My first attempt at chores

 A couple weeks ago, I offered to do my boyfriend's chores for him because he had to get up really early to unload a load of hay for one of his neighbors, that my father was hauling. Clear as mud?
Anyway, key point here is that I said I could handle the chores, and expected it to be easy, seeing as how I had helped numerous times by this point.
I watered everyone, then began gathering up buckets, keeping mind I had been to the chiropractor the previous afternoon, and was supposed to avoid any heavy lifting, jarring activity, etc... for at least one day. No problem, he had a wheelbarrow right next to his barn, and it would be no problem to wheel the buckets of grain around instead of pack them on this particular morning. Problem solved.

I approached this grain bin, positioned my bucket just so, and tried to open the sliding door, which is on an angle. It didn't budge. I wiggled and maneuvered and used my single-cup-of-coffee fueled brain to try to figure this farming related contraption out, knowing it had to slide up. Then I got a little irritated and gave it a big yank down to jar it loose. The door came open, all the way open, and jammed that way since I had not yanked it straight down.
I went from no grain to a flood of grain in a snap, and was desperately trying to now get the door to close with much more vigorous wiggling and yanking, to no avail. The first bucket filled and began to run over. I stopped to switch buckets, then went back to trying to close it, knowing my hand was not large enough to stem the flow. With the second bucket near the overflowing stage, I finally got the door to shut.
I sat there in the dirt, stunned, realizing I had ground grain in places it would definitely stay all day. Then I glanced up. There stood his two horses, clearly amped for amateur day at the ranch, practically licking their lips in anticipation of me failing at getting that door shut.
I glared at them, crawled out from under the grain bind and loaded a bucket in the wheelbarrow. I located a shovel nearby, and returned to find one horse, his name is Garfield, in a carefully executed yoga position, on one and a half hooves, two-thirds of the way under the grain bin, licking the grain that had overflowed. After getting him out of there I scooped up the excess, thinking no one had to know about my rough start and obvious lack of experience with grain bins.
I wheeled my load over the below pens, where the gilts and boars are housed.

I grabbed a bucket, balanced it on the fence, stepped over, and fell. And fell and fell and fell across half the pen. I landed with a thump, the knee torn out of my jeans and a nice rug burn on my knee. The bucket of the grain flew through the air, and ironically landed in one the of feed tubs in the pen. The hogs all managed to avoid my crash landing in their pen, and carefully eased around me on their way to breakfast.
More than a little irked at this point, I gathered myself back up, and headed back to the fence. There, just inside the pen, was one of those compacted high spots I had gotten wet while watering earlier, and which was very slick.
I finished chores and my second cup of coffee just in time for my boyfriend to arrive back home. I had to tell him what had happened, partially because I could see the humor, and partially because I looked like I had lost a fight with a mud-covered corn cob. A couple days later I had to go back to the chiropractor to get everything straightened out a second time. I am in hopes my second attempt goes much better, funny as the first one is in retrospect.

Good Reads

I've come across some great blogs and posts lately that are telling people about agriculture in various forms. I always enjoy reading what other people have to say, and these people are doing a great job! A couple of these sites have also featured my posts and one featured me as a rancher, which was very nice of them.
So, if you're looking for a good read over the weekend, here's what I've enjoyed reading lately:

Hoosier Farm Babe Tell Tail's post on hog gestation crates, found here.  Hog people are always getting slammed on their use of gestation and farrowing crates by people who have no understanding of raising hogs, and this was a great response to the benefits of using them. Very interesting, and I have no doubt that what I learned reading this post will come in very handy at some point.

High Heels & Shotgun Shells post on educating the misinformed, found here. She shows a response to a CBS article on the drought in Arkansas that was written by someone who obviously dislikes our industry tremendously. It's important to see what these people are saying, what their opinions are, and how they respond to anything ag-affiliated. Check out what this radical commenter said, and her response. Go respond to the article yourself if you're so inclined. She has a link to it included in the post.

Have you seen the Faces of Agriculture blog? I think this is best idea - the ladies running this blog send you some questions, then compile a feature blog post with your answers and photos. The idea is to show a more personal side of the agriculture industry through introducing readers to individuals. They've featured farmers, ranchers and other ag-affiliated folks from all over the country. Here's the link to their post on me. When you're done, be sure to click on home to see all the more recent posts. They are also always looking for new people to feature on their blog, and their contact information is available on their page.

If you're interested in reading more about agriculture in Wyoming, I highly recommend the RealRanchers site.  A good friend of mine heads this project of telling the story of Wyoming agriculturalists through social media, and she does a great job! You'll see a few of my blog posts on the site, in addition to posts from other Wyomingites on numerous topics. Always a great stop

Hog Science 101

I don't know the first thing about hogs...well actually, I do know the first thing...but as for the following second, third and fourth things, I fall a little short.
My co-worker Christy, however, knows all sorts of things about raising hogs. She's from Iowa, and her parents raise feeder to finish pigs.
It's a pretty neat thing, the modern day practices involved in hog production. Christy recently wrote a really cool post on raising hogs in Iowa, and you should go check it out here.