.
He is very smart, witty, smart alecy and kind, and shares my love of agriculture. He talks a lot, and insists we talk about everything, which is a really good balance to my not wanting to talk about serious things. He also takes time out of his busy schedule to travel with me, surprise me with sweet gifts, take me to movies, museums, little main street shops in various towns, and will stop at just about every coffee shop we pass on the condition I order us both our caffinated drink of choice : )
We've been dating about nine months, so no wedding bells just yet (I get asked all the time), but that doesn't mean no wedding bells ever.
In our first year of dating, we have traveled to Washington D.C. via plane, drove to Calgary and back, toured much of Wyoming and Montana along the way, and had a great time. We've both spent time at the other's ranch, where one of his heifers ran over me while we were AI'ing, and he realized how very very picky we Hamilton's are when building new fence, and. He's helped me move out of my house, attended my annual family reunion, and drove way out of the way on one trip to meet my best friend.
He's a keeper and I love him : )
And, since there is now no worry that he will read this before opening his gift, I surprised him with a photo book of our first year, and tucked among the pages were two 40-yard line Broncos tickets for Jan. 1. He was surprised, for sure!

Happy New Year

2012-01-03T14:34:00.000-08:00

Where have I been? Well I got snowed in at my boyfriends, who doesn't have Internet. Then we went to the very disapointing Denver Broncos game for his birthday and New Years (my surprise gift to him). I had a post scheduled for about four days ago, but apparently my limited technology abilities prohibited that from happening, somehow.
Anyway, Happy New Year!
The above photo is some of my photography and writing from the last year. A big THANK YOU to everyone for all the support, business, compliments and suggestions. 2011 was a great year for me, and all of you had a big part of making it that way. I really appreciate it!
Very excited to dive into 2012 full tilt, and make it an even better year!

A Very Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T14:41:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas, and happy birthday to Jesus! We have had a wonderful Christmas at our house! Hope yours is merry and bright and filled with God's love too!

There were uniquely wrapped gifts

We always give a lot of practical, usable gifts.

Had to share the Double H Photography mugs I got!

Fun gifts.

The latest in sleepwear fashion.

Sadly the one of all three of us was blurry.

My sister makes sure each dog gets a Christmas present too. Emmie thinks hers will be nice to nap on rather than rip apart.

My sister got a wii, and it was a big hit. We looked like this for hours today.

and like this...

and even like this.
Merry Christmas to everyone! May you all enjoy the blessings you have, and remember the true reason for this holiday.

Cattle & Snow

2011-12-22T16:59:00.000-08:00

Hope everyone is ready to celebrate the birth of our Savior this weekend : )

A Heartwarming Trucking Tale

2011-12-21T15:57:00.000-08:00

My dad and brother have a trucking business, and haul a lot of hay this time of year. A few weeks ago, on a cold, windy, nasty day when the temperature was around 0 degrees and the wind was making it feel much colder, my brother pulled into the Belle Inn, in Belle Fourche, SD, where he often parks overnight and/or eats on his hay runs.
As he got out of his truck, another trucker pulled in, and my brother heard his airline break. He flagged the guy down, and told him about his airline. He said the guy was tired and a little grumpy, and doggedly told my brother thanks for letting him know. My brother went on inside to eat.
Partway through his meal, this same guy came in, practically blue from the cold. After warming up a little, he asked the restaurant patrons, of which a large percentage were truckers, if any of them had a particular tool he needed to get his air hose off. Nappa was right next door, but didn't sell them. My brother had the tool, and piped up that he would help him.
Outside they both went, and upon seeing what had happened to the air hose, my brother realized he had all the parts necessary to repair it right there. He is very mechanical, and prepared to make any number of minor truck-related repairs in any situation. So, my brother rooted around in his stash of parts he keeps on-hand in his truck, found all the necessary parts and tools, and helped the guy fix his air hose right there in the parking lot. This prevented a lot of rooting around in the frigid temperatures to get to the other end of the air hose, and saved the time it would take to wait for it to be fixed, and the guy was very grateful.
The next morning, there was a gift card on my brother's semi windshield to the Belle Inn for his breakfast, and a thank you for his help the night before.
: )

Happy

2011-12-19T19:07:00.000-08:00

I am having a fantastic, wonderful Monday! Here are the reasons why:
One article completed and emailed off, two additional interviews done, and the Internet cooperated.

My sister and I rearranged the gifts under the tree, and now it looks pretty and balanced. Every year I "organize" gifts, so they're evenly distributed around the entire tree. Yes, I'm a perfectionist. Yes it puts me in a great mood, and reminds me how blessed we are to have so many gifts.

I ran out to my "storage unit" a.k.a. an old enclosed semi trailer, and ended up bringing in a box of my own Christmas decorations, and putting them up.

The mail arrived, with not one, not two, but three wonderful surprises for me. First was a handmade, and baked, gift from the editor of one of the publications.

How cool is this? And kind and thoughtful!

She included a note that said this is great over cream cheese with crackers, or on a sandwich. Can't wait to try it.

I love homemade, crafty cards!

and baked goods : ) I am eating one of these guys right now and drinking tea.

Second was the Tri-State Livestock News 2012 Horse Edition, sporting one of my photos on the cover! It was so exciting to see it! I'll look into finding a full size version of the image to show you. I am so blessed to have so much success in my work life these days. This was another cover I have been super excited to see on the actual magazine, and they didn't disappoint as it looks great!

The Tri-State is a regional, weekly newspaper I freelance for. They cover a big area, and the people are fantastic to work with. In fact, the editor, who I primarily deal with, is who sent that wonderful gift! If you are interested in what happens in ag in Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, or parts of Nebraska, Montana and Colorado, they reach into all those areas. They also have all the markets for those areas.

Third in the mail was my prize from winning fourth in the American Angus Association's Holiday Photo Contest, which I forgot to take a picture of. Thank you everyone who voted! The prize include a koozie, knife, magnet, notepad, key chain and calendar all sporting Angus logos. Lots of useful stuff, and I do like the breed!

I had another order on my purchasing website today for a large print, which is always nice.

I read a couple blogs that did a great job putting what this season is really all about, which is celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.

I'm linking this up with Miscellany Monday over at lowercase letters.

Heterosis

2011-12-18T14:42:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone! Hope you're enjoying the weekend before Christmas. I have had a couple more questions (thank you!), and am going to dive into one from Ryan over at the RA Ranch.
Have you written anything on heterosis? ...or more so where I'm now-what to cross on these angus/hereford cross heifers I'm keeping? That's the short version of what I'm wondering.

Thanks for the question Ryan.

I have an example of angus/hereford (black baldie) heifers shown above. There is no "right" answer to this question. But, we're going to run through some stuff on heterosis, and some of the more common choices people in Ryan's situation make.

First, for anyone who is wondering what in the heck is heterosis, good ol' Webster defines it as: the marked vigor or capacity for growth often exhibited by crossbred animals or plants - called also hybrid vigor.
Still a little confused?

I've given this a lot of thought, and one way I've come up with to explain heterosis is with paint colors. If you have purebred animals, it's like having one color of paint. Say yellow. Then there are other purebred breeds, and they are also single colors. Say blue and red.
So long as you have one breed, it's like only having one color of paint. It can be a beautiful color that you love, but it's still just one color. If you crossbreed, that's like adding the paint color from another breed. You suddenly have the ability to make more colors, which can make your painting better, or worse, depending on your opinion and abilities.

When you crossbreed with two breeds, you have yellow, and red, and all the shades of orange you can make by mixing the two. Is it better? That's up to you to decide. Maybe you like just yellow, or maybe you like the result of combining paint colors.

This is where Ryan is with his black baldie heifers. He's crossed two purebred breeds (Black Angus and Hereford), which is like the mixing of yellow and red.

You can add yet another color through crossing your yellow and red with blue.You can still make orange, and have added the potential for purple and green, and all the original colors too. Now you're getting a lot of colors in your painting. Again, whether you like all that added color or not is a personal choice. It's also important to remember that as you add more colors, less of any one individual color will be seen.

But, another thing to keep in mind is if you keep adding colors and mixing them, eventually you'll end up with that ugly shade of brown we've all seen in art class that nobody wants to use for anything.
The same is true in crossing animals. Some is great, a lot usually isn't. Each breed of cattle offers different strengths and weaknesses, and by crossbreeding them you have the potential to maximize the good aspects of different breeds and minimize their less desirable traits. But if you go too far, the result can be an inferior animal instead of the superior animal you were aiming for.

Now that we've covered what heterosis is, and how it works, we can cover some options for "paint colors" for Ryan's heifers.

Both the Angus and Hereford breed are strong maternal breeds, and black baldie cattle are great mother cows. He has heifers that are a combination almost any commercial cattlemen would be happy to own.

One option would be to breed to a strong terminal breed, such as Charolais or Gelvbieh, which are known for their ability to increase rate of gain, muscle and yield grade. Calves that are half terminal and half maternal will technically retain some maternal traits, while also having increased growth potential and muslcing ability.

It's not maternal breeds don't do well in these areas, and you can't have heavy muscled, fast growing cattle that are maternally bred, it's that terminal breeds are known for doing better overall. Back to the paint idea, if you're selling pretty paintings, why not use more colors. In the livestock business, commercial producers are selling pounds, so why not use breeds that will give us the most pounds in the least amount of time?

Now you may be thinking, well gee, if you're selling pounds, why bother with any maternal breeds after what you just said? Well, because maternal breeds excel at things like mothering, milking, fertility and marbling. That great big calf won't do you any good if he never happens because his mother wasn't fertile, or she didn't care for him and he died as a baby, or she didn't have enough milk and he didn't get big because he didn't have enough to eat as a calf. Marbling is also a key part of producing a great tasting beef product. So, as with paint, the different breeds bring different strengths and weaknesses to the table, and deciding what you're going to breed is much like selecting paint colors for a painting.

Another thing to consider is whatever one sex of the calves has for traits, so does the other sex. So, yes it's great to have a bunch of great big, heavy muscled, fast gaining steer calves that are just massive and impressive. But, their sister's will probably be much the same, and if you're keeping those females to put back in your cowherd, you have to consider her mature size, what size of calf she will have, if she will produce enough milk, keep in good enough condition to breed back, how much she will eat, etc...

It's a fine tuned balancing act to produce a calf crop that does everything you want on both the steer calf side and the heifer calf side, in your location, and there is no "perfect recipe" that works for everyone.

You can also have maternal bred cattle that will gain as well as terminal bred cattle, and terminal bred cattle that will be moderate and fertile, depending on the specific cattle within a breed you use. There is a lot of variation within any breed, and as I said above, there is no set "right" way to breed cattle. People are very successful, and very unsuccessful, with any number of breeds and crossbreeding combinations.

Another option is to breed those heifers back to either an Angus or Hereford bull, and increase the influence of one of those breeds. We have a lot of cows that are 3/4 Angus, 1/4 Hereford, and I really like them. Since these are both maternal based breeds, that's the strength of the calves. But, these are also two of the most popular breeds in the world (Angus is the most popular), and they didn't get that way by just being maternal. Both breeds offer a lot in the area of gain, carcass quality and growth in addition to producing heifer calves that will breed back, be a good mother, produce milk, etc...

Or, Ryan could inject the influence of another maternal breed, like Red Angus, and increase his heterosis with that third maternal breed.

Another thing to consider is how cattle are bred (with bulls, or AI), and in how many pastures? It takes a lot more managment to keep everything strait when you start crossbreeding if you use bulls. If you just have one breed of bulls, then everyone can be together. For each additional breed you add, you often need to add another pasture during breeding season. Management can be a big factor in how much, or little, crossbreeding to implement on your operation.

Our family has done a three-way cross, where we bred for black baldie cows, and bred them to Gelvbieh bulls. We had to maintain three cowherds during breeding - all Hereford cows would be bred to Angus bulls (to get the black baldie cows), all Angus cows were bred to Hereford bulls (also to get baldie cows), and all baldie cows were bred to Gelvbieh bulls to get that three-way cross. We didn't want to keep any Gelvbieh influenced heifers, because they were often too big and coarse for us, so we had to have both Hereford and Angus cows to get our own replacement heifers, and the black baldie cows to produce the steers and market heifers we wanted.

The three-way cross were great cattle, and performed well whenever we marketed them. But, our situation changed, and it became much harder to maintain three cowherds. And, our straight Angus calves gained as fast as our crossbred calves in the feedlot, and we could run a single breed of bulls, so we're now all Angus.

There's a lot that goes into breeding cattle, whether you're crossbreeding or using one breed, and no two ranches are the same, so there is no one perfect way to breed cattle for the best result.

That was the long answer. The short answer is that in today's world, you can't go wrong if you turn out a high quality Black Angus bull with them, however they're bred.

Good luck Ryan, and hopefully I covered a few options for you to consider.

Yes, it's for sale

2011-12-14T16:30:00.000-08:00

I had a comment yesterday asking if I sell my pictures. The answer is yes! I sure do. I have a purchasing website you can check out here. How I typically work things is if people have photos they're interested in buying as prints, on greeting cards, etc..., they email me at doublehphoto@live.com and let me know which photos they like and I get them uploaded to the website. I don't upload all my photos simply because that would be all I got done each day.
From there purchases can be completed on the website, and whatever you purchase can be shipped directly to you. I manage the website, and if there is anything specific you want to buy and it's not offered, I can usually add it as a product.
I also tried a Christmas Bazaar this year, and it went well, and hopefully I'll have those products listed on here next year for ordering. I tried photo cutting boards (and I do have a couple left if anyone is interested), my calendars, which are still available, greeting cards and coffee mugs. I got a lot of great feedback and will be tweaking things for next year.
Thanks for question, and if anyone would like a fine print of one of my photos, or something more casual, please don't hesitate to ask!

Feeding in the Fog

2011-12-13T15:29:00.000-08:00

Some people take hundreds of pictures of their kids, and understandably so. Others of their pets, city, etc... For me it's ranching and cattle. Today we had a fantastic, heavy frost, and it was a feed day! Here are a select few of the several hundred shots I snapped over four hours of feeding in the fog.

Winner Winner!

2011-12-13T12:44:00.000-08:00

I am so excited to announce the winner of my Christmas giveaway! I did it like so: I counted the blog comments first, then counted the Facebook comments, then went to random.org, and let it do its work. The result it came back with: Number 1 - congratulations farmer!

She answered with:

Well that would have to be spending all that time with my darling Husband.
It's so nice to enjoy quiet quality time with one another.

If you will email me at doublehphoto@live.com with your address, I will get your calendar and greeting cards in the mail.

Thank you to everyone who entered the contest, and I hope your Christmas season is going great!

Speaking of contests, I would appreciate it if anyone interested would swing by the American Angus Facebook page, and vote for my picture. Here's the link, and it's the same photo that was used in my blog header. You have until this Thursday to vote. Thank you!

Friday Photos

2011-12-09T18:18:00.001-08:00

Today I checked the water for our yearling heifers and two-year old cows, who are wintering together. Here are a few photos from my "trip." It's about three miles to their water, and it takes over 30 minutes one way to drive the two-track, very rough road, if you can call it a road. In the winter, our primary responsibility is feeding and checking water for the livestock, and I enjoy the job a lot! Hope you have a great weekend.
Also, don't forget to enter my giveaway if you haven't yet!

Types of Fence

2011-12-07T17:47:00.001-08:00

I recently had another great question, that asked this:

Looking at your posts I had a question. Is there a reason that so many different types of fencing are used? Sometimes it is prefab metal units, sometimes it is all wooden and other times it is wood with wire between the openings. Since it appears that it is all for cattle, I was wondering why it seemed to change style randomly.

First, thank you for your question! There wasn't a name with the comment, so hopefully you check back, and I am able to sufficiently answer it. If anyone else ever has questions, please don't hesitate to ask. I am happy to answer, and it lets me know what you're interested in reading about that I haven't previously covered.
Second, be warned that this is a long post.
We're going to split the types of fence we use into two categories, line fences, which are those we fence large pastures with (what was referred to as the wood with wire between the openings in the question), and corral fences (that would be the prefab metal stuff and wooden stuff), which are those used in the areas we work our animals in. Line fences are just to keep animals in specific areas, which are hundreds or thousands of acres in size, and corral fences are in small, concentrated areas that receive more stress. It's like the strength of materials you would need in a high traffic area, like an airport, versus your own home.
There are many different kinds of fence for a number of reasons. My photos will include fences from multiple ranches, which is part of why you've seen many different types. Another reason is the wire used for line fences lasts a long time (sometimes over 100 years where I'm from), so as people rebuild, different materials that are most available and affordable at that time are used, and then they last for several decades. The result is a variety of fences on a single ranch in many cases. It's not economical, or timely, to just change it all at once, especially when you consider there is around 25 miles of fence on our place alone.

We use three primary kinds of line fence on our ranch. The first is called a barbwire fence, which is shown here. If you were to see the wire up close, it has barbs on it to cause discomfort if an animal tries to crawl through it. We use either wood or steel (T-posts) fence posts, and they are planted in the ground at carefully and evenly spaced intervals when the fence is first built. Then, as the posts decay from things such as termites or wind in our area, new posts are put in until enough are bad, or the wire is so worn out, that the boss decides it's time to rebuild it.
These fences are described by the number of wires they include. Different people string a different number of wires depending on how much stress a fence will receive (if it's a high or low pressure area), or if they have sheep or just cattle (with sheep, there are usually more wires),

So, this is a four wire fence. Different ranchers also use different combinations of wood and steel posts, depending on area and personal preference. Wood is more solid, and it's much easier to stretch the wires on a fence with wood fence posts because of the way the wire is attached to the post. Steel posts are faster to put in, and are less susceptible to wind and termites, but you have to detach the wires from steel posts when you stretch it, and they're not as tough as wood if a cow or sheep decides to try to run through the fence.

Here's a barbwire fence that's older than me, that needs some attention. Can you spot the new post? Note that the new post is nice and round, and was purchased, whereas the other posts were likely cut on the ranch by the rancher, then used as fence posts. But, it costs up to $5,000 per mile, in materials, to completely rebuild a fence like this one, which is another reason you don't see every ranch sporting all new fence.

The second type of line fence is called woven wire, and is a wire twisted into several small squares that you roll out, stretch, and hang from either wood or steel posts. This is great stuff for sheep, and calves, because they have a much harder time getting out of this than a barbwire fence. It is often topped with one, or two, strands of barbwire, as seen here.

The squares come in varying sizes, and the rolls of fence in varying heights, depending on what you want. There is a lot of this fence left over in the part of Wyoming I live in from when almost everyone raised sheep. It also works well in areas that may receive a little more stress, like by a gate.When we replace this kind of fence on our ranch, we typically put in a different kind of line fence.

This photo is from my boyfriend's place. His fence posts are a lot closer together than ours due largely to the amount of snow they get where he lives. Snow is heavy, and hard on fences. Having more fence posts helps keep it standing through winters with lots of snow.

The third type of line fence we use, and like in a lot of situations, is electric fence. It's just what it sounds like, a fence that will shock you if you touch it when it's plugged in. We have both traditional electric fence chargers, and solar chargers that run off the sun. Why is this around, and used? Because it's cheaper to build than conventional fences - you use lighter wire, fewer strands of wire, and fewer posts because the animals aren't going to challenge it physically more than once or twice - it's a lighter fence so things like wind and snow don't affect it as much, and the posts are fiberglass, so no termites.

Here are some of the fiberglass posts we use next to some normal wood posts, to give you an idea of how they compare in size. Since they're so straight and slick, they don't do a very good job of holding the fence down in low areas (We stretch fence wires on all line fences tight, so a post has to hold it either up, or down, as you cross hills and draws). To hold the fence at the proper height, we bury a deadman (don't know where it got that name), which for electric fences is that steel thing with the hook at one end and the flat square at the other laying across the posts. We bury that in the ground, and hook the lowest fence wire to it, which holds it down. The wire pictured is smooth wire, and that's the size of barbwire. Electric fence wire is much smaller in diameter, and is a single strand instead of two wound together. The coffee can is holding the pieces we use to connect the wire to the fiberglass posts, which is like a big bobby pin in shape. You put the wire in the middle of the bobby pin, then thread it through the hole in the post, then bend and wrap each end of the bobby pin back around.

Okay, now that we're clear on line fences, lets move on to corral fences. Again, materials last a long time, and are often used based on what's available in an area, and what the cost is. New parts are added, or old parts repaired, in small increments in a lot of instances. Ranchers are also huge on recycling, so in areas where there are oilfields, many use pipe, cable, or sucker rod (part of ours is made from pipe and sucker rod) no longer useful to the oil industry. Likewise, others use old guardrail, old bridge planks (part of ours is made from this too), sheets of steel, railroad ties (again, we use this material) and about anything else sturdy and durable you can think of. Other parts are purchased, or built, to suit a specific ranch's needs, and it's all combined, added on to and rebuilt, as time passes.

Here is part of one set of my uncle's corrals. He purchased this place with these corrals as they are now. The solid wood fence helps block the wind and snow, and it's also good to have solid aspects in corrals where you don't want animals to see out. This can reduce stress for the animals, create a flow through the corral, and a number of other things. Ranchers don't just throw up fences and make it work, a lot of thought and effort goes into designing and building corrals to make it work best for the livestock, and around the landscape.

Here's the alleyway at my uncle's other set of corrals. My great-uncle set all of those tall pitch posts by hand in the late 1960's or early 1970's, after cutting them down, and they're still solid today. This is a high stress area, as animals go down this single file, and those posts were probably the sturdiest thing my family could find at the time. It's about like a bunch of elementary school kids in the lunch line - anything can happen, and as many things as possible are worked into the design to prevent any bad things from happening, with adjustments made over time. For instance, that top board was added to the alleyway after a cow jumped over me when I was baby right where my camera bag is sitting.

In contrast to my uncle's place, we haven't been on ours for generations, and the people before hadn't been big on corral repairs from the look of the place when we bought it. The solid tin area closest in the picture is the only part of the original corral left, and it's slated for replacement next year. The wood in the pen they're putting the sheep into is made from a combination of recycled bridge plank and oilfield pipe. The alleyway the sheep are coming out of is oilfield sucker rod and pipe, and at the opposite end of the alleway is our tub and single file alleyway. The back pen is a combination of wood and pre-fabbed, heavy duty hog panels (same design as woven wire fence, just heavier duty), with recycled railroad ties for posts on part of it, and railroad ties and pre-fabbed steel fence panels called continuous fence on the rest.
Although we do only run cattle today, we did run sheep for over a decade. Several aspects of our corral still reflect the presence of sheep. For instance, the wood fence on the left has a small steel bar running between the two bottom pieces of wood. We left this after selling the sheep because it doesn't hurt anything with running cattle through the corral, and would take a lot of time to remove, so it will stay until that piece of corral is replaced.

This is a brand new fence we rebuilt this fall after our calves ran through the old one just after being weaned, and is our preferred type of corral fence to build. The railroad ties are super-strong, and last a long time since they're treated. The continuous fence panels are also tough, and fast to put up. Each continuous fence panel is 20 feet long, and you screw them onto the railroad ties, and insert smaller pieces of pipe between each panel to create the entire fence.
It's also probably the most economical way we can build corral fence right now,and what you see here cost about $1,200 dollars in materials.

Here is our working tub, and alleyway. Trees are a little harder to come by on the plains we live on compared to the black hills my uncle lives in, and we needed something "now" when we replaced the dilapidated wood alleyway that was here we bought the place. So, we bought a steel, solid-sided tub, and adjustable alleyway. You can see on the left that we also made the moving gates of the tub solid, so the cattle can only see up the alleyway, and theoretically want to go in that direction. The bad part about this setup is the gate at the back of the alleyway is terrible - it's loud, heavy, and cattle don't like going under it, so it's also on the replacement list.

Here are the corrals where we summer our yearling steers, and ship them each fall. These are made from what I'm calling hog panels, with wood posts and reinforcing boards. The side of the barn is also used as a fence for part of these corrals.

And, last but not least, here are the corrals at the grazing association my family belongs to. Again, they're a little closer to the oil and gas industries, which shows from the use of pipe. Having a membership based grazing association means a certain allocation of funds went toward building a nice set of functional corrals that can hold a large number of livestock, and the members most likely voted to build the corrals out of pipe.
So, part of the reason you see so many materials is I take pictures in multiple sets of corrals, and each one is different. Different materials are found in a single set of corrals because it's uneconomical and not time efficient to replace it if it isn't broken.
There are also portable corrals, which are a whole different story...

Christmas Giveaway!

2011-12-07T15:24:00.001-08:00

It's the season of giving, and I want to give you a chance to win some Double H Photography stuff! Who doesn't want another Christmas present mailed to them?

Up for grabs is my 2012 Outdoors in Wyoming Calendar, and an assortment of 10 greeting cards (and envelopes) with my photos on the front.

Here is the cover of the Calendar, which features photos from around the state of Wyoming, and most of them were taken in the month they're shown on the calendar. The one downside is the the site I ordered them from this year didn't allow typing over the picture, so if you're the lucky winner and would like to know where any pictures were taken, just let me know!

And here are a couple samples of the photos used for the greeting cards. The inside of all cards are completely blank, so they work great for any occasion!

To enter, you must be a follower of my blog or Facebook page, and just need to leave a comment either here or on the Facebook page answering the following question:

What is your favorite part of the Christmas season?

The giveaway will close next Tuesday, December 13 at noon, MST. I'll randomly select a winner that afternoon, and hopefully will have your goodies to you in plenty of time for Christmas!

Beyond Excited

2011-12-01T14:45:00.001-08:00

Do you ever have something fantastic happen, but it really doesn't sink in until you actually saw the final product?

I had one of those experiences, big time, today! My picture is on the December cover of BEEF Magazine, one of the best, most recognized livestock magazines in America. Uh yeah, I am doing backflips of joy...in my mind : )

* Ta Da *

Whoever it is over at BEEF that designs their covers always does an amazing job, and this month is no exception. The original looks like this, yes, but they cropped it different, pumped it up with some red, and well, made it look like it deserves to be on a magazine cover.
Now don't get me wrong, I was pretty stoked when they asked about the photo, after seeing it right here on the blog. I was also nervous. I sent off a small version, and later a larger image when they approved it. But, it was more like work then, just emailing pictures here and there.
However, when I saw it on my Facebook feed about an hour ago, it definitely sunk it!
I had the same experience when BEEF published the first article I wrote for them. I am so very blessed to have a job that makes me so happy, and excited, with each step forward.
If you don't know about BEEF, by gosh you should : ) Here is their website, and Facebook Page. They cover a huge number of topics relevant to beef production, and if you like cattle photos, they keep an online archive of past covers.

Hello Blog

2011-11-30T17:12:00.001-08:00

Hello! I have not fallen off the edge of the earth. I have just been busy! Here's what's been going on in my world in my absence:
-trip to Denver for Thanksgiving
-Ordering calendars, losing saved calendars on ordering website, getting ready to re-design and order them again
-Weaning a second round of calves my dad bought
-Attending the Range Beef Cow Symposium for a day
-Trip to Adam's house
-Figuring out and dedicating some time to Adam's Christmas, and birthday (December 27) presents
-Writing, a lot
-Sending out a lot more pictures to various places, with some exciting success. More on that soon!
-Helping with a skit for Farm Bureau meeting (see below)
-Designing and ordering various photo products for a local Christmas Bazaar
-As a landlord, there seems to always be a few things to do in the house area
-A presentation through Farm Bureau that is no light task

Man, that doesn't seem like a long enough list : )

I will be back in the swing of things.....soon. This Friday I am heading to Casper for the Wyoming Farm Bureau Young Farmers and Ranchers Annual Convetion (they expect you to do show up when you're on the committee), a trip to Adam's after that (where there is no Internet service) then back home to continue writing like crazy, which it's such a blessing to be so busy in that area!
In the mean time, I will make more of an effort to at least put some new pictures up here, and stay caught up in that area.
Speaking of pictures, I would appreciate it if you swung over to the American Angus Association's Facebook page, and voted for my picture by liking it. The photo with the most likes wins. Mine is the one used in my blog header.

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-23T10:02:00.001-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We headed south to Denver to have Thanksgiving with my mom's side of the family.
That means we've been extra busy giving all our livestock extra feed, ensuring they have lots of water, and basically doing three days of work in the last two, so we can be gone tomorrow. As ranchers, we can't just leave anytime we want. A lot of planning and work goes into everyone in my family being gone at the same time, even if it's just for a day or two.
But, we're sure thankful we get to live the lives we do, in the place we do. We are very blessed, and wouldn't trade what we do for a living for anything!
Hope you all have safe travels and a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Last Year

2011-11-18T09:00:00.000-08:00

I was checking out my blog posts from last November, and came across this unpublished post, that just had the above photo. It was taken just south of Buffalo, on a Winter Cattleman's interview tripe
So much has changed in the year since I took this picture, and I have been so very blessed in the last 12 months.
Ironically enough, that picture was taken on 11-17-10, and today I am driving to Buffalo, and will be in that same town on 11-18-11. This time for my boyfriend's uncle's bull sale. I was there for interviews last year, and will be getting in at least one interview while there this year.
Last year I discovered a wonderful little shop on Buffalo's main street, and bought a pile of Christmas ornaments. That same store is on the agenda for this afternoon! As is a tour of one of the places I toured and interviewed last year.
Last year I was helping with all the weekly newspaper stuff in addition to working on about a dozen additional articles for the Winter Cattlemen's Edition. Based on my blog posts, I was also driving home most weekends to help with the tail end of our fall work.
Right now I have six articles I'm working on right this minute, at the ranch, where I conduct most of my interviews and do most of my writing these days. I have about four more to start as soon as these are completed, a (hopefully) big presentation I just took on through the Farm Bureau Young Farmers and Ranchers Committee, a Christmas Bazaar I'm preparing for, and a wonderful boyfriend to go see in Buffalo this weekend.
What a pile of similarities and differences Looking back has made me especially thankful for where I am, and what my life is like, today!
Hope you can say the same. Have a great weekend!

Wordless Wednesday, Fall Scenes

2011-11-16T07:00:00.000-08:00

Would you Work Differently?

2011-11-15T07:26:00.001-08:00

Ryan Goodman, at Agriculture Proud, asked the question, How would you work differently if a non-farmer/rancher followed you around for a day?

My answer is nothing would change. Our success in the ranching business isn't based on what we do when someone is looking or watching. Our success is based on how we treat and care for our animals and land day in and day out, and we all know that.

This question was exciting to me because in recent months we have had the opportunity to have several people on our place. We had a good friend of mine from college who was here to record us and get pictures for her work with the Wyoming Stockgrowers (she was "the media"!). She happened to pick a day of preg-checking, and our cows were miserable that day (naturally). She saw that no one lost their temper, regardless of the cows being less than willing to work with anyone. She may have even got a couple choice words on her camera. But, it was interesting to see how a day of working frustrating cows highlighted so many positive things about ranching when you're there to see the entire picture.

We also give a talk on ranching to every single hunter that sets foot on our place, prior to releasing them to hunt. One group of dinosaur bone (that's a topic all its own) hunters happened to show up on a day when we were working our yearlings earlier this fall. I stood with the group at the fence and spent over half an hour answering questions, debunking myths, and reinforcing truths they had all heard. These people were from New York to Florida, and it was their first glimpse into real ranch life. The rest of family continued on with their tasks, and these people were fascinated with what they were watching.

As a media person, I have had the opportunity to be in the "following someone around on their operation" shoes many times. Several of these people had no idea I knew what end of a cow ate, and the vast majority of them were exactly as I've described my family. They put me right in the middle of whatever was going on, explained the hows and whys to each task, and were genuinely happy to have me around and explain things to me. They were also not about to put off preg-checking, shipping, weaning, etc.. (the animals always come first) just to visit with me.

These families would almost always invite me in for lunch, offer a place to stay if I needed one, tell me to please come back if I was ever in the area, and thank me for being there that day. The people in agriculture are amazingly hospitable, open and hardworking people, and that is another thing that doesn't change from day to day.

The only thing that is slightly different is the task at hand can take longer because we will take the time to answer any questions people have. We also always invite people in for lunch and conversation after the task. It has been my personal experience that when people outside agriculture actually do spend a day around farmers and ranchers, it's a very positive, eye-opening experience that goes a long way in showing them the truth about our industry!

Christmas Countdown 2011 - Alma Mater gifts

2011-11-14T15:55:00.001-08:00

I'm back with more Christmas ideas for you. I don't know about the college you attend, or attended, but the University of Wyoming has a wonderful bookstore that sells everything from the expected UW labeled clothing and office supplies, to high end stemware, decor and jewelry.Our mascot is also the cowboy, so for those of you who love western inspired items, make sure to stop by campus if you're ever in Laramie, Wyoming.
In addition to great gifts, the UW bookstore offers an AWESOME selection of ornaments and holiday decorations every year, many of which are also western themed. Then, they have a sensational clearance sale on all that goodness each year too. Gotta love a bargain! Either way, I have to budget myself if I stop by anytime near the holidays.
Please be warned, their website doesn't have half the stuff that's available in the actual store!

Image from here

I bought a set of the above ornament in red, turquoise, and brown last year in the bookstore!

What little boy doesn't want to be a cowboy (Pistol Pete kids shirt)

Kitchen related gifts are always a hit. I have two over sized wine glasses with this design etched in the side, and love them!

Brown and gold accessories always a hit in Wyoming!

Grassroots Organizations

2011-11-11T14:48:00.001-08:00

This week I am at the Wyoming Annual Farm Bureau Convention, held in Cheyenne. Since my work is no longer a conflict of interest with being personally affiliated with select organizations, I have enjoyed increasing my involvement in Wyoming Farm Bureau through running and being elected to the Wyoming Young Farmers and Ranchers Committee.
My personal belief is it's a necessary act of community service to serve on boards, committees, in public office, etc... It's through personal involvement that you see your community become what you want, how you create positive change that you believe in, and is critical to the future of communities. It's also how you make others aware of issues pertinent and relevant to you and your lifestyle. My family has a long standing history of involvement for these reasons, and I'm excited to increase mine in upcoming months and years.
The thoughts I just mentioned are relevant at the local, county, state, regional, national or international level. That's the beauty of being involved. I am also a very strong believer in grassroots organizations, which are those where local members make policy, and pass it locally, then present it at the district, state, and national meetings, should it pass at each previous step. Grassroots organizations are how local people get local issues heard at a national level by government and other entities through a large and unified voice. This is the opposite of the federal government creating an idea, then passing it down to the local communities they know nothing about. Grassroots is how things should happen.
The American Farm Bureau Federation is the largest farmer and rancher based grassroots organization in the U.S. today, and as I type this, policy is being passed at the state level that has already been voted on at the local and district meetings. These are the ideas, concerns, changes and improvements Wyoming people want to see happen on more issues than you can count. Through creating policy, the people involved lobbying for Farm Bureau at the state or national level have a resource they can refer to on any number of issues to see just what the people back home think on a subject. Then they can use that policy to accurately represent member needs.
For example, policy was passed today that states Wyoming Farm Bureau supports population control of wild horses through various means including sterilization, humane euthanization, etc... (those aren't the exact words, which in policy exact words are very important, but that gives you the general idea).
With that policy in place, the Farm Bureau lobbyists can refer to it any time there is legislation that encompasses the wild horse, and speak from the point of the organization supporting population control. If there wasn't policy, the lobbyists wouldn't know what the majority of members thought on some issues, and may not represent accurately.
The other side is, having a huge organization with members from every state in the union gets a lot more attention at state or national legislatures than one farmer, or rancher, with a concern or idea.
Savvy?
It's all quite fascinating, and so very important to the future of our country. I encourage anyone who has ever said, "they should do that, or do it that way," to go join the organization you were referring to, and become a part of making it the way you want and believe it should be.

More Calf Doctoring

2011-11-08T16:23:00.000-08:00

I'm back with more calf doctoring information. Kerstin asked a question on the last calf doctoring post, which was: Do you use a new needle for every shot you give/every calve? I couldn't find your email address Kerstin, but very much appreciate your question, and am happy to answer it.
No, we don't switch needles every time we give a cow/calf/yearling a shot on our operation. Some people do. However, the odds of transfering anything but a blood disease is extremely low (I have never witnessed anything transfered animal to animal from a needle in 25 years), and the cost and time associated with changing needles after every animal is uneconomical. Now, if there was an actual concern that we may cause a health related issue through using needles on more than one animal, we would absolutely change them after each shot. The animal's health comes first, and there isn't a concern in that area with most of the shots we administer, so at that point we look at cost and time associated with a practice, and that's why we choose not to switch with every animal.
We do switch needles every few head. This is because the needle will become dull, and can get dirty, bent etc..., and we are very consciencious of anything that can impact our animal's health, like manure, dirt, a needle that may break, or a dull needle that makes it more difficult to administer a shot.
Switching needles every few head is also the way every vet we use prefers to administer shots.
Specifically with doctoring calves, and giving them LA200, I typically switch needles every day. That would encompass 1-5 head given shots with the same needle.
Thank you again for your question!

Christmas Countdown 2011 - Calendars and Soap

2011-11-07T07:44:00.000-08:00

I know it's a little early for Christmas shopping, for some. But, I'm planning to host a variety of potential gifts on here from now until Christmas, and some of them need to be ordered early to ensure they're to you in time!

Up first are two 2012 Double H Photography Calendars. I am putting out an "Outdoors in Wyoming," and a "Cattle" calendar for 2012. There is a preview photo from each below. They are $15, plus $5 shipping if you aren't from Lusk/Lance Creek WY area.

If you're interested, please contact me on here, at doublehphoto@live.com, or on the Double H Photography Facebook page.

March 2012 photo in Outdoors Calendar

Cover of Cattle Calendar

Another great Christmas gift for this year that you need to order early are products from Miller Soap Co. The owner of this great business lives near me, and makes the coolest soaps and bath products. Beyond body soaps that come in scents like leather, blueberry, White Tea & Ginger and Buttercream & Snickerdoodle (and about any other flavor you might be interested in), she also makes facial soaps, toffee lip butters, bath bombs, lotions, etc...
She makes all this wonderful stuff from her Wyoming ranch home, and ships it all over the place. The soap needs at least three weeks to cure, hence the need to order early.
There a few pictures of her products below. To see more of her wonderful creations, or to place an order, head over to the Miller Soap Co. Facebook page.

Chocolate Espresso Soap

Shea Butter Moisturizing Cream

Leather Soap

I will be posting more stuff as we get closer to the holidays. I'm planning to focus primarily on items I've bought in the past and people/products I'm familiar with. But, if you have a great product you think would make a wonderful gift, let me know and I'll try to get them included too!

Sunday Scenes

2011-11-06T07:30:00.000-08:00

Here are a few fall photos from around the state of Wyoming for you to enjoy on your Sunday! God bless.

Friday Update

2011-11-04T16:28:00.000-07:00

Perhaps you've noticed a few changes around here. It's been so nice to finally update my blog with my new computer! I'm sure I will continue to tweek and change things in upcoming weeks. If you have any suggestions, advice, or even things you don't like, I would love to hear from you!
I've also noticed a few new followers in recent weeks, and want to say welcome! Thank you for following my blog, and I'm excited you're here.
From time to time I like to provide a little background information about myself and where I live. Here is a link to the post where I give a tour of my hometown.
I actually live 25 miles north of the bustling metropolis of Lance Creek, and our closest neighbors live five miles away if you take a road. It's closer to 2.5 miles cross country. Cattle outnumber people around here by a huge margin.
We are two and a half hours (one way) from a Walmart, Starbucks (that's the most painful one for me), Red Lobster, mall, airport, college, and any number of other "common" modern shopping, eating and transportation amenities.
To purchase a gallon of milk or any other groceries, check out a library book, find a k-12 school or a coffee shop of any kind (yay!), it's a one hour drive, one way. So, every trip to get groceries is a minimum of 112 miles, round trip.
We are isolated. We like it that way.
Our ranch is located in the "banana belt" of Wyoming. It's a semi-arid climate that has exceptionally mild winters. We originally purchased this ranch as a winter place, and our cattle lived here during the winter months on grass a cake every year. We never fed hay. Today it has changed in that we run cattle on this ranch year-round, so we feed a little more during the winter months. But, it's still a very nice to be located here in the winter compared to just about everywhere else in the state. Ironically enough, just one hour south of us, the area around Lusk is famous for it's terrible winter weather.
Being semi-arid also means we get a minimal amount of moisture; under 12 inches annually. We grow hard grasses that cattle do very well on. Hard refers to the grass not containing a lot of moisture, so each bite packs in a lot of nutrients as opposed to water. But, there isn't always a lot of it.
Hope you love where you live too, and enjoy the unique features of the area!

P.S., we're linking up with the Farmgirl Friday Blog Hop too this week-

Turquoise Thursday

2011-11-03T11:05:00.000-07:00

Have you heard of Turquoise Thursdays? I follow a couple girl's blogs who do this, and they bring some serious eye candy each week!

The first is Crystal Cattle. I particularly love the jewelry and furniture pieces she finds (this week she has some very cute turqouise winter must-haves).

Anna at Life Be Delicious finds the most amazing clothing and home decor items (she's showing off some awesome jewlery this week).

As you may know, this isn't something I do regularly. But, I was just driving my boyfriend's pickup and trailer along last weekend, going to pick him and his father up from trailing heifers off the mountain to their winter home, when I came upon this:

It immediately caught my eye, and I thought of Turqouise Thursdays. Needless to say, I stopped the truck and trailer in the middle of the county road and snapped a few pictures. If we ever buy/build a portable loading chute, I'm going to be lobbying for painting it this color!

I also purchased this neckalce at American Eagle this week. I tried to find it on their website, but couldn't, so I'm not sure if it's available everywhere (maybe it's from spring or something?) or not. It has a really long chain too, and I like the little balls that break up the normal chain, and the flecks of gold mixed in with the turquoise on the leaves! I do a lot of accessory shopping at AE, and have a few other turquoise pieces I've purchased there. A big thank you to my brother, who gave me a gift card for my birthday that bought this necklace!

Pictures of Cattle

2011-11-02T18:14:00.000-07:00

Here are some cattle photos from recent weeks for you to enjoy. They were taken on our place, and while helping Adam near Ten Sleep. Hope you had a great Wednesday!

Doctoring Calves

2011-11-01T19:30:00.000-07:00

Weaning calves is much like sending your kids back to school in the fall. Between completely changing environments, tossing them into a smaller space, switching up their diet and any number of other things, some are bound to get sick regardless of your best efforts to prevent it. When I say sick, I mean anything from Pneumonia, to Pink Eye, to Foot rot, to any number of other ailments, depending on location, weather, soil and other variables. "Sickness" is an all-encompassing term.

People doctor calves in more ways than you count, and for a wide variety of ailments depending on the year, their location, and other things. Some rope and doctor them in a lot or pasture, others bring them in and put them in a chute. Some use horses and others use 4-wheelers or motorcycles. Some sort them off into a separate pen, others don't. Different people, and places, deal with different sicknesses. This is one of those ranch things where there are lots of ways to do the job effectively.

This year ours have been in our corral and a small lot. This increases the odds of them getting sick, because they're in a more confined space and were eating out of feeders, which can increase the spread of sickness. However, having them close also makes it easier to get them on a feed program, simpler to check and doctor them if they do get sick and can allow you get on top of any serious illness really fast. There are trade offs to having them turned out, or in a lot or corral like we did this year.

Before you can doctor any calves, there have to be some that are sick. Obviously everyone would prefer if they didn't get sick, and works really hard to prevent sickness before it starts. There are lots of things ranchers do to prevent sickness, including vaccination programs, adding a mild antibiotic to the water for a select period of time, feeding medicated feed for a period of time, feeding a weaning specific feed or feed additive, and a variety of other feed and management options.

For the most part, these practices are highly effective where I'm from, and we doctor very few calves. But, regardless of our best efforts, there are always a few, and some years a lot, that require additional care. As with most things involving livestock, they get sick at any time of day, and you have to spend a lot of time with them during the days following weaning when they're most likely to get sick. The key is to get on top of any sickness as fast as possible. If you miss the beginning of a wave of illness going through a bunch of calves, it can result in the duration of illness lasting much longer, costs you money in loss of production and medication costs and also increases the risk of calves not fully recovering from an illness, or dieing.

Healthy calves look like the above two photos. They're alert, with their ears up, eyes bright and bellies full. The guy just laying there is chewing his cud, a sure sign of contentment in cattle. There are lots of subtle, and not so subtle, signs of calves that are healthy, or on the verge of getting sick.

You want to look through them carefully, especially if you know you have something going through them. Number 166 looks healthy, alert, full, etc...

But, unfortunately one of the things we had go through our calves this year is Pink Eye.

Even though this guy doesn't feel sick, he needs doctored because of his eye.

Here's another suspect, this time for being sick. This guy is not alert, he's off by himself, and he's not eating when most of the other calves were - all signs of potentially needing doctored.

But, before you just go ahead and doctor every calf that looks like this, it's also important not to over-doctor. You have to spend time with the calves, and watch suspects like this guy. There are some that are obviously sick, and there's no doubt that you better doctor him or he's going to die. Then there are more "suspect" types, which need monitored. Sometimes it's easier to tell the difference, and sometimes you have to go with your gut (which for most ranchers, is based on years of personal experience) and what you feel is best for that particular animal.

Here's what we use to doctor. The artwork is custom. We use this old chute because it's pretty much worn out, and useless for anything but doctoring sick calves. It's also a manual chute, whereas our other one is run on hydraulics. Using this one means we don't have to fire up a pickup every time we want to run a calf in and doctor him, and one person can do the entire process alone if they need to.

When you doctor a calf, you usually give him a shot, in a syringe like this one.

We use a broad-spectrum antibiotic, seen here. The brand name of this bottle is Oxymycin, but the general term for this medicine is LA 200. You give calves so many cc's based on body weight. This is a mild medicine that treats a number of common illnesses and is affordable. It's usually a good starting place when doctoring calves. People in some places have to deal with illnesses that require much more aggressive doctoring, but fortunately that's not the case where I live in most instances.

You can give the shot under the skin, and we give multiple shots to spread the medicine out. For Pink Eye, you can also give the shot in the eyelid. But, considering I was doctoring most of these calves alone, I wasn't about to try to mug each one's head and give what would be a very difficult shot at the same time. So, instead of an actual shot, I would fill this little syringe with LA 200, and apply some of it directly to the eye. Pink Eye is extremely susceptible to doctoring, and the direct contact of the LA 200 to the infected area (eye) increases effectiveness. That's why they recommend a shot right at they eye also.

I didn't get a photo of doctoring any calves this year, but here's an example of my aunt giving a shot. She's going to give it in the neck, and you also want to be careful not to break the syringe (the clear part is glass), and waste the vaccine. She was giving a shot to some cows, and that's why it's white. LA 200 is the color and consistency of maple syrup. It's sticky, thick, and some brands burn when you give the shot to the calf. But, it's also fast and long-acting, effective, and a much better alternative to not being doctored.

Then each calf gets a mark with a paint stick, so you can tell he's been doctored after you turn him back out. Sometimes you have to doctor calves multiple times, and you need to know if he's been doctored previously. If you doctor a calf multiple times, you can switch colors each time. This year we used one color (pink) for sick calves, and another (yellow) for those doctored for Pink Eye.

We also write each calf we doctor down, along with the date we gave it a shot, and this year whether it was a sick calf or one with Pink Eye. We keep records of practically everything.

Lots of people just put a mark across the shoulders. I added another on their hip because when they were eating in the feeders, there were times when you couldn't see the shoulders.

The paint stick marks fade over time. Here's the first calf that was doctored for Pink Eye. At this point we're pretty much past the post-weaning sickness, and I turned the calves out to pasture this morning.

A Yearling Sorting Story

2011-10-27T09:49:00.000-07:00

This story has been floating around this week, and my whole family gets a kick out of it, hope you do to.

When I was around six or seven years old, we would go to the Rocky Point Grazing Association, which you can read about here. Every fall we had to sort our yearlings multiple ways prior to shipping out. You know, get the neighbors out, sort steers from heifers, sort of any gimps or dinks, etc...

By this time I was an exceptional gate runner (or certainly thought I was). Running a gate means you're responsible for opening and closing it in time with the animals that need to be sorted into your pen. Sounds simple, and sometimes is, but it can also be a very fast moving, complex job at times. There are moments it will test your grit too as a little kid, when an alley of 900-plus pound yearlings are bearing down on you, and you're responsible for running out in front of them, holding a gate a little stick for protection, just to sort one into your pen.

Anyway, I was assigned a gate to run. This guy named Frank, who is also a member of the grazing association, apparently thought a little three and a half foot tall, probably 50 lb, girl with wild, almost white, blond hair, might need help. Poor guy.

Frank had one of his hands wrapped, because he had injured it in some way. He also always has a great big cigar in his mouth that he chews on and rolls around while working cattle.

He props his wrapped hand on my gate, which immediately causes a smalle tingle of concern to go through me. My dad must have been another gate across the alley, because he watched all this, and didn't tell Frank I was capable, which also caused a tingle of irritation to go through my little body.

Down the alley come a bunch of yearlings, and my uncle starts calling out names as to where they needed to go. There's one for my pen, and Frank moves too slow and the yearling blows by our gate. Up goes my irritation level, especially as I get a less than patient remark about missing the steer.

A little additional information: My father and Uncle weren't patient when we were little kids, and I was the first born of my generation. We also ran a big operation at the time, and as they each had kids, we were expected to help at young ages. It was great for all of us, and their high expectations of all of us kids, and limited patience with us when we messed up, is why I could do things like run a gate like an adult at six or seven. It also meant that I too had very little patience with anyone who didn't get it right the first time around.

I don't remember this, but suspect my father was laughing at my prediciment right about here (we have quite the sense of humor in my family). My uncle, who couldn't see anything, but knew I was missing yearlings, wasn't laughing at all.

We get that worked out, and down the alley comes another draft, and again Frank is too slow in "helping" me get my gate open. This time I probably got yelled at, which will really set you into motion on our place as a little kid. It also caused my temper to spike, high up into the red.

Third time, here they come down the alley. My uncle yells my name, and I swing that gate out hard and fast, and smash Frank's hand between the gate and pipe it latches too.

My dad will be laughing so hard at this point he can hardly add that upon having his hand smashed by a little girl, Frank almost swallows, and chokes on, his big cigar.

The yearling goes where it's supposed to, and Frank gathers his composure and heads off to another part of the correl. I have no more issues with sorting that day, and don't get yelled at anymore.

Like I said, poor guy.

The Fall Work is Done!

2011-10-26T12:15:00.000-07:00

In reality the work on a ranch is never done. But, we wrapped up the last of our "fall work days" Monday, when we preg-checked the last of our cows.

Every cow and calf has been shipped or trailed home from their summer pastures, the calves have all been weaned, their weights are entered in the computer, and the cows have all been preg-checked. For the last six weeks or so it has been a crazy mix of driving, riding, gathering, sorting, hauling, driving, riding, unloading, weaning, preg-checking, fencing, fixing water, etc... Did I mention driving and riding? And picking up gallons of milk as you blew through a town, learning which little espresso huts will make a coffee the fastest at 6:00 a.m. (I NEED my caffeine, and if we drove by a coffee shop would accomadate a horse trailer or semi, we stopped), wishing for a coffee shop on all the mornings (especially the cold ones) we didn't drive, or drive by one, keeping enough clothes in every pickup to ensure you're covered if it's 95 degrees or 10 below zero, and swapping my camera and computer equipment from outfit to outfit so that I can get as much work done as possible whenever we hit a town, or stay at a house, with Internet.

It's a unique time of year that's hard to explain unless you've lived it. I like to think of it as a whole lot of fun packed into a short period of time. We were blessed with beautiful weather for almost every task this year, and that always makes it so much nicer!

Now we are settling into the routine of feeding and doctoring calves, writing articles again, and getting ready for winter.

I am also going to the doctor tomorrow for an incredibly swollen ankle that has been plaguing me all fall, and which I "finished off" while gathering cows Sunday. I had to run a cow down and turn her back, which she was opposed to, and when it was all over I was one hurting unit. Hoping it's nothing serious, but have a feeling it could be.

Hope everyone else's fall has also been a busy, productive few months of working at tasks you enjoy, with people you love! I am so very blessed to have such a jam-packed schedule of things that I love to do, with my family and friends as the other people I get to do them with!

My Last Post

2011-10-23T16:44:00.000-07:00

Hopefully this will be my last blog post...on this computer! I ordered a new Dell last week, and it's due to arrive any day.
To put things in perspective, I bought the computer I currently use in 2002 or 2003. The poor thing is ancient in terms of computers, and does some funny things. It won't let me reply to comments, or comment on certain blogs (at least I think it's the computer and not me, I really do read and appreciate all the comments on here, and have tried to comment back). I've just spent the last 30 minutes trying to upload photos for a blog post with no luck. It takes 20 minutes to start up each morning, and about the same amount of time to shut down each evening. You don't want to know what happens if I don't turn it off each night.
This computer has been a part of my life since college, where I used it to get my degree. It was used to type my first column for a newspaper, and edit the first set of wedding pictures I took. It got a bit of a break while I worked at the Roundup, but I still had to use it for certain functions becuase my work Mac had some glitches.
It's also what I used to write the stories and edit the pictures that paid for the new computer.
I chose to stick with Dell because any technology company that makes a laptop that lasts a decade is A-Okay in my book. It's not like they were easy years where I fired it up every few days either. I know lots of people have good and bad luck with any computer brand, but mine with Dell has been exceptional. I also realize that many people prefer Mac's to PC's, but my personal experience with Mac's has been pretty mediocre.
So, Dell XPS 15z, I hope you're as great to me as the Dell Inspiron 1505 was!

Driving over the Big Horns

2011-10-17T16:24:00.000-07:00

I get to make the drive over the Big Horn Mountains more often than ever before in my life these days. It's one of two ways to get from my house to Adam's, and it also happens to be one of my favorite drives, so I take it whenever possible.
Here are a few pictures from my latest trip, which happened to be the day after their first big snow of the year.

Loading a Cattlepot

2011-10-13T17:04:00.000-07:00

I've shown pictures of loading our cattle onto a cattlepot before. But, I thought it might be interesting to show you the inside, and how it all works as cattle are put on the truck. It's not a matter of just filling it up until the trailer is full. Oh no, it's much more complex than that.
The first picture shows how the standard cattle pot is arranged inside. Trailers come in different lengths, and more modern pots have four axles on the trailer, so the middle is smaller, and the ends are bigger.
I've also heard that no two Wilson (that's a brand name) Cattlepots are made the same. Considering there are thousands of them in use, that's a very interesting tidbit to me.
There are also trailers with spread rear axles (the axles are spread apart, and there are two on a trailer), or closed tandem axles (the axles are all close together, and there are two to four of them). Truckers can haul a certain amount of weight on every axle they have on their truck and trailer. It's 12,000 lbs for the front axle on the truck, 36,000 lbs in Wyoming ( it's 34,000 lbs in most states) on closed tandem axles, which are on the back of the truck, and possibly the trailer. If the trailer isn't a closed tandem axle, it will be a spread axle, and can haul 20,000 lbs. As you add more axles to a trailer, you can haul more weight, but the amount you can haul per axle becomes much more complex to determine.
So, if you have a truck and a spread axle trailer, you can haul 54,000 lbs, which is what my dad can haul.
Truckers load trailers to make sure they are at a proper weight on every individual axle. To help them do this, and to keep the livestock sorted and safe, are two floors and a number of pens/compartment within the cattlepot.

Here's how a cattlepot is generally divided up inside. Some pens you can only put smaller animals in, like calves (the doghouse), and others have removable floors so a trucker can either haul a single deck (decks are like stories in a house) of cows, or two decks of calves (the nose).

Here's the view inside, on the top deck, looking toward the nose. My dad and brother are busy putting the deck in the nose of a cattlepot, so they can haul two decks of calves. Truckers can haul just cows, just calves, or a combination of both. The holes are for ventilation for the livestock, to keep the pot from being blown over in windy conditions, and to keep it light. These trailers are made of aluminum, which also keeps them light.

I turned around, and here's the view toward the back of the trailer. To the left is the door to the doghouse, to the right is the ramp down to the door that leads outside. The floors also have a raised pattern on them to provide traction for the livestock. Sometimes truckers put sawdust on the floor also, to keep livestock cleaner or to improve traction. Cleanliness is a huge issue in trucking. You want the livestock to stay as clean as possible - for sanitation, health and presentation reasons. My dad and brother both wash their pots out regularly. The floors are dirty on this day because it was day two of hauling our own cattle, and we hadn't been near a water hose of any kind.

Here they are putting the deck in the nose of one of their pots. The floor stores within the trailer when you take it out. You take it out when hauling cows so the pen is tall enough for them. When hauling calves you put it back in.

Then they prepare to start filling the pot with cattle, cows and calves, in this case.

Kyle pulled a pin, and a part of the floor drops down, creating a ramp into the lower deck of the nose. You always load the bottom pen of the nose first. If you load the top first, when you open the gate to load the bottom, calves will fall out of the gap you can see in this picture, and that's not good.

At this point the bottom of the nose is filled, and my dad is filling the top of the nose with a specific number of calves, based on their body size and weight. Cattle are like people in that some are tall and thin, others are short and wide, etc... and different groups fill a trailer differently. In addition to working around weight limits per axle, truckers also must fill each compartment based on animal size. You want to have a snug fit, where animal's aren't overly cramped, but are close enough they can brace against each other and won't fall down. If you put too few in a compartment, they are more apt to fall down, or injure themselves moving around.

You also never mix cows and calves in a single compartment, unless they're older calves and there's more room than if all animals are similar in size. Small calves could easily be smashed, and injured or killed, by the much larger cows while in transit.

When they're all in the pen, he quickly lifts the drop down door and secures it in place. Cattle pots have all sorts of handy, space saving design aspects. Some are great, others are hated, but they're all used.

Up it goes. You can see where the other door/ramp to lower compartment is directly under the one he's closing.

Following the nose is the doghouse (the back, on top). This L-shaped pen takes advantage of the space not needed by the ramp that leads to the top deck, and is often used for calves, or sick or injured animals.

You fill each end of the top deck of the cattlepot, then fill up the middle, and largest, compartment last. Then you move to the bottom deck.

The pen extends to the right at the back. It's too short for cows, but calves fit just fine. It's also not adjustable, so unlike the nose, you either haul something short in this pen, or it stays empty.

In they go, then dad closes the gate/ramp just like he did in the nose.

Now that all the shorter compartments are filled with calves, we're ready to fill the taller, larger compartments with their mothers. Here's the view from outside.

Up they go. In the large middle compartment on the top deck is a gate right in the middle. Truckers can either "gate" cattle, which means to separate them into two pens by closing the middle gate, or use it as one larger pen. Weight and cattle size often dictates how this decision is made.

We did not gate the cows on this day, so we filled it up with the carefully counted cows. Truckers also make sure they're always where they need to be to get a cattlepot filled efficiently and correctly. You don't want half the cows to load, then turn around and run off. This wastes time, can cause injury to other cows or humans, teaches the cows a bad habit, and really makes ranchers mad. You can just see my dads feet in the above photo, and his hotshot, which he uses as needed to make sure the cows move into the pen and don't run back out.

As the last cow steps in, he eases the gate shut behind her.

Then he steps down and latches the door shut. If a door were to come open during transit it would be disastrous.

From there, he lifts and pushes the ramp you saw the cows walking up forward into a built-in storage area. Then he unhooks this wing, which was used to create a alleyway up the ramp, and ensure the cows went the proper direction, and swings it out of the way so we can load the bottom.

It has a hinge, and you maneuver it around like so, and say a couple choice words if necessary...

Then secure it to the side of the pot.

Flip up this part of the floor to reveal a ramp to the lower deck,

and swing the gate over, like so. Now they're ready for more cattle.

Now, you'll have to forgive me on this. I had to combine pictures from multiple loads, and these of a load of calves turned out better than those of loading cows on the bottom deck. Typically you would load a truck with either all pairs, in which case there would be cows on this lower deck, or with all calves, in which calves would have been put on the top deck where I showed cows.

Anyway, we gated these calves, so a specific number were loaded into the bottom, then the trucker, and sometimes a helper, go in and close the gate in the middle of the large pen.

Like so.

Then you fill the back half of the pen with more calves in this case (numbers of cows or calves are always changing based on weight, size, number of axles, etc...)

The gate is closed, and latched.

Then the ramp is dropped back into place. Now the only thing left to fill is the compartment at the very back of the cattlepot.

The trucker moves to this position, so he can close the door after the last cow, or calf, has been loaded. He will drop the door, which slides up and down on track, and secure the rope to the side of his trailer.

Then the trucker heads for the unloading location. The cattlepot is unloaded in the exact opposite order it was loaded, so the back is unloaded first (duh, yes, I know), then the belly, and the bottom of the nose is unloaded last.

Rocky Point

2011-10-03T14:00:00.000-07:00

We are headed north, almost to Montana, first thing in the morning to start the annual fall gather of our pairs that summered on the Rocky Point Grazing Association. This job will take a total of three days - one to gather and ship ours home, one to gather, wean, and ship my uncle's calves home, and a third to go back and gather and ship his cows home.
We have been a part of this grazing association my entire life, and while my cousin tells this stroy best, here's how we remember Rocky Point gather (it was one day then) as little kids.
Your dad wakes you up in the dark, you stumble down the stairs at grandma's, eat breakfast, and head out to catch, saddle and load your horse, in the dark. You cram into a single-cab pickup with various siblings and/or cousins, and the two dads drive two pickups and trailers the two hours to the assocation, all in the dark. You grumpily get out of the pickup, put on whatever clothes you need based on the weather that day, in the dark. You get on your horse, ride out to the pasture, and head to the far side to begin gathering, in the dark. Everyone sits on a high hill, and waits for the first glow of daylight on the horizon. Then you start to gather, and in the early dawn light other riders seemingly miraculously appear as you go - people you've never met in your life. You gather and trail into the correls, then sort and load the cattle (it used to be yearlings, now it's pairs) onto trucks for the ride home. Then, after a very big day, you load your horse back up in whichever horse trailer isn't loaded with extra yearlings, or bulls, and climb back into the single-cab pickup to head home, in the dark.
It made for some long days, some of which included snowstorms, and others with bad sunburns at the days end. We didn't enjoy it much as kids, but with time it's changed to one of those jobs that's "not that bad" and actually enjoyable most years (depending on if there's snow usually).
One thing that hasn't changed is we will still be starting in the dark.
Hope you havea great week!

Opening Weekend

2011-10-02T12:24:00.000-07:00

Mule Deer hunting season started with bang, litereally, yesterday in Eastern Wyoming. Here's a glimpse into what our hunters see on a given year...

Rough terrain without many trees, except in the creek bottoms, is the norm around here. To hunt this country you need to walk it, and we always recommend hunters come with some good shoes. Weather is also very unpredictable. It's over 80 degrees here today, but it could just as easily be snowing this time of year.
We manage the number of hunters we take based on the year, and how our deer population is doing on that year. We aren't one of those outfits that takes 20-30 hunters every year. Rather, we take a smaller number of people, and that number changes based on the wildlife populations. Our goal is provide a high-end hunt, while also maintaining our wildlife populations for years on end.
The big deal with hunting is always the game. Here's what the deer around here are like.

Our weekend will be spend getting hunters set up to hopefully shoot a big deer like some of these are. Hope you're enjoying fall, and whatever fall activites you enjoy most!

Fall Scenes

2011-09-26T15:31:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pictures I took over the weekend. A couple were taken near or after sunset, and I enjoyed plyaing with my flash to capture fall colors at dusk. Hope you had a wonderful fall weekend too!

Pearl

2011-09-22T15:26:00.000-07:00

My little dachshund, Pearl, died in an accident yesterday. She was only three years old or so. She was and incredibly unique, smart and fun dog, and I've spent more time with her than most people in the last few years.

She came back to Wyoming from New Mexico with me, and became a family favorite in no time. She hated birds, and could be seen daily barking and chasing them around the yard. She also loved to play with balls, and shred them to pieces. She had no fear, and dove into every situation full force. In the winter when she didn't want to get up and go outside she would hide her face under her blanket. She would put her paws on my feet when I was getting dressed to go somewhere and growl at me in an effort to keep me home. She would also put her little front paws on the couch and make her eyes look big and hopeful and wag her tail when she wanted cuddled.

Gosh I miss her. But, I also know that having her around for a few years was worth the pain of losing her.

I'm sure there will be another mini dachshund in my future. I just think they're the coolest dogs. But, not right now, and there will never be another Pearl

Where I've been

2011-09-20T08:55:00.000-07:00

We've been busy shipping steers the last several days. Here's a brief glimpse into our activities. More to come when we get a little more caught up!

Ultrasounding Heifers

2011-09-14T07:20:00.000-07:00

Last week we preg-checked our heifers, using ultrasound technology. You can read more about why we preg-check our cows here.
We chose to ultrasound the heifers because we wanted to be able to sort them based on when they will calve. Using ultrasound can also tell ranchers the sex of each calf, and is accurate almost to the day of when a heifer or cow will calve. If a vet is "arming" (using his hand) to preg-check, he can only tell you if she's pregnant or open, and if she's early or late. Exact calving dates and calf sex aren't possible that way.
Here's what we did:

We gathered, and loaded about half of them in the alleyway. That bright yellow extension cord provided power to the ultrasound machine.

About six at a time were brought down to our tub. That stick on the right side of the picture is my uncle bringing a bunch down.

From the tub they were loaded into a single-file alleyway. This alley is also adjustable, which means you can make it wider or narrower, depending on what you're working on a given day.

The view facing the other direction. From this alley they are loaded into the chute, where each heifer is preg checked and worked.

Here's my mom loading one into the chute. The lady in the blue is the vet, who was really nice to work with. Our heifers were really loose (that means their manure had a lot of moisture in it, and made a big mess). You can see how much of a mess they made on the vet. Once in the chute, she would open that door in front of her to gain access to the back of the heifer.

Here comes one. My dad and brother converted our old Powder River chute to hydraulics, which are run off a feed pickup that has a hydraulic hay feeder on it. Holly was holding the vaccine gun for dad, who was running the chute. He just had surgery about three weeks ago, and has to be careful how much he lifts and strains.

He caught each one, like so...

and the vet quickly and efficiently went to work. First she opened the gate, and secured it so the next heifer in the alley couldn't run her over. Then she inserted the reader tip of her ultrasound machine into the heifers rectum, and looked at her computer screen (it's in that black box by the chute), to see if there was a calf in the heifer's uterus.

Here is the reader on her ultrasound machine, and how she holds it when preg-checking.

She covers the cord to prevent manure from getting on it. The cord is attached to her computer screen...

Which looks like this. She would slide the tip around until she saw the picture she needed, then she would call if the heifer was early, late or open. We gave her a set of dates, based on our breeding dates, and that's what she based early or late on. Open means the heifer wasn't pregnant.

My mom and I swapped out between pushing them up the single-file alley and recording each heifers information. Here's mom writing down a heifers ear tag number and when she will calve.

We were all very interested in how everything worked, since this was our first year ultrasounding. Here's my dad watching the computer screen and asking the vet about different things that were showing up on it. A good vet is a great source of information for ranchers.

If a heifer was called pregnant, a flurry of activity occured. First, she was given a shot to protect her pregnancy against multiple diseases. The ones we're most concerned about are Vibrio (Vibriosis), a sexually transmitted disease in cattle, and BVD.

Second she was given a number brand to indicate the year she was born.

These heifers all got a big "O" on their left shoulder, so we know each one was born in 2010. With a year number brand there is never any guesssing on a cow's age, even if she loses her ear tag. We sell any cows over a certain age. This is done for a number of reasons - in part because as cows age they lose and wear out teeth, and cant eat enough to stay in good condition.

After she's branded, dad pours her. Pour-on kills numerous internal and external parasites, flys and other "icky's." You can read more about pouring cattle here.

You do not want to breathe the fumes of this stuff. We had a member of our family almost die from breathing pour-on fumes all day when he was branding and pouring yearlings. Brand first, then pour!

Then the heifer is let out, and the next one comes into the chute. It took us between 2 and 2.5 hours to do 100 heifers, to give you an idea of how long this process takes.

If a heifer is open, she gets a bright yellow "O," for open, on each hip. She doesn't get a number brand, or a pregnancy shot. These heifers will be sold. They failed their first test as a future member of our cowherd, and are the bottom percentage in the area of fertility. The picture shows both a bred heifer, and one that was open.

Following preg-checking, the open heifers were sorted off, and put in another pasture for a few days prior to being taken to the sale. The pregnant heifers were trailed back to their pasture, where they'll stay for another couple months.

The Rest of the Story

2011-09-08T14:15:00.000-07:00

September will mark six months of working for myself, and it's been a fun, challenging few months work-wise. Finding the balance between all the different things I have to fit into a given day has been stressful at times and very rewarding at others. I currently primarily write for one regional, weekly ag newspaper and two nationwide ag magazines, and also maintain my photography business. I do help as much as possible on the ranch, and have also added landlord to my list of jobs since renting out my house.
One question that still lingers, and I am still asked with surprising frequency, is why I left my job as Assistant Editor of the Roundup. That question then leads to others surrounding my experience at the paper, and a lot of people have heard some humorous, but incorrect answers. Well, lets set the record straight, and get this off my chest.
First, I quit. I wasn't fired.
Second, I quit because of a co-workers attitude, and the impact her attitude had on my ability to do my job.
Third, her attitude's impact on my position lead to the job being very different than it was outlined to me during the interview process in a some key areas, and I couldn't make it work in the way she demanded, either financially or emotionally.
The story I've heard over and over through the grapevine is that I just couldn't take being away from the ranch any more, and longed to return to the ranch and that lifestyle. People ask people I know if I'm doing okay in concerned tones, as if I was near the brink of something awful as a result of being off the ranch. It's an entertaining story that makes me sound like an idiot, but it's not the truth.
Did I miss the ranch, yes very much so - what ranch-raised kid doesn't? As a 25-year-old with my own house and job I thought was perfect for me, was I longing to move back in with my parents and leave that job and house I had bought and loved - heck no!
Furthermore, as the job was described when I was hired, I was to have adequate time to help out on the ranch so long as it didn't interfere with my ability to complete my Roundup job in a quality and timely manner. That was the most important part of "being on the ranch" (aka, helping out during busy times of the year as my schedule allowed) to me while I had a full time career. I was satisfied with the arrangment, and not so "homesick" I left a job that was supposed to allow me (it depended on if you asked her or the owner) to go home and help, and which was located a mere 2.5 hours from the ranch.
Prior to leaving I did call several meetings in an attempt to figure out what exactly her problem with me/my work was, and in an attempt to reach a mutually beneficial solution. The result was her telling me my work was great and always on time, and asking me to be more compassionate toward her. This was followed by her choosing to only speak to me when it was absolutely necessary from the time I gave my notice until I left, which was longer than the standard two-weeks because I opted to stick around and help write and put out a special edition (aka, I stayed to help her).
I should also note that attitudes like that just piss me off, and are one of my big pet peeves. I was not impressed with her refusal to act like an adult and try to work, and talk, in an effort to improve the situation for both of us. Today I get a chuckle out of her silent treatment, and try to take what I learned from it and leave the rest.
I loved a lot of things about the job, and really didn't want to leave. It took God sending some pretty strong signals, primarily through her I suppose, for me to realize I could no longer handle working that job with her. Needless to say, she and I didn't leave on good terms. But, in answer to another question - I really like the people I worked with, including her on a personal level if not a professional one. It was a good office to be a part of, and I really liked my co-workers.
Today I am considerably happier and more relaxed, and still able to do the aspects of the job I enjoyed most through freelance writing. I learned a lot during my time at the Roundup, and have a lot of fine memories, but am also very glad I'm no longer there. I am not a destitute, unemployed wreck on the verge of collapse, but rather someone who mindfully chose self-employment over a less than desirable job going broke and crazy working for someone else, and who has made the choice not to work for someone else since - and I'm loving it!

The Calendar

2011-09-06T16:46:00.000-07:00

Hello! Things are really starting to happen around here. Spring and fall are particularly busy on our ranch, and the calendar is reflecting that. If you want something done, or a day to do something specific, you better write it on the calendar, in a bright color, where everyone can see it. Pencil at the bottom of a date won't get you anywhere this time of year. You'll have to step up to pen or marker to get noticed around here!
These are our next few weeks, and this is just the ranch work. In addition to the ranch related activities, we have three other businesses running out of our home (a trucking company, record and document destruciton business and my photography/writing). That calendar just reflects the ranch/livestock dates for the this month. Somewhere in there my mom will have to schedule her paper shredding days, my dad and brother have several thousand ton of hay to haul (over the course of the entire fall/winter), and I have multiple stories and a couple potential photography jobs to get done.
It looks pretty hectic, and it is. But, it's also a fun time of year when we see the results of our hard work over the last 12 months. We wean calves, preg-check our cows, sell and deliver our yearlings, ship cattle home from summer leases and a variety of other necessary jobs. We're also trying a couple new things this year I'll do my best to tell you all about!
By the way, if any of the jobs I just listed, or you saw on the calendar, are something you would be particularly interested in hearing about and seeing pictures of on here, just let me know (I have connections with the people in charge of this blog) : )
Another reason there's so much stuff on there is this is a family operation, which for us means that we help my uncle's family with all of his fall work (he ranches a couple hours from us) and he helps us with ours.
My cousins are both currently in college, and my dad just had surgery, so my brother, uncle and I will be swapping help even more than normal this year to ensure everything on both of our operations gets done. We've always done this, and the result is a close-knit family that can work exceptionally well together at just about any task we're presented with. The longer I live and more I see, the more I appreciate that about my family.
This also means we spend several evenings with our calendar out on the table, scheduling dates for two ranches, and writing it all down. Then, after cattle buyers schedule delivery dates, truckers are lined up for hauling pairs home from summer pastures, vet's are scheduled to preg-check and other necessary arrangments are made on each place, we sit back down and go over it all again, making any changes that may have occured.
Most of the days start early, take most of the day, and leave you exhausted in a way only physical labor at something you love does. It's a very wearing, but also very rewarding time of year. I'm starting to get excited about it, which is good because our first round of preg-checking is tomorrow.
I hope you're all enjoying the summer to fall transition too!
Also, just in case you thought fall work only lasted one month, here's a glimpse at what we've got scheduled for October as of now...

Fire Pictures

2011-08-31T14:00:00.000-07:00

That's my brother, and the other guy on the hose is part of the family whose place the fire was on when I took this. Water was sometimes hard to come by (they ran all the cisterns on this ranch dry).

We topped the hill to this sight - flames around six feet tall. Unfortunately this grader was pushing the dirt the wrong way, you want the pile to the outside of the flames, but he still slowed things down. There were multiple blades and dozers on this fire to help contain it.

There goes our neighbor in a county six-by-six. We followed him across the fire line and went to work spraying water on the flames.

The guy you see here is another member of the family whose place was on fire. While the majority of the outside help was problematic and unhelpful, our local/county fire fighters and ranchers attacked the flames whole heartedly, as they have been doing all week on dozens of fires across the county.

A heat cyclone.

A flame being sucked up in the heat cyclone.

One Hot Situation

2011-08-29T17:04:00.000-07:00

We have experienced an onslaught of range fires in my part of Wyoming over the last week. So many fires were blazing at once that our county's resources couldn't keep up with them. So, the fire district made the decision to call in paid resources (not our local paid people that were helping all they could), and relinquish control of the fires to the state of Wyoming.

The result was a disastrous loss of grass, endangerment of people, and frustration to local landowners.

See that guy in the picture? See him watching the Niobrara County guys and local ranchers do all the cleanup work? He was parked in that very spot when the fire was being put out also. His pickup had a sticker on the door that said, "Wyoming Forestry," and he was getting paid to stand there, watching a rancher's land burn up before him, offering no assistance when his very job was to help extinguish the flames.

That was a much too common sight over the last week. We learned today that these paid resources make at or above $28/hour, and their pickups are paid between $60 and $170 an hour. Why would they want the fire to go out?

We heard there were over 200 of them swarming around our county. How much money is that over a three-day period?!!?

It became apparent early on in when they entered our county that they had no intention of extinguishing any flames very fast. No, that burning grass was making them a nice, fat paycheck. They would park in the black and sleep and drive along fire-lines and watch the fire creep over it without even stopping. They would watch local ranchers and fire fighters almost burn up and not even bat an eye, let alone help. They would refuse to share water, and ask everyone to give theirs up to them.

Then they get to leave, collect that nice, fat paycheck, and move on to encourage the destruction of someone else livelihood. Meanwhile, the people left in their wake are faced with a financial crisis. Their grass is gone, fences gone, and they aren't getting a paycheck to fix it. They have to live with, and correct, this disaster brought on by human mismanagement.

This is wrong, and infuriating. Getting rich off the destruction of someone else's livelihood, when you were specifically hired to stop the destruction, is sick and wrong.

I personally witnessed numerous incidents that left me speechless over the last few days in regard to these paid resources. Their absolute negligence in doing their job was astounding, and resulted in losses that might even outweigh their paychecks.

When you're sitting in the dark, watching your next door neighbor's land burn up in flames that are 6-8 feet tall, and you see headlights on the next ridge, you assume that person will be there to stop the fire in that direction. What we've all learned in Niobrara County this week is you better radio and see if it's someone you know, and if it's not, you better assume he's going to do everything he can to fan the flames instead of extinguish them, regardless of the resulting loss in grass, homes, life or anything else.

When you call in additional resources, it's because you truly need them, not because you want to make the situation worse. Those that did aid in the efforts were truly appreciated, but they were far and few between.
What is our country coming to?

My Week

2011-08-27T16:26:00.000-07:00

This is what I look like right now, and this picture was taken just a couple hours ago. I am only on my computer because I am thawing out hamburger, so I can take hamburgers back to the fire when I go (people fight fire round the clock, and get hungry. Local ranch wives do the majority of the feeding.)
Multiple fires have kept everyone where I'm from extremely busy and tired this week. The one in the above photo has burned on at least four rancher's land that I'm aware of. Thursday night my brother and I left at 9:00 p.m., and got home at 6:00 a.m. from fighting fire. This morning we put one out before eating breakfast. Prayers for everyone's safety would be greatly appreciated!

To make things even more exciting/nerve wracking, several funnels came across one of the larger blazes this afternoon, sucking the flames up into it. Made for an interesting photo if nothing else.

I will be back with regular posts when life returns to a normal, smoke and fire free status around here.

Miscellany Monday

2011-08-22T16:06:00.000-07:00

I'm just linking up like crazy on this post, with both Miscellany Monday, at lowercase letters, and the Homestead Barn Hop, through The Prairie Homestead

Miss Anna, over at Life Be Delicious (I told you I would be linking like crazy) does Miscellany Monday - I always enjoy her posts, and thought it would be a great way to catch you up on what's been happening around here lately.

(one) My mom and dad returned home after my dad had surgery to remove part of his intestine (he had diverticulitis) last Tuesday. He's doing great, and we're praying his recovery continues to go well!

(two) My brother and I gathered the last of our bulls out of our cows today, and can check that task off our summer to-do list!

(three) I really have the best boyfriend in the world! Case in point - he spent several days at our place last week to help out while my dad was in the hospital. By help out, I mean he helped set railroad tie braces in a new fence, gather and sort cattle, take my sister and I to the state fair for a day of fun, and on top of all that put up with me while I was stressing to the max over my dad and all the summer projects we had going on. Beyond a great guy!

(four) I have a lot of office/writing work to dive into tomorrow, and if it's as hot outside as it has been, I won't mind typing away in the air conditioned house at all!

(five) Despite several summer storms rolling by, we haven't fought anymore fire since this one, and feel blessed to say that.

(six) The piglet picture has nothing to do with anything, so it fits the "miscellaneous" theme perfectly! I took it at Adam's house a couple weeks ago. He has new puppies and piglets at his place right now, and they're all very cute and photogenic.

Hope your week is starting off great for you!

Big Horn Sunset

2011-08-21T14:03:00.000-07:00

I snapped this on Adam and I's way off the Big Horns the other night. It's been super busy around here lately, but that also means we're getting a lot accomplished!

Hope you're having a fun and relaxing weekend!

Today

2011-08-17T14:30:00.000-07:00

Thus far today I have accomplished the following:

Made a white chocolate/caramel latte (priorities are important when you're busy)

Watered, "The Forest," (the windbreak) and my mother's lawn while drinking the latte

Made about 20 phone calls

Planned the rest of the week

Sold our steers, by myself, for the first time ever. (A rancher basically gets one paycheck a year from his cattle, and the money you make on that one day is it for the next 12 months. The price you receive determines how big the check is...ie, this was a huge deal) I did have a lot of coaching from my dad, who is in the hospital recovering from surgery.

Talked to my dad. His surgery was to take out part of his intestine. He had diverticulosis (sp?) He's doing very well.

Typed two articles

Edited an article for the largest publication my work will be published in yet.

Watched a livestock video auction, while typing.

Made a to-go lunch for my brother and sister, who are hauling hay today

Confirmed a photo order

Baked cookies, and ate a lot of the batter (Comfort food!)

Did lots of laundry

Accidentally put too much detergent in one load (still waiting to see how that turns out)

Cleaned kitchen

Plunked down in a chair with a cup of iced tea, and typed this.

Hope everyone else is having a wonderful, productive Wednesday!

Fighting Fire

2011-08-17T07:32:00.000-07:00

We fought fire for the first time last week, which is amazingly late for our area. There have been other fires, but none were within the vicinity that warrants us helping.
The first thing I think of when I think of fighting fire is community. When there's a grass fire in our area, everyone combines their efforts, and works tirelessly until it's done in an effort to minimize losses. One of my huge pet peeves is to see the government fire fighters only fight fire from 9-5, or 8-5 (soap box moment).

This fire was during the day, which is less common than fires occurring at night. The vast majority of grass fires are started by lightning. So, whenever you see a summer storm moving over Eastern Wyoming, you can guess we're sitting on the tallest hill, watching for smoke during the day or an eerie glow at night.

That is how we spotted this fire. Almost every rancher has a homemade fire fighting rig they've put on a ranch pickup, and are ready 24-7 to help their friends and neighbors in the event of a fire. Everyone also has CB radios, which are used to relay information on lightning strikes, fires that have been spotted, how to get to a fire (you can't drive a pickup across much of this area, and it gets really hard at night), if the county fire fighting trucks are on the way, etc...

We gathered enough information, and deemed it safe to leave our area (you don't want to drive 20-40 miles to a fire, then have one start on your place behind you), and raced to help our neighbors.

We cruised down a county road, turned onto a two-track trail, crossed a creek, and jostled across a pasture and over a hill to be greeted by this sight. The great grass year we're having in Wyoming means there's a lot more fuel for a fire, and a greater potential for large fires that will devastate range lands.

The first thing we always do is get on the black. You can't get burned up where the fire's already consumed all the grass. The above picture shows a county fire fighting pickup. The county has various fire fighting pickups, trucks and tankers scattered across the county with various ranchers. This is because the nearest town is 56 miles away, so the rancher's are always who spot the fires and are the first ones on them. The county maximizes its resources through keeping some of their fire fighting units in areas of high concern, with persons who will most likely be at a fire in the most time efficient manner.

The other half of the equation are the ranchers. This is our fire fighting rig, housed on our winter feed pickup. My mom was the driver on this particular day. You will see all sorts of pickups/water tanks/pumps/motors/hose combinations on these homemade, rancher rigs. The important thing is they all spray water, and they're all ready to go the moment a fire needs fought.

Here I am "cleaning up" behind a country truck that can spray more water than I can. He is moving quickly, knocking down the flames before they can consume any more grass. My job in this instance is to follow behind and put out any areas that flare back up behind him, and to spray more water on things like smoldering sagebrush that are near the fire line.
You also never know what may go wrong. On this particular day the reason I'm not spraying much water is because the filter on our rig plugged with an algea type plant that sometimes grows in our tank. It will make you very excited if your fire fighting rig stops spraying water at a critical moment!

This was the view from the pickup, where my mom was. The driver has to pay attention to where they drive, and make sure they don't stop on top of a burning sagebrush, drive into a hole or draw they can't get out of, and work with the person spraying to ensure they're reaching the flames.

Here I am again. You also want to work forward, ensuring there is no fire left behind you. I was practicing this, despite what the photo looks like. Here I skipped over a couple inches of flames to douse a sagebrush. The fire can smolder in a sagebrush, and they are a real concern on the fire line, so I made sure to stop the fire before it reached a sagebrush in this instance.

It may be hard to tell in this smoky picture, but that is a draw you can't drive across with a pickup. We have to navigate around these natural obstacles when fighting fire, and they add an even more exciting/scary aspect in the dark. I have seen a six-by-six tanker (very big) fall into a sink-hole before, and all you could see was the blinking light on top of the truck.

When the fireline has been secured, and no more flames are visible, people congregate to visit and wait to make sure the fire really is out. A change in wind, stray spark, grasshopper that caught on fire, and any number of other things can result in the flames reappearing and blazing forward.

The county tankers may join the group, or refill at the nearest well so they're prepared more action. This is a good time for everyone to make sure they have water. If they're out, additional six-by-six tankers will be available on larger fires to re-fill everyone. Everything gets checked, repaired if necessary and possibler, refilled, etc.. during this down-time.

A few ranchers have air planes around here, and on big fires they may fly, and communicate to fire fighters below if there are any additional flames, areas of concern, etc... This guy circled the fire several times, only a few feet off the ground at times. He would dive his plane in any areas there were flames to alert those of us on the ground where they were. He too had a CB radio, and would also talk to us.

There was also a road grader at this fire, who put in a fireline to stop the flames. This is when he peels a thin layer of dirt, that includes the grass over, creating dirt path several feet wide. The idea is it creates a line with no fuel for the fire to feed itself with. They work well, but aren't a guaranteed method of stopping flames, as a fire will jump the line in some instances.

After a few hours of exhausting, smoke filled work, the fire was out. The smoke you see above are smoldering cow pies (they can smolder for days too) and sagebrush. You may also have noticed the cut fence, which is sometimes a necessity on range fires. Most people make every effort to cut fences as infrequently as possible, because the more you cut them, the more work the owner has to repair his place (he will already have to replace all the burnt wood posts).

After everything has cooled off, most people leave. The owner, and a few other rigs will stay and "babysit" the fire for anywhere from a few more hours to days, depending on the location, how it acts, and several other determining factors. This county tanker is spraying back along the fire line in an effort to prevent any additional flames from flaring up.

To give you an idea of how fast it was burning, that green tub is a thin plastic. These fires can consume prairie at up to over 100 mph. This one wasn't moving nearly that fast, but it's only because of a change in the wind that we got it out when we did.

A smoke filled sky always makes for a beautiful sunset, made even prettier by the fact that we had contained, and put out, the entire fire before dark in this instance!

When Being Humane is Hard

2011-08-11T12:19:00.000-07:00

Typically being humane to animals involves such activities as feeding, caring and managing them in ways that improves their well-being, and brings feel-good feelings to the person doing the actions. Ranchers are exposed to a lot of these feel-good situations since our lifestyle demands almost constant contact with animals, and we are continuously working to improve their health, performance, environment and anything else that presents itself. We thrive when our animals thrive.

But, not every instance of treating an animal humanely is a feel-good, everything's going to be great for the animal and us, situation. There are times when doing what is best for the animal is difficult, and lots of people shy away from these situations, or don't keep the animal's best interest in mind so they don't have to deal with the attached human emotions.

Ranchers are faced with these same scenarios, when what's best for the animal isn't going to be the easiest emotional choice for them as a person.

I, and later my entire family, was faced with such a situation last night. I was riding a colt, checking water and pairs, when I came upon a down (can't stand up) bull. He most likely got in a fight with another bull, and was shoved off a steep incline.

He was terribly, terribly dehydrated because of the summer heat in Wyoming. I gave him a critical once-over, and couldn't determine what was wrong. There was no swelling, visible broken bones, or other obvious visible signs of what was wrong. I jogged my colt home, grabbed a couple water buckets, and Holly and I immediately returned, and found the bull on his other side.

Can you see his back leg? Something is broken in there, and that's why he can't stand. I knew at that point he would never survive his injuries.

Now, some may rant that we should have a vet look at him, perhaps perform surgery, etc...

We didn't have a vet look at him because the diagnosis was obvious. I honestly do not know if a vet can even perform a surgery to repair a broken leg in a bull. Even if he could, he would never fully recover, and be able to survive in any sort of natural environment. Surgery would also be extremely cost-prohibited and the odds of success are very low. It's just a viable option in this scenario.

Holly and I hauled buckets of water to him by hand, until he had drank his full. Upon returning home I found out that my dad and brother would be home that night, so the responsibility of euthanizing the bull wouldn't fall on my shoulders. No rancher ever wants to put one of their animals down. We realize that we are raising livestock to be harvested for food, but we also care deeply for our animals, and do everything in our power to keep them healthy and thriving during the time we have them. It's also very sobering and sad to see any animal in pain, as this guy was.

I should also clarify that this bull was bought as a breeding animal, which means his primary purpose was not to be harvested for meat. We spent thousands of dollars to purchase him for his physical appearance, genetic potential, and several other criteria we carefully and thoroughly select for in each of our breeding animals. His injury was very expensive to our operation.

But, all emotional and economical investments aside, as the owners of this bull we had to do what was in his best interest. As I previously mentioned, he was not going to survive his injuries, and prolonging the inevitable was only to result in more pain and discomfort for him, and was unfair to him. Putting him down, as quickly and painlessly as possible, was clearly the most humane thing to do, if not the easiest.

So that's what we did. I pondered long and hard whether to share this story, because it isn't an easy one to absorb or understand. But this is the real world of ranching, and I believe people have a right to know the happy and sad aspects of my lifestyle, and the choices we make in order to always do what's in the best interest of the animals we raise, even when they're extremely hard on us.

Horns

2011-08-10T11:43:00.000-07:00

Wordless Wednesday: Horns

I'm Back

2011-08-09T07:44:00.000-07:00

Hello hello, I have not fallen off the earth. I have been in the Big Horn Basin, celebrating my birthday and partaking in multiple fairs for the last few days.
The above photo is a mugshot for a publication that will be publishing one of my articles in the upcoming months. The key reason for posting it is that necklace, which was part of Adam's birthday present he gave me. I love it, and should have taken a wonderful close-up photo to show you all the details (maybe I'll have a chance to in the next couple days). Those are real stones, and it has a silver chain, and I love it!
He went above and beyond for my birthday, and made it very special. We made a quick trip to Yellowstone National Park one day, which was a surprise to me, and he had a vest and hat embroidered with my photography information. I am very blessed.
I also gave my grandma a ride to her brother and sister-in-laws on the way up there, and we had a great trip and got all caught up. One of my goals upon becoming self-employed again was to be able to spend more time with her, and it's been wonderful fulfilling that goal! She is 89 years old, and acts like she's about 65, and is a blast to spend time with.
Adam was super busy auctioneering county fair market sales, hog wrestling calcuttas and announcing rodeos the entire weekend, which I enjoyed tagging along for. I met a lot of people, saw some great steers, hogs and lambs and enjoyed taking rodeo pictures from the crow's nest.
I also took this week off from writing....kind of...to catch up on other projects, and am diving into those today. Hopefully I'll have time to post more pictures and updates on here too!