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.

Feeding Pigs + a Giveaway!

My boyfriend, who recently said I could put him on my blog, happens to be the largest hog producer in western South Dakota. Now, you may be thinking that it probably doesn't take much to acquire that title in that part of the state, and you would be correct. But, he does markets several hundred hogs a year, and uses them as a means of diversifying his operation. He describes them as an FFA project gone mad.

They are not in a confined, super disinfected building, but are instead housed in an open-faced shed that provide shade and protection from the wind, with pens that run out into the sunshine. When sows get close to farrowing, they are put inside a specially designed building, into a farrowing crate, where they remain until their piglets are weaned. Then they return to the open faced shed pens until they farrow again.

I love them, in a "I do not deal with them on a daily basis, nor am I responsible for their continual care, feeding, or upkeep of their facilities" kind of way. He thought I was crazy for taking such a liking to them, then he met a few of my friends, who REALLY like hogs, and I'm sure he now wonders what is up with these Wyoming girls and their interest in loud, smelly pigs.

 



One thing about his operation is he has to feed his breeding sows every single day. Pigs mean chores, and lots of them. He, has calculated numerous rations based on what he grows on his farm/ranch, and what is most affordable and available to buy each year. We're talking somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 possible rations he has figured out, stowed in a 3-ring binder one of his tractors.

Every week or so he grinds another batch of feed for the breeding sows, adding various grains, soybean meal, vitamins and minerals to ensure their dietary and health needs are met. He puts the ground mixture into the above grain bins, which are miserable to operate alone (more on that later). Each morning he fills a specific number of buckets for each pen and farrowing crate, and each night he returns to feed the sows in farrowing crates a second time. 

His sows and boars are nice to be around. I know this because I cannot toss the grain 6 feet across the pen, and must climb over the fence and wade through the masses to deliver the feed to the various pans in each pen. He also currently waters each pen twice a day with a garden hose, as this setup is relatively new and the automatic waterers are not set up yet.

Here's what greats him most mornings. It's an eccentric crowd, but nevertheless happy to see him coming with his bucket of grain.
Now for the giveaway part! Enter your best caption for the above photo of the pigs and horse for a chance to win a photo cutting board or 11x14 Double H Photography print of your choice! My boyfriend and/or father, neither of whom spend a lot of time on the Internet, will be the judges. I will anonymously read them each entry, and they will select a winner. You must be a follower of my blog, and can enter in the comments section of this post. If you like my Double H Photography Facebook page, you can also enter there for a second chance to win. The contest will close at midnight on Nov. 1, and I'll get a winner selected as soon as possible after that date.
Good luck, can't wait to read what you come up with!

A GREEN St. Patrick's Day

I feel the need to post something pretty and spring-like to go with the 60's temperatures and blue skies we have here today. This is one of my favorite places. My grandmother's house is just to the left of the photo. Right now it looks absolutely nothing like this (the photo was taken last July) but it's still pretty and green.
This is more like what everything looks like where I'm from. Maybe not pretty, but definitely cute. In another month or 6 weeks everything will green up and spring will have sprung.

Green seems to be the topic of the day. I forgot to wear the color and am dreading a run-in with any middle school kids. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

It's also National Agriculture Week. Find out more here. People are encouraged to share what they love about agriculture to recognize the positive impacts agriculture has on everyone's life.

I can't pick just one thing. But, in keeping with my theme, I do love how GREEN agriculture is. Production agriculturalists have been on this trend since way before it became the popular and "right" thing to do.

Ranchers raise grass. Then they put this grass in an animal and they convert it into something we as humans can utilize for energy, meat. Since grass is useless to humans nutritionally, using it to grow livestock is a natural way to capture the energetic potential it holds and convert to something we can feed people with.

Any waste the animal produces is used as fertilizer to grow more grass. Animals eating grass stimulates new growth, much like mowing your lawn or trimming your hair. Ranchers graze grass in specific ways to promote the growth of higher quality grasses and limit growth of weeds and other undesirable plants.

Ranchers also recycle everything imaginable. Examples include using worn out tires as water tanks for livestock, building corrals out of used oilfield pipe that is no longer useful to the oil industry and reusing poor quality parts of wool off fleeces for mulch or to protect young plants against the elements.

Ranchers use horses instead of motorized vehicles in a lot of situations. Farmers work on machinery to maximize performance on less fuel. Feedlot owners feed livestock alcohol bi-products, known as distillers grains in rations.

Agriculturalists care about their land, livestock, family and work extensively to preserve and protect all of those things for future generations while also striving to feed consumers the highest quality, safest product possible.

When you enjoy a nice meal or purchase new clothes keep in mind these and countless other products are available because of agriculture. I love being a part of an industry that works so hard to do what's right for their customers and themselves in an efficient and environmentally friendly way.