Feeding over east

Holly and I fed in the pasture called the School Section, so named because part of the pasture is a School Section, on Saturday. This general part of our ranch is called "over east," because you drive through the Over East pasture to get to the School Section pasture.
Perhaps a post on pasture names will be in the near future to better explain this.


As we drove along, loaded with two very heavy, second cutting alfalfa hay bales, we hit the siren a couple times to alert the cows of our arrival. The county road parallels the pasture for a couple miles, so it works great for gathering as you drive to the feed ground.
This windmill is also where our house water comes from, although we use a solar pump these days. It's located just to the left of the picture, and pumps water out of a natural spring and into a large storage tank. Then it's gravity fed down 3 miles of pipeline we put in ourselves to our house. We're very blessed to have a spring, as there is very very little water suitable for human consumption in this part of the world!



Back to feeding. We arrive at the feed ground, and much to both Holly and I's delight, a few cows decided to bring their calves.
These cows very good mothers, and very suspicious. You typically won't see their calves until they're about a week old.
Range calving cows are a lot different than those calved in around the house, and we learned that after we moved to our present location from the black hills. The only evidence a cow has a calf, that's alive, is if she's sucked out. She will bed him down somewhere, come to feed, then go back and gather him up after she eaten. After he's been around for several days, she will bring him in to the feed ground, maybe.




Emmie and Pearl love to go feed too. There is just so much to explore, plunder, attack, eat and sniff out.
But, it's also important to be cautious at their weight and speed, as these cows are a whole different animal than the relatively naive and mellow heifers back at the house. They both learned this lesson the hard way, and it stuck, so they wait for the go-ahead before bailing out of the pickup...well Emmie waits for the go-ahead, Pearl is long gone by now.



Then you wait, and wait. Some cows won't come this time of year, especially if they've just calved. Some also prefer to "chase" the first tasty bits of green grass poking through.
But, for the most part, they come trailing in from all over the pasture, leaving a few black dots on hillsides, where you can bet a cow has a new calf is laying amongst the sagebrush.
These cows will also forgo a meal for a couple days after calving. They stay with their calf during that time-like I said, they're good mothers, and that's critical on our operation.




While you wait you have to guard the hay bales against a few select cows that will march right up and tear into it. You will meet a couple of these in a upcoming cows of note post. You become a cow of note if you make us stand out in the wind and cold, instead of waiting in our warm pickup, blaring Carrie Underwood, Jason Aldean, Taylor Swift (Holly's favorites), or, in reality, whatever one of the two radio stations we get are playing.




You wait some more. The dogs rip and roar across the country-side. They see it as great fun, I see it as the expelling of energy, and a resulting quiet drive back to Casper...
As soon as they exited the pickup, those two cows that had their calves immediately turned around and left. They bedded their calves down just over a hill, then came back.
I love feeding. The waiting is a time to look over your cattle, discuss issues if someone is with you, or think if you're alone. I also take pictures (no kidding), and Holly and I do love being able to play our music nice and loud.


Finally, the last cow you've decided to wait for (that's her in the back, out of focus) comes trailing in. That's also a cow of note, Number 18, there in the front.



We all load back into the pickup, get the radio turned back up, and feed our bales of hay.



Then head home to continue with our day, leaving our cows with a nice meal to meet their nutritional, and milking requirements.

World Down Syndrome Awareness Day

Was yesterday...oops. But, it's nevertheless an important date to me. One of my most favorite has down syndrome, and she's my hero.


While it's certainly not an easy thing to have a special needs child born into a family, nothing better could have happened to ours. Holly is a walking, talking (all the time) miracle, who has affected more people in her 15 years than most people touch in entire lifetimes.


She's been thrown right in the mix, and has thrived. She means the world to all of us, and we constantly learn from her.



She's the best sister in the world, and I love her to death.



She is a true blessing, and there's nothing wrong with her, it's just that the differences that make her beautiful and unique are more visible than most people's.

Christmas List

In my family we all write a Christmas list each year, and each year I swear I will write things down throughout the entire year as I think of things I need and/or want. Each year I either lose this list, or never get it started.
But this year I knew what I wanted, and promptly told my parents I would like to expand our ranch, and I want to live on the new addition. I was told to either find a way to triple my income, or keep writing. Then I haggled for just a pasture, with a trailer house and no corrals, and got the same response.
sigh. It's what I really want...
Anyhow, I managed to scrape together a list of desired photo equipment, Hobby Lobby gift cards to use for framing photos, gutters for my house, gift cards to such desirable stores as American Eagle, Buckle, Target, etc..
I fully expect to receive one of those gifts, from my mom. The remaining presents will likely be studded snow tires for my car (Kyle has checked out my rims beyond anything that's normal, even for him), or chains for my new car, maybe a shovel or rake, a gun, and other such feminine, resourceful gifts. All of which are useful items I would be happy to receive...with an American Eagle gift card tied to them in the ideal world : )
All joking aside, I will be happy with whatever I receive. The important thing is celebrating Christ's birthday, and remembering that I am blessed to have a wonderful family, and the resources to be able to exchange gifts during the holidays. The actual gift part has always been a fun part for our family, but certainly not the focus of the holidays.
As far as gift giving goes, I am almost done. Waiting on a couple items I ordered off the Internet to arrive, and am planning to finish up a couple photo based gifts this weekend.
I have already given one Christmas present this year...to Holly.

I got Holly tickets to the Carrie Underwood, Billy Currington, Sons of Sylvia concert in Casper in early December. (Please note: if the photographer had removed her finger from the flash, both subjects would be properly lit. Just a little photo tutorial thrown in).
While not a huge Carrie Underwood fan myself, and certainly not a person who would normally buy tickets to see someone who is a member of PETA, Holly ranks pretty high.
She also happens to be a HUGE country music aficionado, and Carrie Underwood ranks in her top five, current favorite singers. So I surprised her the day of the event with the tickets, took her to dinner at Pizza Hut, then off we went to the Casper Events Center. We had to buy a t-shirt - of course - which she put on as soon as we got to our second row seats.



Holly also had her new boots on, which are much brighter than the picture does justice. While we are very much alike, one of our more notable differences is that Holly is considerably more "girly" than I am. There is no way I could pull off fuchsia, fake alligator boots, with stitched swirls, skulls and flowers in a variety of bright colors on the black tops.. I'm sticking with plain old brown ostrich for now!


First was Sons of Sylvia, who were more of a rock band...and I didn't get a picture. Second was Billy Currington, who sounded good, and wore his sweatshirt, tennis shoes, and who hadn't shaved in several days. As someone there to look at him as much as hear him, I was slightly disappointed by the outfit.


While not really close to the stage, our seats were ideal for us. Holly and I could both see (we're short), we could sit, and had a clear view. Good seats - check!




Carrie Underwood was definitely the main event, and put on quite a show. Her stage had several lifts in it, and she could swing her band from one side to the other as she did different things, like swing on a rope swing several feet off the stage.



The highlight was when she rode out over the crowd in her Carrie-mobile, which was a fiberglass replica of a 19?? Chevy pickup. She explained she wanted a way to see the back, and involve the entire audience. It worked!



She sang for over 2 hours, and had lights, a movable band, stage lifts, a lot of costume changes, and of of course the pickup. It was cool, we were worn out by the end, and sat in the parking lot for an hour waiting for traffic to clear out. Holly snored in the passenger seat while I just sat there. Overall I think it was a successful Christmas present!

Thankful November

Lots of people have been mentioning things they're thankful for throughout the month of November. I like the idea of taking the time to mention and note these important things, and am planning to do a few posts listing some things I am always thankful for in my life.

To start, I am thankful for God, who sent his son to earth to die for our sins. I am very thankful for my family, friends and boyfriend. I am grateful to live in a country where we have things like freedom of speech and religion, and I am thankful for the people in the military who fight for our freedoms.
I'm very thankful to have been raised where I was, in a way that I love! Nothing beats wide open spaces, good cattle and nice weather!
In addition to that I am thankful to have a father who embraced having a daughter who loves cattle, and who encouraged and challenged me in my interests! My mom was right there too!
I love having a brother who is smart, athletic, witty and one of my best friends. I love having a special needs sister who constantly reminds what's important in life, and who is so much like myself it's eerie sometimes.

Driving

Holly can drive a 4-wheeler by herself these days. This is the perfect solution to keeping up while I take pictures!
While I drove it most of the day, once we had our cows in the lot and it was obvious everyone else had it under control, we switched and Holly cruised down to the corral while I snapped away.
I'm planning to have more photos up in the next couple days from gathering our cows!

My little sister

Meet my sister, Holly.
I have been wanting to do a blog on Holly for a while, but I had to get the ok from her rep (aka mom).

Holly is 10 years younger than I am, was born premature, and has down syndrome. Basically, Holly's differences are more visible than most peoples. She got thrown right in the family mix at our house from day one and has been treated as "normally" as possible (with the exception of some serious youngest child spoiling, which I, as the oldest, feel inclined to point out)

As a result of that mindset she exceeded her doctors expectations time and again. At first they didn't expect her to live, but she did. At 8 years old she could speak better than they predicted she would be able to as an adult. We aren't lazy and she doesn't get to be either. She can read, write and dialogue entire songs and movies by heart.

She loves spaghetti for breakfast (that makes me turn green), popcorn, watching movies over and over, going with anyone to anything, her cows, Tobey Keith, Carey Underwood, Taylor Swift..., yellow cars, telling stories, swimming, pink dresses (or pink anything else) and high heels.

Holly is amazing and a blessing to countless people. Our family has been exposed to so many wonderful people, projects and events because of her. She was and still is a miracle, and truly affects the lives of everyone who takes the time to know her.

The most important thing I've learned from her is to never give up and appreciate everything. The fact that I can easily pronounce words (most days) is something I sometimes take for granted. When I get frustrated over something I often stop and remind myself that I have those frustration because of things I am able to do, and also remind myself to be thankful for that ability.

Not that she's simple, far from it. But the traits I notice first in her aren't her great speaking ability or athleticism. It's the more important things, like faith, compassion, determination and happiness that come to mind. Her biggest loves in life are God and family.

She is the best sister and I try to be more like her.